Dior walks among the goddesses

«Cancelling the fashion show would have been the wrong answer. Fashion is an industry and reflects on our time» Maria Grazia Chiuri responded backstage at the Dior haute couture fashion show at the Musée Rodin, telling her contemporary eye on the ancient world.

The fashion show set is lit up like a magic box by the works of Marta Roberti, the artist who celebrates female deities from disparate cultures in their connection to animal forces. «I started from a lecture by monsieur Dior at the Sorbonne on antiquity», Chiuri explained in front of a moodboard in which classics of feminist thought such as Adriana Cavarero’s In Spite of Plato appear alongside Greek and Roman statues.

Stars such as Alexandra Daddario and Ora Yang, or ambassador Natalie Portman sit on the front row, with paparazzi going wild for ceo Delphine Arnault, while her brother Antoine Arnault told MFF that «this maison has always been very important to Lvmh, but now that my sister leads it, we love it even more». John Elkann sits not far from them.

In the Dior haute couture fall-winter 2023/2024 collection, fashions obsessively refine the archetypes of dress forms: the tunic, the peplum, the cape, and the stole. It is in this going back to the origins that lies the meeting between Chiuri and Marta Roberti, the artist whose work manages to transform the large box in which the fashion show takes place into a kind of art gallery. «I studied the iconographies of the various goddesses that are almost always associated with animals, and I reproduced myself imitating their postures, at first in a performative way I traced with my body their poses and movements embodying that strangeness until I appropriated them,» the artist explained, who created a vast project that acts as a set with the advice of curators Paola Ugolini and Maria Alicata.

In the words of Roberti, who makes her body a cast of that of the goddesses, Chiuri rediscovers the poetic gesture of couture in which the dress is an embodiment of that body that will make it her own. The theory of dresses that compose a sequence in which the models’ gait is similar to that of all the goddesses who have ruled and rule the world is hieratic. Vertical silhouette, flat footwear. White, beige, silver, light gold are the colors. A shape declined in jacket and coat is structured in the reprise of folds stopped below the breast, vestimentary evocation of classical statuary, reference to the grooves of columns. Pearls, symbols of purity, are the protagonists of many embroideries, interwoven together with silver threads as they send out mother-of-pearl gleams. The bright textures of the 1960s, reactivated, interpret long skirts and dresses. Wools, cashmere, and men’s grisailles are important materials. Capes, which accompany many outfits, are similar to sacred vestments, sometimes encrusted with embroidery. The absolute protagonist of spectacular dresses is pleating, but it also becomes the sleeve of men’s jackets.

Judgment. Maria Grazia Chiuri pages a new chapter in research for Dior. «Haute couture constructs its own time, that is a reflection of the processes that couture obliges in its realization» she explained. The collection starts from history and becomes a reflection of today.

Maria Grazia Chiuri «Fashion is politics as it generates changes in society»

The Chambre Syndicale wondered whether or not to parade in these days of social tension. You decided not to stop. Why?

Cancelling the fashion show is not the answer. Even if we are living in a very dark moment, and not only because of the violence in France, we must not deny that this system employs so many people. For what happens in our country, even in Italy there have been serious episodes of violence. In order to be able to solve such serious problems, important daily work is needed.

Fashion is often underestimated and treated as ephemeral…

Fashion is politics. It is soft power, and in Italy we should reason in this sense. It is also geopolitics when you think about where the fabrics come from and how production works.

You were invited by Us president Joe Biden to the White House with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In France, fashion is supported by institutions. What about Italy?

President Biden’s invitation was absolutely unexpected, it came because of our work in India (see MFF of April 1). In France, the fashion system is more institutionalized. Monsieur Dior was a soft power in France, taking over the US after the war, the same as Squid Games or Bts are doing in Korea. I think we need to give more weight to fashion in Italy.

Fashion is often associated with an idea of privilege…

Fashion carries with it a flood of prejudices. It is associated with luxury, and therefore privilege and power. Fashion has been an element of power. Ultimately, the key is to understand how to harness this power in a positive way, and fashion is trying to do that. However, from the outside, people tend to see more that.

Let’s come to the work on the collection. What kind of operation did you do?

I like the idea of subtracting. It is the work I do to understand Dior. A job of knowing in depth what a brand is. My work has been taking way and subtracting canvases and linings. Not only antiques, not only folds, but also the line itself, the column line. I reinterpreted the silhouettes in a different and customized way. (All rights reserved)