March 5, 2025 |
Maria Grazia Chiuri was in the mood for change. She switched up her approach to her show – instead of collaborating with a female artist, she asked the American theatre director and playwright Robert Wilson to create a performance in five acts to showcase her collection inspired by Virginia Woolf’s time travelling Orlando. It made for a richly detailed collection, full of great ideas and covetable clothes.
The new approach brought a fresh energy. The audience sat in steeply raked seats around a square minimalist catwalk space, transformed with scenography which referenced the big bang, volcanic eruptions and the ice age. At one point a tetradactyl puppet flew high above the time traveller models.
They wore looks inspired by different eras, from the Renaissance to modern day. The corsets and crinolines that Chiuri showed at couture were adapted for ready-to-wear with sturdy corsets worn over white shirts and crinolines with knee socks and practical boots. A leather doublet jacket with zip-off sleeves was a particularly successful adaptation of historical codes. It looked avant garde. There was also a tomboy quality to many looks – it was a knickerbocker glory – but nothing looked costume. Instead, it had a raw, boyish beauty. Fashion history may have informed details and some silhouettes but this designer has always created a modern wardrobe. There were so many covetable coats. From shearling trimmed parkas to tailored beauties. Duster costs and macs looked from afar like precious shimmering silk brocade but were a lightweight technical nylon, underlining the grounding in modernity this collection had.
Chiuri also looked to different eras of Dior notably the tenure of Gianfranco Ferre who was famous for his architectural frills and beautiful white shirts. They were well represented in the collection. She also revived John Galliano’s famous J’adore Dior T-shirt. A hit in the early 2000s and back for a new generation of Dior girls. Was this the last time we will see a Maria Grazia Chiuri RTW show for Dior in Paris? The speculation about designer musical chairs swirls, but the house maintains a dignified silence and Chiuri lets her beautiful clothes do the talking. This collection was emphatic.
Photography by Christina Fragkou.
