Chiuri graces feminism with a feminine touch
FEMINISM is all the rage on the catwalks. Dior’s show yesterday had a girl-power soundtrack and T-shirts emblazoned with the instruction that “We should all be feminists”.
Purists may shudder as fashion coopts another virtue-signalling cause while calling for already thin models to lose more weight. But Maria Grazia Chiuri is the first female designer at Dior in its 70-year history. If anyone’s entitled to question how feminism and femininity should look and sound at this most feminine of houses, it’s her.
Chiuri put sports clothes at the heart of this show, beginning with a series of white and black fencing jackets and skinny trousers in canvas and leather before metaphorically whipping off its helmet, loosening its hair and stepping out in a series of exquisitely embroidered, gauzy dresses.
But what to make of those stern fencing suits? Although Rihanna, in the front row, may climb into one for her next show, I thought Chiuri may have lost her audience at one point.
As the show progressed, however, the references became wider, softer and increasingly Dior-like. Make that Dior-lite, because the tulle ballet skirts and embroidered voile backs had a featherweight charm and delicacy that Dior has sometimes lacked.
The more you looked, the more there was to like: beautiful, understated saddle bags; dainty, kitten-heeled sling-backs with dressmaker-tape straps; chic, streamlined trainers.
Chiuri has clearly been looking both at the archives and at the ath-leisure that millions wear today. She earned her applause.