Dior Autumn Winter 2015: Animal Magic

'I wanted the collection to deal with nature and femininity in a different way,' Raf Simons stated of his show for Dior in Paris this afternoon. 'Away from the garden and the flower to something more liberated, darker, more sexual.' This idea had first been explored for his haute couture show in January, he continued, 'but here there is more wildness, savagery and overt masculinity in the way a woman might present herself.'

And so the typically feminine and curvaceous Dior tailoring that Simons has reinvented since he was appointed artistic director of this great French house this time gave way to a more masculine, oversized silhouette: the most brilliant double-breasted trouser suits with a narrow shoulder and cropped, turned up trouser. Traditionally masculine fabrics, meanwhile, we're cut into archetypical feminine pieces including opera coats and more languid tufted outerwear in colours brighter than nature ever intended: neon yellow woven with green, say.

'The idea of animals and an abstraction of their patterns became key,' Simons said. Oversized zebra stripes and leopard spots in equally unpredictable shades were printed onto languid dresses that fell to mid-calf and inset into more that evoked a boxy, 1960s Space Age line.

This was a relatively fierce and pared back look but never a clichéd one. Models hair was pulled to one side and tied into a severe ponytail, their eyes were hooded with darkest brown and their feet were clad in skintight vinyl boots either cut off at the ankle or thigh high.

None of it was literal, however. Instead, it was 'more the invention of a new species,' Raf Simons said.

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