XINHUA/ VOGUE – Maria Grazia Chuiri’s Christian Dior haute couture collection represented her emotional response to standing up for the interdependence between couture and all the people who work to craft its materials. Coming back to in-person shows after three seasons made her want to reconnect with “being present”, through the awareness of the tactility of amazing hand-made textiles.
The big question of what fashion will look like in the world we are re-emerging into was answered by Chuiri in a primary focus on daywear. The top-to-toe silhouettes of grey tweeds or camel cashmere might have suggested the lasting echo of the long walks in nature that entire populations have been taking during the pandemic. Seen against the conceptual landscape murals, designed by Eva Jospin, the models, in flat hiking boots or woven mesh slippers were a contrast to the delicacy of the nymph-like flou dresses in the collection.
The dresses seemed to hark back to that personal Italianate aspect of Chiuri’s romanticism. Semi-transparent, pleated, and delicately crimped, some had been entirely hand-braided from strands of silk; the corsetry “woven like baskets”.
The poetry Chiuri sees in this is connected not just to the visual effect. “It’s a metaphorical thing, to say that we’re all connected,” she said.
