Inside Dior’s Cardboard Dream
Maria Grazia Chiuri continues to focus on female empowerment as she presented a collection that is reminiscent of the Baroque period in the 16Tth century inspired by Catherine de’ Medici, Queen of France.
Chiuri’s seasonal muse, Catherine de’ Medici, was a woman who understood fashion as a tool of power. Born in Italy a noblewoman and later in 1547 became Queen of France. She popularized the use of perfume, promoted the arts, and introduced French court with folding fans, handkerchiefs and ladies underwear.
Courtesy of Dior
Dior ss23 referenced Baroque fashion niter-rented in a modern way, there were baroque hoop skirts in lace, straw and crochet. Chiuri’s use of drawstring transformed the formal baroque wear to sportswear with flounce sleeves referencing the virago sleeves used at the time. Women started wearing corsets as a separate piece of clothing rather than a restrictive figure framer. Soon corsets became every French womens staple of beauty and femininity.
Chiuri also took inspiration from an old map of Paris she drugged out of Dior’s archives. Long coats and maxi dresses were adorned with the print, a pretty cool analysis of how Dior, a fashion house, has seen the great city of Paris change and evolve over time.
Courtesy of Vogue
The collection kept to its nature-theme origin maining a neutral tone palette of blacks, whites, beiges, creams and everything in between those hues.
Courtesy of Vogue
The female silhouette is constantly changing, not biologically but societally, during the Baroque period women were navigating between skirt hoops, padding, corsets, underwear in the ever evolving roster of imposed beauty standards. Chiuri’s collection shows this very obviously as cinched waists are placed juxtaposed with oversized under shirts, belts accentuate an hourglass figure, tight tops are paired with flowy oversized pants and drawstrings explore a new free, voluminous silhouette.
Probably one of the collection's most daring and interesting design propositions was the shoes. Taking the classic Mary Jane kitten heel design revamped with an ovular platform heel and knee high straps. Adding a dark, sexy, anime-grunge feel to the modern Baroque take.
Lace was the main character along with fishnets, ribbed textures, flower prints, pinstripes and jacquard.
A collection that surprised many, as Dios has not been really giving us anything worthy of praising, with this new collection we saw design, costume history, experimentation of silhouettes, goth, femenil all with a backdrop that was jaw dropping. (Eva Jospin made an incredible installation of caves carved out of cardboard!)