I'd never thought of myself as a Dior kind of guy. While I admired Hedi Slimane's svelte suits, the skinny tie look quickly became the uniform of every aspiring rock band. Meanwhile, I'd been following the progress of Hedi's eventual successor, Kris Van Assche, who seemed to be doing something different with his hybrid of Sicilian gangster and gangsta rapper.
When Van Assche officially took over at Dior Homme, I ventured into the basement of the Rue Royale boutique here in Paris to see what was up. After being enthusiastically welcomed by the young salesman, I tried on a couple of jackets. And damn me if I didn't like them. A lot. I'm told that all the best pieces in the collection are drawn from the Slimane archive, but by the end of that half an hour I didn't care who'd designed what: I just wanted the Prince of Wales check jacket that was hugging my torso.
I returned to Dior Homme yesterday with the Branded Female, anxious to get my choice approved. But the welcome was somewhat more muted than on the previous occasion. In fact, it was non-existent. The one salesman was occupied by a trio of bling-bling tourists and didn't so much as cock an eyebrow in our direction. Neither did the blonde saleswoman fumbling about with something at the other end of the room.
Still, I tried on the jacket and was finally asked if I'd like to use the fitting room. Looking in the mirror, it was clear that the suit wasn't quite right: the sleeves were too long, the back didn't fall correctly and the trousers were too large at the waist. I mentioned this to the saleswoman, who told me that the in-house alterations expert was at lunch. I shrugged as if to say: "No problem, I'll take my two grand elsewhere then."
But as I was irritably changing out of the suit, a voice outside the fitting room told me that the tailor had returned. I emerged to see a diminutive dark-haired woman of a certain age, dressed in a white lab coat and holding an enormous pin-cushion. She took one look at the suit and said: "I see exactly what's wrong." Then she began pinning and tucking with such deft expertise that I immediately sensed I was in the hands of an alterations genius. By the time she'd finished pinning, the suit was transformed.
After gentle interrogation by the Branded Female, it emerged that Bianca had worked at various boutiques for more than 30 years, and at Dior for over a decade. Her reassuring presence turned around my impression of the store, which had plummeted to rock bottom thanks to the inattentive sales staff. In fact, her skills with the pin-cushion earned Dior an extra 1700 euros. I only hope that Bianca is passing on her expertise to the next generation. People like her make the real difference between luxury brands and chain stores. And when they're gone, no amount of marketing will fill the void.






