The style set has moved to Paris for the final round of fashion month shows. Dior opened proceedings with its show in the Tuileries, where guests included Jennifer Lawrence, Natalie Portman, Blackpink’s Jisoo, Elizabeth Debecki and Maisie Williams - who is currently playing Catherine Dior (Christian Dior’s resistance fighter sister) in AppleTV+’s The New Look.
At a time where the brand’s origin story is being interrogated in the aforementioned series it's fitting that Maria Grazia Chiuri is also looking back into the archives. This time, she’s centred on the birth of the 1967 Miss Dior line, which was its first foray into ready to wear, led by Philippe Guibourgé, assistant to then artistic director Marc Bohan.
Speaking backstage prior to the show, Chiuri explained that she felt Bohan’s work was the closest to her own. “When I went to the archive I immediately connected with him. He was a visionary who understood that there was a new generation of women who didn’t want to [go to fittings] for many days for a couture dress, they preferred to go to the store and buy clothes immediately.”
On her mood board was a picture of Bohan with his young daughter, as well as Gabriella Crispi, the Italian interior designer with whom Bohan collaborated with for the new Miss Dior stores. Akin to Biba, these featured objet and furniture items designed by Crispi, poignantly labelled “Made in Italy for Christian Dior” (fittingly, Chiuri is Italian). Crispi’s “moon” lamp which was sold at Dior was the inspiration for the C D logo created by Bohan, who saw the letters in her design. Chiuri explained that Crispi was typical of the new generation of artistic, forward thinking women with which Bohan surrounded himself with.
That reference was characteristically melded with her own considerations of feminist liberation and what it means to be a woman today - and her own world of Dior. Pointedly, the show set was an installation conceived by the Mumbai-based artist (where Chiuri held her pre-fall show last year) Shakuntala Kulkarni taken from her series entitled ‘of bodies, armour and cages’. Nine rather beautiful bamboo cane structures of the female form formed the backdrop of the central show space.
Blending this together the collection was a reflection of this idea of radical freedom of movement. Similarly to how Bohan understood that women in the late sixties didn’t want to be trussed up in the constraints of Dior’s stiff silhouetted Bar jacket (a piece he largely eschewed in his work for the house) Chiuri offered loose cuts which had a cool sense of ease.
Knee length skirt suits were paired with beatnik black polo necks and modish patent square toe boots - albeit with revealing straps across the back of the leg.
Her new punkish graffiti Miss Dior motif was sketched large over coats and skirts, and embossed on sweet shoulder bags held swinging from the hand, surrounded by tiny gold studs. Box pleated skirts - in khaki and denim - with exposed side sections came with a frisson of playfulness. Shirts were worn with necks wide open and cuffs undone, worn with easy sleeveless knits and temptingly louche straight leg trousers. Tunic style co-ords came in swinging window pane checks, relaxed tailored shorts were paired with flat over the knee boots.
Flashes of glamour seduced via a leopard print trench worn with sheer black tights complete with a forties-style seam along the back of the leg, as well as maxi gowns in luxe creams, and an Ibiza-bound Halston-ish jersey pale gold cape and dress as the finale look worn with flat gold sandals. Even for her flapper-ish tasselled party looks the heels never strayed beyond a low kitten. Now that really is freedom.
