Report: Raf Simons Showed Dior Cruise From Pierre Cardin’s Spectacular Bubble House

The choice of location for Dior Cruise - the French Riviera - could not have been more apposite. The house is an institution in its home country, after all. What's more, the timing was perfect: the 2015 Cannes Film Festival kicks off later this week. In the past everyone from Sophia Loren to Ingrid Bergman has endorsed the name for grand entrance dressing in particular. Today the likes of Charlize Theron and, most recently, Jennifer Lawrence follow in their hallowed footsteps. Dakota Fanning, Zoe Kravitz and Marion Cotillard this time sat front row.

The venue in question spoke more of Dior artistic director Raf Simons' tastes, however. Pierre Cardin's Bubble House - Palais Bulles - built on the rocky cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean and designed by Hungarian-born Antti Lovag in 1979, is an architectural folly par excellence. 'It is a place that I have been fascinated by for a number of years,' Simons said.

And so, against a backdrop of globular concrete structures - 'a utopian project that encompasses earth, sky and sea' according to the show notes and more than a little reminiscent of a child's fantasy playground - Simons showed a collection that was as light, fresh and youthful as might be wished for.

Sporty checks, stripes and nets were juxtaposed with the stuff of the Paris haute couture ateliers: chiffon pleats, curlicues and patchworked jacquards in deliberately jarring shades. The briefest, most flirtatious dresses were worn not with talon heels but lace-up booties in more patchwork that were as sweet as they were sassy.

The overall affect was homespun and charming: frayed edges, asymmetric layering and even a light scatter of sparkle appeared borrowed from a young girl's dressing up box. But if that sounds whimsical, it should be noted that, for all its quirkiness, the silhouette was rooted in both Christian Dior's own modernist values just as it was Simons' own.