BELGIAN Raf Simons, newly-appointed creative director at Paris fashion house Dior, doesn’t draw designs. He gives written briefs which atelier staff will convert into maquettes for expensive gowns.

Other people’s docos about couturieres follow the designer from tabula rasa  through design drawings to cutting and machining fabrics to the obligatory closing shots of skinny young women with forward-thrusting pelvises striding the catwalk wearing the gowns.

Frederic Tcheng’s documentary, telling how Raf met the challenge of creating a complete collection for a major show scheduled for a mere eight weeks after his appointment, is something of a radical innovation in making such films.

It observes long-time Dior staff manipulating swathes of toile into a shape that, when complete to Raf’s satisfaction, becomes a template for a garment to charm and enhance the wearer (whose own or her husband’s deep pockets keep Dior going), dazzle her social peers (the competition among whom is the engine powering haute couture), stimulate the fashion media (whose ability to make or break a collection is out of proportion to its real importance in a turbulent world) and attract vultures waiting to hit the market with knock-off copies.

Raf Simons comes across as a shy fellow uncomfortable on centre stage, committed to translating designs and fabrics into beautiful and wearable garments, unconcerned about the cost of renting a vacant Paris mansion to show them and lining its walls with fresh flowers. His team’s fondness for him looks sincere on film. They work hard. No sewing machine was visible during the making of this collection.

At Palace Electric.