An "untested" designer should take the helm at Christian Dior, according to respected fashion commentator Colin McDowell.
The French fashion house has been looking for a new creative director for almost a year following the sacking of John Galliano for his anti-Semitic behaviour and Colin thinks they should go for fresh blood rather than an established name.
Writing for the Business of Fashion, he said: "And so we come to the tragic case of Dior. And it is tragic on more levels than one: that a label needs a designer and that a man, for all his transgressions, needs a job. Fashion needs that man.
"To insert Bill Gaytten - an undisputedly brilliant technician, but not a designer - into the gap at Dior can be nothing but a temporary solution. It's high time this gap was closed. But why not with somebody young and untested, as Yves Saint Laurent was when he took over the reins at Dior at the tender age of 21 and went on to revolutionise women's clothes? I still believe that designers with genius and courage, traits which are invariably independent of age, are more likely to thrive at a grand Paris label than at brands in any of the world's other fashion capitals at this point."
Names that have been linked to the post include Raf Simons, Christopher Kane and Marc Jacobs.
