Miss Dior

A reinterpretation of the 1950s, when Christian Dior founded the maison, with a glance at three women linked to the designer: his sister Catherine Dior, Édith Piaf, and then Juliette Gréco. Three figures who have a representation with iconic details, symbols not only of an historical period but also a city, the existentialist Paris and the Nouvelle vague that somehow offered a counterbalance to Hollywood’s glamour created by the star-studded studio world.

«My idea of the 1950s was very much related to american cinema, while at the same time France and Italy were countries destroyed by the war», Maria Grazia Chiuri, creative director of womenswear of the Lvmh group’s maison, explained to MFF. «I started from these women to have a different look at those years and the classics of couture», she continued. A process of deconstruction and reconstruction, starting with paper patterns and fabrics. First, she modified the fabric by inserting a thread with memory in order to give the clothes a more worn and crumpled look, or a stainless thread even in cashmere, for example, to modify the surfaces.

The Tulip jacket becomes lightweight, working on the Adventure outerwear. «It is like an industrial design to let couture evolve in a different way. It is a couture work with today’s savoir faire, the past but with today’s techniques». A marriage celebrated in a setting imagined by artist Joana Vasconcelos, a monumental installation occupying the entire space named Valkyrie Miss Dior, in which organic forms interact with architecture. All of this happening in front of a parterre full of starts such as Charlize Theron and Gal Gadot, together with social star Jisoo of Blackpink, the maison’s ambassador.

Catherine Dior’s flowers parade, as well as her outfits with a refined bon ton taste with a dip into the bourgeoisie and the Fifties. After all, she was the Miss Dior who left her mark. Black dresses with micro appliqués, full skirts with pleats, jackets with atelier shapes and some sharp sports. They vibrate with recreated patterns of the famous spotted pattern, dissolve in impressionistic spots, like the makeup from the just hinted smokey eyes and immediately ready to disappear. They move to the rhythm of two intersecting voices: a relay between Björk with Ovule and the scratch of Édith Piaf with Non, je ne regrette rien. A phrase that also becomes the message embroidered on a T-shirt, ready to become a new blockbuster.

Judgment. A couture and post-war sentiment that gives the whole a new pleased elegance. The storytelling is precious, as well as the industrial interaction in the tailoring part. It is also interesting to see how Maria Grazia Chiuri’s girls became more women. (all rights reserved)