For Maria Grazia Chiuri, each collection is an opportunity to reflect on what exactly clothing is in relationship to the body and to fashion.
The reinterpretation of the 1950s – for this Dior autumn-winter 2023-2024 ready-to-wear line – is also a means for the Creative Director to explore, in ever new ways, the history of Dior and to further delve into French style by focusing on three extraordinary figures: Catherine Dior, Édith Piaf and Juliette Gréco. These three women shared an independent spirit that guided their choices. Singular protagonists, each of them was able, through their lifestyle, to subvert feminine stereotypes that were part of the post-war mind set.
For Catherine Dior, this was accomplished through her choice to grow and sell flowers as a message of hope. For Edith Piaf and Juliette Gréco, it was through their voices and their supreme stage presence. Expressing the soul of Paris or inspired by existentialist thinking, they created a wardrobe that reappropriated their heritage and staged it in a narrative marked by physical emotion and the intense rhythm of poems, literary texts turned into unforgettable songs. The experience of clothing is the tactile embodiment of a form of thinking, a means of approaching, of tuning into the world.
This Dior collection is the very signature of a femininity that goes against the grain. Rebellious. At once strong and fragile. The floral motifs chosen by Monsieur Dior have been revisited: mottled fabric is interwoven with a metallic thread that breathes life into the fabric, rendering it malleable, erasing contours to obtain an abstract effect. Primary colors take center stage: ruby, emerald, topaz yellow, blue. Delicately nuanced tartan fabrics distinguish coats, jackets and straight skirts, which can also be worn beneath large coats, like the “corolle” skirts. Poplin also shimmers with metallic thread. Embroidery composes little bursts of light.
Celebrating the kaleidoscopic image of a femininity outlined by powerful icons, inhabited with awareness, these creations suggest emotional paths for the new generations of women shaping our future.
