The first look out on the Dior catwalk this afternoon in Paris provided a perfect snapshot of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s latest vision.
It compromised of a slogan t-shirt - emblazoned with the message ‘Sisterhood is Global’, a reference to the literary works of American feminist poet Robin Morgan - paired with a full grey wool skirt, tartan kitten heels, a pearl choker and a veiled vinyl bucket hat. This was Dior’s Teddy Girl - the female counterpoint to the better documented Teddy Boy movement - with a lick of ladylike luxury, repackaged for the modern Millennial consumer.
In the most literal sense, there were quilted boiler suits, skinny polo shirts and windowpane checked anoraks plucked straight from the subculture. Not to mention the bucket hats which topped the heads of every model and spanned leopard print to logoed.
But for the house’s current designer, the fascination with these renegades of the 1950’s also served as an opportunity to revisit the post-war period defined by Christian Dior’s New Look. In line with this, Chiuri also name-checked a different type of rebel muse - a young Princess Margaret who, in 1951, challenged convention by wearing a gown by Dior, not a British dressmaker, for her official 21st birthday portrait. Given that the same dress is currently the centrepiece of the V&A’s exhibition devoted to Christian Dior, which documents its founder’s long-standing affection for British culture, it was apt that this latest collection is not only an homage to England’s history but to the house’s legacy.
As a result, the black leather jacket designed by Yves Saint Laurent for Dior, found new life in the hands of Chiuri for next season. Monsieur Dior’s iconic Bar suit also made an appearance - this time cut with a more masculine silhouette and crafted from denim or finished with a velvet collar - while the silhouette of the Miss Dior dress, first designed for the spring/summer 1949 couture collection, inspired evening dresses which shimmered with sequins in palm tree motifs or were slashed at the front to reveal matching silk shorts. These offered proof, to anyone still looking for it, that a woman’s wardrobe could be beautiful and practical at the same time.
Because undoubtedly, it is the women of the future - not the men who have come before - which serves as Chuiri’s greatest source of inspiration. Further proof - aside from the clothes which appeared on the catwalk - came via the visual alphabet which scaled the walls, each letter spelt out by a female body, created by artist Tomaso Binga who worked under a male pseudonym to parody cultural privilege.
As the show notes explained, the purpose was to “reconnect with an idea of femininity that transcends gender and anatomy” - an intention which brings us back to the centre of the zeitgeist.
