After the Louvre’s Cour Carrée in Paris in October, the Christian Dior Spring 2016 collection takes to the runway once again in Beijing.

For the presentation of the brand’s Spring 2016 collection, inside the metal and glass curves of the Phoenix Center, the guests discovered a stunning scenography inspired by the ephemeral landscape that served as the set for the October show: an abstracted hill of blue flowers that halted, abruptly, at the runway. This horizon line, both a guideline and an outline, was a fully-fledged leitmotif. “I wanted the collection to exhibit a certain purity,” explained Raf Simons on the sidelines of the show in October. “A collection simplified to the extreme.” And so each look featured a similar base in white cotton, like a blank canvas on which the House’s future could be written. But behind this apparent simplicity lay the expression of the extraordinary savoir-faire of which the House’s ateliers can boast.

White tops and shorts, worn under jackets, dresses or knitwear, clothe a new kind of woman, and inject a sense of contrast. A woman who would unashamedly take from the male wardrobe, just as, in their time, the creations of Christian Dior mixed masculine codes with feminine cutting. She wears a long navy blue Bar jacket bare-legged, or replaces the vest of a three-piece suit with a tone-on-tone cropped top. She’s an elusive woman, whose refined and delicate underthings contrast with the solid aspect of thick-rib knits, casually shrugged on, with their sleeves pushed up. A woman, ultimately, whose modernity is expressed by a clever blend of past and future, pieces with Victorian inspiration and clothes subtly tweaked. Jackets are lengthened with fluid pleating to form hybrid dresses. Parkas are embroidered with glittering flowers. Suiting pinstripes are turned on the horizontal, sometimes migrating their way to dresses.

Watch as the brand takes us on a journey behind the scenes at this exquisite runway show in the Chinese capital.