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Couture Queen Celine Dion Poses Nude for Vogue

Aliza Abarbanel
Last Updated 5 July 2017, 16:35
Inventive styling, along with a good dose of sheer enthusiasm, has made Céline Dion a fashion world darling. However, her latest sartorial feat forsakes clothes entirely.

Here's a little naked fact to ponder while Celine Dion changes looks between shows: for the past five years she has worn haute couture near exclusively for her own performances (in Las Vegas and on her current "mini-tour" of Europe). She performs a minimum two hours a night, five or six nights a week, dancing and curtseying and generally gesticulating sans abandon, in handmade, hand-beaded delicacies designed solely to walk a catwalk or a carpet (and often with handlers). For Celine's orders, the houses send teams to Nevada for typically three fittings, before the garments are ultimately finished in her local, private atelier. Armani Prive, Schiaparelli, Giambattista Valli, Versace...only a partial list. Everyone, basically. In Vegas, Velcro panels are added to allow for her ribcage to expand or for a quick outfit change. Micro straps of elasticized chiffon prevent a slit from becoming a sloppy situation mid-squat. Shoes—always heels, never platforms—are ordered one size smaller (she is normally a 38) and refitted with metal shanks. Says Celine, "We have to make haute couture industrial." And, more enigmatically: "The clothes follow me; I do not follow the clothes." Which is to say: the haute couture, with all its fragility and handcraft, has to perform professionally for Ms. Dion. And privately as well. Years ago, Celine bought a classic little black dress from the Christian Dior atelier when the house was overseen by John Galliano. It is simple, falling to mid calf, and narrow as can be with just a hint of stretch. It requires a minimum of jewelry, a statement bracelet or perhaps one of the major diamond rings she designed with her late husband Rene Angelil: two pear cuts set in a wide pave band, or two hearts of diamond and emerald abstractly interlocking, on a cushion of yet more diamonds. This LBD forces you to walk one foot in front of the other. This is a dress Celine knows well and clearly loves, the simplest evocation of the private luxury of couture and the total antithesis of the red carpet hoopla that attends the union of fashion and celebrity. It is also the dress she wore to Rene's funeral. #CelineTakesCouture Photo by @sophfei.

A post shared by Vogue (@voguemagazine) on

Snapped between outfit changes at Paris Couture Fashion Week, the intimate, behind the scenes portrait is part of a larger Vogue Instagram series that reveals Dion's love affair with fashion.
"Here's a little naked fact to ponder while Céline Dion changes looks between shows: for the past five years she has worn haute couture near exclusively for her own performances (in Las Vegas and on her current "mini-tour" of Europe)," the caption begins. This nude picture of the long-limbed 49-year-old captures true vulnerability — a moment of calm in the tempest of fittings and quick changes that create her image.
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The amount of effort required to make her couture tour wardrobe is extraordinary. Houses like Schiaparelli and Versace repeatedly send teams to Vegas for fittings; the garments are then finalised in Dion's own private atelier — velcro is added to assist with quick changes and shoes are refitted with metal shanks for added structural support. To borrow a term used by Dion herself, the goal is to make "haute couture industrial."
Photo: Pierre Suu/GC Images.
For us mere mortals, couture is an opportunity to visually appreciate fashion at its most intricate and opulent — it is most commonly consumed with the eyes, but Dion lives her life in it.
All this experience wearing high fashion has made the singer a star attendee, too. Armed with serious paparazzi power poses and her very own hashtag (#celinetakescouture), the diva sat alongside the front row set with aplomb. As Couture Fall 2017 reaches its close, all eyes are on Dion. When it comes to watching a true connoisseur in her element, our hearts will go on forever.
Photo: Pierre Suu/GC Images.
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