If there’s one thing you can be sure of when it comes to a Maria Grazia Chiuri-designed Dior show, it’s that feminism and art will have had some hand in its creation. For spring, the ’60s-era feminist artist Lucia Marcucci was namechecked by Chiuri as a key reference. Best known for her violent, vibrant collages, which feature provocative slogans and symbols as a form of political commentary, Marcucci’s medium provided a neat analogy for Chiuri’s modus operandi at Dior.
“She used the collage to mix things together and create something new,” Maria Grazia told British Vogue’s fashion critic Anders Christian Madsen in a preview of the collection. “In fashion, we bring our memories and experiences together with different heritages – in my case, Dior – and mix them together to create something that [provides] a new answer, a new vision, and helps us to reflect on our future.” Here, everything you need to know about Dior’s spring/summer 2021 show in Paris.
The artistic inspo for the season? Lucia Marcucci
The show set comprised a lightbox installation by Lucia Marcucci, based on an art work she made in 2011, and akin to a series of stained glass windows – 18 in total, each seven metres high and filled with her collage work. “It celebrates visual poetry,” said Maria Grazia. “What I continuously try to do is work with other artists from different backgrounds and experiences to reflect on fashion. In this moment in time, we have to reflect on our future. This dialogue is very important.” A choir of singers performed as models rounded a darkened show space, with illuminated collages decorating the walls. Chiuri also called on the Italian filmmaker Alina Marazzi to make a film about Marcucci’s work, released in conjunction with the collection. “She has used the collage in her films… [combining] images from the past with new ones to create a different language.”
The Dior Bar jacket went on a gap year – now, it’s all about the Dior anorak
Cognisant that many of her couture-acquiring customers have been housebound in recent months, Maria Grazia looked for ways to loosen up the construction of jackets to inject them with a modern (and quarantine appropriate) sense of ease. “For a house like Dior where the jacket is an iconic element, we can’t think of the jacket in past terms,” she said. “We have to think of a new way to make it.” The answer? Make it in edge-to-edge knitwear, in a laid-back, dressing gown shape printed with boho patterns; denim, in an oversized cocoon shape tied at the waist; and tie-dye it and convert it into a splash top (surely a key purchase for those Dior clients who braved the Parisian drizzle to attend the show). “The silhouette is really soft, the shape is not constricting, it’s a shape in which you feel good, you feel at home,” says Chiuri. “We are living in a different way.”
The new Dior look? Clue: it has a masculine vibe
Fluid, sheer maxi dresses in faded jewel tones were among the finale looks that caught the eye (shout out to tennis player-turned-modelling star Holly Fischer in the pale pink!). More surprising? The prevalence of khaki trousers and mannish, one-size-up shirts. This, according to Maria Grazia, comprised an important evolution of the Dior woman’s wardrobe. “The most important issue for me was to realise the new Dior silhouette: the jacket with the shirt and the pants, I think, is what really represents the feeling of the moment.” The trousers which came in a Dior Oblique motif will have hypebeasts salivating, but it was the roomy khakis with flat sandals that many a tomboy will be wishlisting.
The double-wrapped skinny belt is your new best friend
Hemlines may shift, fabrics may change, but Maria Grazia Chiuri has firmly asserted her Dior silhouette through the seasons with waist-cinching belts. Skinny, often plaited and with a Dior monogram belt buckle, they came wrapped twice around the body, cinching in oversized white dinner shirts, throw-on edge-to-edge jackets, fluid crochet and sheer chiffon maxi dresses, feminine blouses and striped shirt dresses alike.
Zoom dressing just got a helping hand
Those Dior customers becoming increasingly adept at dressing from the waist up will be pleased to see the French house is now catering for Zoom with video-conferencing appropriate jewellery, necklines and headgear. Forgot to have a shower? Throw on a Dior turban. Tired eyes requiring a pick-me-up? Pencil on some heavy kohl and try a pair of spectacles reminiscent of those Jane Fonda sported in Nine To Five. And if your white shirt is looking lacklustre? Fasten a beaded necklace and some gold chains strung with charms around your neck.
