Editorial Coverage
In each collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri chooses a territory where the space-time dimension is canceled: suggestions and intentions give shape and contours to an articulated constellation of clothes and accessories.
In this film shot in the Gallery of Mirrors in Versailles, Maria Grazia Chiuri reflects on physicality and the relationship between innocence and sensuality and, for the Fall-Winter 2021-2022 ready-to-wear collection, she explores the world of fairy tales.
This Dior Fall / Winter 2021-22 collection uses the mirror as in fairy tales when it becomes the medium capable of visualizing the thoughts of those who use it. Chiuri therefore starts from fairy tales, as a derivation of myths, and explores For this film, the artist Silvia Giambrone was involved for the scenography and Sharon Eyal for the choreography.
Network of symbols, the story is certainly not just an escape route: it serves to challenge and revisit stereotypes and archetypes. It consists of a narration projected into the future. Revisited by Maria Grazia Chiuri, the soldier’s uniform is thus transformed into a series of blue cashmere coats embellished with touches of red and white. Sparkling lamé and lurex jacquard give this stylized silhouette a metallic sheen; fabrics made with gold and silver threads seem to float as if by magic. Black boldly asserts itself on a range of pieces, from skirts to the Bar jacket dotted with the cannage motif, an iconic Dior code, or with a hood that may have been worn by Angela Carter’s Little Red Riding Hood (A story in the The Bloody Chamber collection, published in 1979 by Gollancz).
Red is a passing line on coats (“I think a red coat is very beautiful!” Monsieur Dior wrote in the Little Dictionary of Fashion): it illuminates capes and raincoats, always with hoods. It permeates the tartans through an archive pink motif (based on an original drawing by Andrée Brossin de Méré, one of Monsieur Dior’s cherished collaborators, to whom the collection also pays tribute) that evokes the original tale of Beauty and the Beast, to which Maria Grazia Chiuri is particularly fond, particularly in the film adaptation by Jean Cocteau, itself inspired by the fairy tales of two writers: Madame d’Aulnoy, a contemporary of Perrault, and Madame Leprince de Beaumont.
The evening dresses are princess-like, in layered tulle that seem to evaporate into a foam of gorgeous colors. Then there are white collars, embroidered Sangallo plastrons and white socks that recall the world of childhood.
A new self-awareness, born from a feminine sensitivity that knows how to blend memories of the past and maturity, as if by magic.
THE HALL OF MIRRORS
The autumn-winter 2021-2022 women’s ready-to-wear collection designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri is being unveiled in the heart of the Palace of Versailles1. An exceptional catwalk, punctuated by an exclusive installation by Silvia Giambrone and choreography by Sharon Eyal both created in situ. More than ever, this space celebrates contemporary culture in all its forms, its audacity, and its magnetic power, highlighting Silvia Giambrone’s The Hall of Shadows2, an ode to inventiveness in a context where access to museums is limited.
This unique installation invites women to shape and fill in their own identity, image, and consciousness, regardless of others’ opinions. In a dual movement of attraction and repulsion, the mirrors dialogue with Maria Grazia Chiuri’s project as Creative Director of Dior women’s collections, infused with a profoundly transformative means of interpreting femininity.
The mirror has a symbolic dimension: it represents a threshold, like the parallel world in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, breaking with absolute appearances and opening up new perspectives.
