DIOR: THE FAMILY BUSINESS
Maria Grazia Chiuri is one of the most successful designers of her generation, transforming every fashion house she touches. But behind the scenes, the artistic director of Dior has a secret weapon… her daughter, Rachele Regini
Maria Grazia Chiuri has reinvented Dior for a whole new generation. And now she’s brought her powerhouse daughter on board. ELLE meets them to find out more
INTERVIEWING ANYONE AT THE APEX OF THEIR CAREER IS an unpredictable thing. Egos have either exploded or diminished, while demeanours settle into the grand and studied or unselfconsciously low-key. Meeting Dior’s creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri therefore comes with some trepidation. She is, after all, one of the most successful designers of her generation; an individual who has transformed every fashion house she has set her sights on – Dior being no exception. It is with some relief, then, to discover that the 57-year old Italian artistic director of the French fashion house falls into the latter camp: a warm, laid-back woman who wears her success as lightly as the white shirt on her back.
It is a bright spring morning when we talk (virtually, via Zoom), and her trademark kohled eyes peer softly into the computer camera. She is just weeks away from Dior’s Cruise 2022 show – a collection of 91 astonishing looks that go on to make gushing headlines around the world – yet appears totally relaxed.
Of course, she is a pro at this now, having spent a decade at Fendi, as well as 17 years at Valentino, the final eight of which were spent as co-creative director alongside Pierpaolo Piccioli. She knows the rhythms of the fashion business intimately. She understands its whims and demands. She can design an entire collection within a matter of months and has an almost magical ability to create desire in the modern woman, evidenced by her non-stop hit factory that includes the Fendi Baguette bag and Valentino’s Rockstud accessories, as well as
Dior’s book totes, stompy boots and bucket hats. Chiuri has nothing more to prove.
‘I don’t need to demonstrate something about my job to myself,’ she confirms in her charming Roman-accented English. ‘I have enough confidence [to know] that I am good at making beautiful dresses, beautiful shoes, beautiful bags. Now, at my age, I need to move a vision.’
“She has an almost magical ability to create desire in the MODERN WOMAN”
That vision means putting Dior and the clothes it sells at the centre of the cultural conversation, particularly among a younger generation. You may be aware of her first collection, for the spring/summer 2017 show, which featured a T-shirt with the words ‘We Should All Be Feminists’ emblazoned across the chest. It was a line borrowed from author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s essay of the same name. And, despite the garment costing £490 a piece (a percentage of which went to charity), it sold out almost instantly.
Making a statement on the catwalk was not a one-off, either. She did it again for Cruise 2020, shown in Morocco, for which Chiuri worked with artists from Africa to create the collection. And then she did it all over again with Cruise 2021, which served as both love letter and clarion call to the craftspeople of the Italian region of Puglia and beyond.
But dialogue, particularly about some of the world’s hot-button issues, is not always welcome, especially in a world that is prone to cancellation and trial by social media. As such, Chiuri walks a tightrope every time she brings her vision to the catwalk. (And, make no mistake, every brush with political dialogue sends social media into hysteria.) Help in navigating this brave new world has come in an unlikely form: her 24-year old daughter Rachele Regini, a striking, raven-haired former student at Goldsmiths, University of London, who today works with her mother at Dior’s Paris office. In 2019, she was appointed the company’s cultural advisor – a curious sounding job, the main purpose of which was to help
Chiuri develop her collections with artisans and communities around the world. Listening to them together, however, when Regini joins our call, their words overlapping one another’s, it is clear that her role is more wide-reaching. She constantly edges her mother towards trickier conversation points. She seems to be muse, counsel and cultural weathervane to her mother.
‘At first when she said, “Come and work with me,”
I was a bit unsure,’ Regini admits. She had just completed a masters degree in gender, media and culture and was all set on studying for a PhD in gender studies when her mother came calling. ‘Working with a parent, particularly when your parent is also your boss and a successful person in your field… that does bring some personal shifts, particularly for us as a mother and daughter.’
Those personal shifts were explored in therapy sessions that, Regini confides, the two embarked on before she officially joined Dior. To this day, they continue to see a therapist together to help navigate this new chapter in their relationship. ‘Once in a while, if I do something wrong, or if she gets mad, she says, “I can’t talk about this until we get to therapy.” Then I know it’s bad!’ laughs Regini.
So far it’s working, though whether that’s due to therapy or just Regini’s innate ability to navigate the complex dynamics that inevitably come with her role is unclear. One gets the sense that, either way, it’s a constant process.
Rachele says many at
Dior were already aware of the role she played as her mother’s unofficial advisor. ‘Everyone around me was saying, ‘You’re finally here!” But it was more about my perception of what I was doing. Part of me is always going to question whether I’m good [at my job] or if I’m here because I’m your daughter,’ she says, looking towards Chiuri. ‘So I had to resolve that issue before getting here. Now, though, I don’t question it anymore. I don’t need to rely on that insecurity.’
