Eartly Delights – this is how the creative director of Dior, Raf Simons, entitled his haute couture collection. Full of Flemish art references and historic symbols, it is looking far into the future.  Here are the three major things worth to know about this truly remarkable collection.

The venue. Raf Simons described the stunning set for Dior’s couture show as part church, part garden, part nightclub in Ibiza. The pointillist-painted panels could have been stained-glass windows or flowers. The purple carpet worked perfectly well as a psychodelic, quite fantastical element. In fact, a hallucinatory vibe penetrated the entire presentation. But the biggest fascination was caused by the pastel shaded melons, which were scattered around the place. Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights clearly appeared in everybody’s mind.

The idea. An ethereal collection but with Simons twist? This collection is just that. “Dior is always a fairy tale, no matter what I’m doing,” Simons said with a laugh, but yesterday’s show had a special magic, which wasn’t moved so intensely by the designer since his arrival to the house. During his backstage moment, Raf also explained the meaning of the title – “Coming out of the austerity of the Second World War, Dior was inspired by something he wasn’t supposed to be inspired by,” he said. “Glamour, excess, too much.” Seventy years later, Raf Simons is coming to the same point: forbidden fruit tastes sweetest. Just like the power of imagination.

The textures. Raf Simons is not only obsessed with today and the past at his namesake brand, but also at Dior. That is why his AW15 couture collection was a fusion of old and new. This is strongly visible in his outerwear – Simons’ dose of his own Belgian heritage into Dior’s referred back to “the Flemish masters and the sculptural drape, the velvety weight that men like Vermeer were able to communicate in paint, their models serenely poised with arms folded” as Tim Blanks translates. A coat/cape hybrid was the result of neoprene, couture embroidery and a fur stole which is all about mixing old with new.