Maria Grazia Chiuri, the Dior fashion house’s creeative director used the language of film to convey her collection this year. Dior AW’20 collection was released in form of a film in place of runway show, having just starting to recover from the global pandemic lockdown.
The surprising thing about this year’s cast was that it lacks diversity, in the mordern world where we all raise the banner of #BlackLivesMatter, Dior casted an all white models – all white maniquines!!
The designs were inspired by the fantasy epic Tale of Tales from 2015, where the fashion house’s designss featured characters like fauns, nymphs, mermaids from the film.
Maria retold the story in her collection where she asked its director Matteo Garrone to “visualise my dream”. The story in the film says : a trunk full of miniature couture dresses on a journey from the Dior atelier to an enchanted forest where two porters offered them to mythical creatures, who were eventually pictured wearing some of the looks in human size.
Dior is not the letting the global pandemic stop her from delivering the best to her clients, Maria Chiuri designed a trunk of miniature dresses, which will – in one way or another – bring Dior’s couture boutique to the homes of her clients around the world. The Dior atelier won’t be able to travel for fittings which is the norm in the fashion house, but rather trunks will be tailored to each client’s taste with miniature dresses, life-size toiles, and fabric and embroidery swatches in tow. “We mustn’t forget that this experience is very important for the clients. This is a way to maintain these very personal relationships,” Chiuri said in a preview over Zoom. “Often, in couture, we think more about shape but the architectural work is actually in the scale,” she explained emphasing the craftmanship that’s gone into the creativity of the collection. “I didn’t want it to be dolls or pretty or childlike. This is a real collection.”
The collection’s story reminded us of the 1945 Second World War, where nifty couturiers of Paris came up with an idea to save their businesses from the financial ruins of the War. With scarce supplies and their clients unable to travel, they created Théâtre de la Mode, a travelling troupe of miniature couture creations one-third of the size of real-life mannequins. She also mentioned the surrealist artists of pre-war era Paris, and the women who became their muses: Lee Miller, Dora Maar and Jacqueline Lamba; “not just muses, but artists,” as Chiuri noted.
The artistic designs of the AW’20 collection where cinematic fantasies, millitary silhouettes e.t.c. “I am obsessed with lightness. I want things to be comfortable. I started my work at Dior with these obsessions,” Maria said. “Normally, for wedding dresses our clients come to Paris and try many different shapes, and we’ll make a sketch. I never showed a wedding dress on the runway but it’s a different moment now. “In this time, it’s so difficult to celebrate a moment so important, so I tried to find a wedding dress that is possible to realise in couture,” she said. “Our approach has to be open to understand the mood and different necessities of the women around the world,”
Dior fashion house is a well respected brand that is dear to us, while others are packing up, the designer spent the lockdown focusing on how to keep the wheels of Dior spinning, saving the jobs of the 7,000 of her employees, and adapting each of her collections to the challenges posed by the crisis.
We look also look forward to the brand’s cruise show in 22 July, which was originally planned in Puglia back in May. Dior’s cruise show will be keeping the promise to her local artisans who have collaborated in the collection. The show is said to be shown without audience but hoping to feature more diverse models of the manequines.