“Working with a parent who is also your boss does bring some PERSONAL SHIFTS ”
There is another reason why Regini makes a qualified right-hand woman to her mother. The two have a history of struggle and rebellion, the nadir of which appears to have taken place while Regini was studying at Goldsmith’s, a university steeped in political activism. ‘Around that time I was really against everything my mum was working on. I didn’t agree with anything she did. I thought fashion was an awful industry, a symbol of capitalism, and contributed to making women feel wrong and dissatisfied.’ This went on, she says, for four long years.
‘Honestly, Rachele started to rebel about fashion and the system,’ says Chiuri. ‘So too did my son, Niccolò, but with a different argument. I think it’s normal and I think it’s right. I appreciate that they fight for what they want to see. But at the same time, it’s difficult to explain to them that if you want change, you can’t only be against it. You have to work in a way to change it – day by day and from the inside.’
Regini describes the period as ‘an interesting phase’, admitting that politics was not the only motivator for her rebellion. ‘It was a bit more complicated. My refusal of the system you were working in was subconsciously a refusal to be your daughter,’ she says, turning towards Chiuri. ‘I wanted to rebel against the feeling of always being your daughter. It was personal, and also not personal.’
Mother-daughter conflict aside, the two appear to have reached a perfect middle ground. Bringing Regini into the very system she once despised has allowed Chiuri to understand the language and concerns of a whole new generation. And Rachele has been given a ringside seat to witness firsthand how compromise and concession work within a billion dollar industry.
I ask Chiuri about the furore around her feminist T-shirts, whose eye-watering price tag made many question whether Dior was in fact profiteering from the social activism it purported to support. She looks me square in the eye and, as though eager to demonstrate the complex behind-the-scenes machinations that take place in an industry as famously rigid and hierarchical as fashion, explains what happened.
‘I fought to make these T-shirts inside the company,’ she explains. ‘The company didn’t want to sell a T-shirt because Dior is a couture brand, so for them to make a T-shirt was like making streetwear. If I had to explain to people what had happened, they would think it was crazy. People think I made the T-shirt because it was very sellable but, honestly, my senior at the time did not want to make [it] because he thought it was not… luxury. I think people do not understand the reality of what is inside the fashion industry. Dior’s idea of luxury is very far from a T-shirt. They want allure.’
The T-shirt, then, became a line in the sand. A way for the luxury world to come down from its pedestal and have a ground-level conversation with a whole new consumer.
“If you want change, you have to work to change it FROM THE INSIDE ”
“I was ready to STOP after Valentino. I thought, I can do other things now”
In the end, they compromised. Dior would create a limited number of T-shirts, with some of the proceeds going to charity. Chiuri had not exactly won the fight, but shook hands in the middle of the ring. ‘This is about how to work with compromise,’ she says. And compromise is what she has masterfully done at the fashion house, managing to create a brand that speaks to both couture clients and Generation Z, wielding their sloganeering T-shirts. (Dior went on to produce a second range of T-shirts, this time with words borrowed from the poet, writer and feminist activist Robin Morgan). Chiuri has created a brand that makes space for those wanting the dream – organza tulle skirts and silk Grecian-inspired gowns – as well as those wanting something more grounded in reality (denim jumpsuits and yes, whisper it, Dior trainers). But, more than that, with help from Regini, she has made Dior a brand that appears to care deeply. Whenever Chiuri shows outside Paris (alongside Morocco and Italy, her Resort collections have graced catwalks in California, Oxfordshire and the south of France), she commits to using local craftspeople to make the clothes, creating a lifeline for many artisans and their trades.
Last year, Dior announced a partnership with UNESCO to mentor young women from disadvantaged backgrounds, building on the Women@Dior initiative that has seen more than 1,000 female students be mentored by Dior employees. (Interestingly, since arriving at the house, Chiuri has also requested that she is shot only by women photographers, including this shoot.)
‘I’m not sure if many people know this, but I was ready to stop after Valentino,’ she says. ‘I thought, OK, this is done. I can do other things in my life now.’ Regini remembers the time well. ‘When she wanted to stop, honestly she was in a bad state. I could see she was exhausted and I was like, “If you have to be like this then, please, stop.”’
But then Chiuri got the call from Dior. She was sitting in the courtyard of the Hotel Costes in Paris when her phone rang. She turned to her daughter and said, ‘I think it’s Dior.’ Regini told her to answer it… And to go to Dior.
If she hadn’t taken that call. If she hadn’t listened to her daughter. If she wasn’t at that point in her life where her focus was ready to move beyond the fringes of fashion… Who knows what would have happened?
As our time draws to an end, I ask her what’s next.
After all, what could be bigger than this? There’s a silence. ‘We have a project,’ she says, smiling at Regini. It’s a small theatre. We [want] to try to renovate it. It’s very nice, but very old. We would like to work in the space with other artists to make something in a community way.
I think after working on something so big, it’s nice to come back to something small, something familiar; something human-sized.’