Dior’s rebel girls
Designer Maria Grazia Chiuri presents her take on feminism by tapping into the Teddy Girls of 1950s Britain
Apart from clothes, bags and shoes, people want to know that behind objects there are values in which they believe. Maria Grazia Chiuri
DIOR went back to the feisty Teddy Girls of 1950s Britain for its vision of a feminist future in its Paris fashion week show. With black leather jackets, long nipped-waist Dior “New Look” skirts with leather cumberbunds and tartan a-go-go, designer Maria Grazia Chiuri raided the wardrobes of the rebel girls of the early days of rock ‘n’ roll.
The original royal rebel Princess Margaret — a Dior addict — and the proudly proletarian Teddy Girls who were the “queens of the ravaged landscape” of postwar Britain were the two pillars of the Italian creator’s collection. She took some of the most feminine clothes of the epoch -kitten heels with black socks, shiny bucket hats and tight woollen sweaters — and mixed them with more masculine and sportswear pieces.
Chiuri has been on something of a crusade during her time at the most feminine of French labels to make its famously chic clothes simple and adaptable enough for everyday wear.
And you could easily imagine women wearing trainers under even the most intricate of dresses in this collection. The Teddy Girls were the punks of their time, “impertinent characters with wild quiffs who wore Edwardian-style men’s jackets with ample skirts, jeans and black leather jackets”, the designer said.
“London always represents tradition and at the same time, the breaking with tradition,” said Chiuri.
FEMINIST NOD
The show was a long love letter to the iconoclasm of British style, and comes as a exhibition about Dior at the V&A museum in London has become a sold-out hit. “I tried to create pieces in this collection in which everyone can express themselves in their own way by using different combinations while respecting the codes of the brand,” Chiuri said.
Since her debut collection in 2017 — when she made headlines with her “We Should All Be Feminists” T-shirt — Dior’s first female designer has put down a ladder to women artists and writers.This time she lionised the veteran Italian artist Tomaso Binga, who took a male name to satirise male privilege.
One of her most iconic works, an alphabet formed from the naked body of a middle-aged woman, was the backdrop for the show in a huge pavilion in the grounds of the Rodin Museum in Paris.
With Hollywood star and #MeToo activist Jennifer Lawrence in the front row, the 87-year-old artist Binga (whose real name is Bianca Menna) dressed up like a kind of cardinal to read a stirring declaration urging female solidarity before Chiuri sent out her models.
In another feminist nod, three wore T-shirts bearing the titles of books by the American feminist thinker Robin Morgan — Sisterhood is Powerful, Sisterhood is Global and Sisterhood is Forever. “Today fashion and the act of buying is a political act,” added Chiuri.
“Apart from clothes, bags and shoes, people want to know that behind objects there are values in which they believe.”