As part of the celebrations of this current Paris Fashion
Week that are taking place until next October 5 on the French capital, the Dior
house presented its women's ready-to-wear collection for the next season this
past Tuesday Spring / Summer 2022. A proposal designed by the current creative
director of her lines for women, the Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri, who
surprised locals and strangers both by her overflowing color and by the
refined, athletic and minimalist lines of inspiration. 1960s that dominated the
entire collection.
As the inspirational background for this latest collection,
Chiuri set aside the most foundational Dior that had been serving him as a
creative source during a good part of his previous works, to now place all his
attention on the period in which the house remained under the creative
direction of Marc Bohan. French designer who replaced the acclaimed Yves Saint
Laurent in the direction of Dior after he was called up for military service,
in a position he held from 1960 to 1989. Date on which his ties with the French
house were terminated, to which he had remained attached for more than 30
years, making such celebrated collections as the 1966 inspired by the film
Doctor Zhivago, or the 1961 “Slim Look” collection. This is a proposal that the
fashion critics of the time celebrated as revolutionary. , underlining that
"it completely changes fashion, just as the New Look did in 1947",
and that it is precisely what Chiuri has now decided to revisit. A compliment
like this to a Bohan who knew how to run the house during a long period of
great social changes and upheavals - there he was that May 68 that led to
Balenciaga's withdrawal - and that in many terms is very similar to this
current climate in the that, as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic, a
series of social revolutions have ended up accelerating, especially with regard
to values such as sustainability, inclusion or concern for maintaining a
healthy lifestyle.
"There is a change in how we feel," explained
Maria Grazia Chiuri herself in statements to the French agency AFP. "We
all see ourselves as more vulnerable, and each responds in their own way, some
wish to isolate themselves and others to live intensely." "For me,"
he adds, "you have to live every day." A statement behind which many
of the reasons that have led the Italian to focus her attention on this
specific collection by Bohan, a designer who was also responsible for opening
Dior to ready-to-wear and designing the first collections, are supported.
sporty cut from the French house, with the launch of the first Dior technical
garments specially designed for skiing.
"I wanted to show that there is not only the bar
jacket," adds Chiuri about one of the most iconic garments of the house,
and to which she herself has dedicated a prominent space in each of her
proposals. From which she has not hesitated to revisit and reconstextualize a
piece that we will also find present in this collection, now in a square cut
and with more sporty lines, following the same spirit that permeates the entire
collection, and with what the designer does not. It does nothing but respond to
those changes that we pointed out that have been promoting in the shadow of the
pandemic. Period during which “we understood the importance of sport”, but not
only in the “sense of practicing it but also in the idea of feeling good”.
"We were locked up and we had the need to take care of ourselves
physically."
Brazilian colors and 60s rhythms
Throughout a physical parade, which was attended by the
public and which could be followed live through the different channels and
profiles of Dior and the platform of the French Fédération de la Haute Couture
et de la Mode (FHCM ), a succession of garments were shown on the catwalk with
which the designer entered to revisit the decade of the 1960s. Dior artisan
teams know how to make a good gala, but also a daring color palette dominated
by the usual black and white, this time together with acid and fluorescent
reds, oranges, greens, yellows and blues that entered into a dialogue in
perfect harmony with the environment.An atmosphere on that occasion built by
the artist Anna Paparatti.
A very prominent artist on the Roman scene of the 1960s,
Paparatti used his creativity to build a kind of board game inspired by his
work "II Gioco del Nonsense" (The game of nonsense). Piece from which
he ended up lighting a disco-looking environment, inspired in turn by the
legendary Roman club "The Piper Club" and the bohemian "Le Palace"
in Paris, on which the garments were shown in what was It seemed like a perfect
dance floor from the 60s. An action that celebrated both the hunger for freedom
of that decade and of the present, while the bermuda shorts, the refined coats,
the skirts, the shorts and, yes, also evening dresses,
"The collection was born from the need to show to what
extent fashion is a game with very important playful aspects, but also
educational", concludes Chiuri. “People use fashion as a form of
expression, to play games, to represent themselves. In the end, fashion is a
great performance ”.
"It is minimalist, very geometric and with rigid
fabrics," said Pascal Coppin, head of the Dior workshops where the dresses
and baggy outfits in the collection came from. "It hardly has any
embroidery", and "compared to what we usually do, it is very
different." Having incorporated technical materials, such as neoprene,
unusual in the collections of the French house and for which it took
"several trials to achieve the finishes." A change like this in
style, spirit, materiality and rhythm, which seemed to satisfy both those
attending the presentation and Coppin himself, who added in this regard that “I
like it a lot, it is a radical change, it is beautiful, young, optimistic. ”.
It is "what we need, colors, leaving black and navy blue", and
"almost Brazilian patterns".