For Maria Grazia Chiuri’s third ready-to-wear collection for Dior, the designer continued to draw from female artists to explore notions of femininity and female power. This season, the designer referenced the late French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle, whose large, multi-colored sculptures of women are part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
With each season, Chiuri continually redefines the modern Dior woman. While the storied French brand is synonymous with voluminous gowns and the Bar jacket, Chiuri has focused her vision less on a fantasy and more on the everyday woman with daywear and denim. She has re-introduced the slogan t-shirt into the Dior vernacular, opening the show with a striped Breton with “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” emblazoned across the chest, giving a nod to art historian Linda Nochlin’s 1971 essay. Chiuri has also taken the vertiginous heel favored by John Galliano and replaced them with flats in all iterations—from mesh boots to square-toe ballet shoes with delicate ties across the foot and on the ankle.
The collection referenced De Saint Phalle’s drawings of snakes, dinosaurs, and spiders, which found their way embroidered onto jumpers and dresses, and the artist’s mirror mosaic pieces, which were seen throughout the collection on shimmering bustier dresses and glittering mini-dresses, as well as the mirrored show space.
Click on the slideshow to see our backstage coverage of the Christian Dior spring/summer 2018 collection.
