DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Zoë Morrison wears a boho-style Portobello Road jacket with mink collar ($6,150) and pant ($835) from Dior's fall collection.

Hey Venus

Who needs a surgeon when Dior’s
new Icon jacket will carve out
a sculpted silhouette for you?

If A celebrity is measured by his or her grueling schedule of international appearances, descending on a city for a day or two to appease fans and paparazzi, then certain clothes might be called stars, too.

When it comes to in-demand samples by the world's top designers, there are just so many stores and so little time.

In the case of Dior, pieces from designer John Galliano's early fall collection made but a brief stop in Honolulu before jetting off to Vancouver, Canada, to stir up frenzy there as well.

The garments arrived at Honolulu International Airport at 9 a.m. Wednesday, making their way to Dior's temporary store just long enough to dazzle Dior fans who put in their orders, to train staffers in coordinating the new looks as prescribed by the designer, and to be photographed.

By noon the garments were being whisked back to the airport, in unmarked cars so as to be incognito, of course.

"We've had good luck with the airlines," said Marla Sabo, the New York-based COO of Christian Dior, North America. "They only misplaced the clothes once, but our schedule is aggressive, traveling to 15 or 18 locations, depending on the season."

COURTESY DIOR A runway peek at Dior's curve-accentuating Icon jacket.

Sabo flew in two days after the garments had left to preside over tomorrow's grand reopening of the expanded Dior boutique at Ala Moana Center.

"We were waiting for additional space," Sabo said. "When the store was originally conceived, we had no shoe collection to speak of. We didn't have baby clothes and a full lingerie line."

She said they noticed they had outgrown the space about two years ago, and looks forward to the additional 1,000 square feet that allows them to have separate departments for infants, lingerie and shoes that had been relegated to a mere 5 feet of shelf space.

The generous space will make it easy for Dior fans to find what they are looking for, and increasingly it's Galliano's Icon jacket, a top seller for spring that will return in the fall.

Thanks to the jacket, you can kiss your plastic surgeon goodbye. It's constructed to accentuate a woman's curves, lifting the bust and creating the illusion of a wasp waist, with peplum padding sitting above the hips to give women an hourglass shape.

In a Dior press release, Galliano said, "It was like being a sculptor -- carving out a shape to create a Venus-like silhouette when every woman puts it on."

"John calls it a 'girl's best friend' because it makes everyone look curvy," Sabo said.

One signature of Galliano is his sense of dress as play, and he invites women to have fun as well in creating their own looks.

The Icon jacket for spring is in denim that can be dressed up or down, combined with jeans, a slip dress or tight-fitting pencil skirt, depending on the wearers' personality. The denim look continues into fall, with the addition of a leather Icon jacket embellished with colorful floral embroidery.

"Like any designer, he has his muses," said Sabo. "He sees girls putting together looks that are vintage-y, bohemian, worn in layers, and those are reflected in his collection."

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM A limited edition Lady Dior handbag created for the Hawaii market is available for $1,120.

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Lady Dior to mark
10th anniversary

October will mark the 10th anniversary of the "Lady Dior," an iconic handbag of the House of Dior.

To mark the reopening of the Dior boutique, a Hawaii limited edition "Lady Dior" handbag in a 1950s print of Paris street scenes drawn from the archives of house namesake Christian Dior, will be offered at $1,120. Each handbag will bear an interior plaque reading "Dior Ala Moana Limited Edition."

Originally named "Chouchou (My Sweet)," its name was changed in honor of Lady Diana, the Princess of Wales. The purse was presented as a gift to her by Madame Bernadette Chirac at a 1995 Cezanne exhibition in Paris.

The purse shape was inspired by a Louis XVI armchair admired by Mr. Dior.

Today, the Lady Dior handbag continues to be one of the house's strongest selling styles, offered in a selection of leathers, including exotic skins: crocodile, python and ostrich and in fabrics, including nylon, denim and satin.