Modern classics
Mickalene Thomas brings her painterly touch to iconic Dior designs
‘A fashion designer is still an artist, they’re just using different materials,’ says the painter, photographer and collagist Mickalene Thomas. Known for creating vivacious multimedia artworks that tell an empowering story of black female beauty and sexuality, the New Yorkbased, African-American artist recently made her first major foray into fashion, collaborating with Dior on a set of pieces for its Cruise 2020 collection. ‘Mickalene is a daring, strong and very talented artist,’ says Dior’s artistic director Maria Grazia Chiuri, who invited Thomas to reinterpret the house’s classic New Look skirt, Bar jacket and Lady Dior bag in her dynamic style. ‘Her artistic language is captivating, challenging social norms and ideals of canonical female beauty.’
Thomas takes her cue from the great masters of art history, blending subtle allusions to their work with elements of AfricanAmerican culture. For Dior, she drew inspiration from the time she spent at Claude Monet’s estate in Giverny, using intricate embroidery, small squares of patchwork, Murano-glass beading and delicate organza to create an impressionistic design for the jacket, which features softly sloping shoulders and a voluminous, petal-like peplum. She paired this with her iridescent printed skirt at the Cruise show, held in the spectacular surroundings of Marrakesh’s historic El Badi Palace.
The collection championed a cultural exchange between panAfrican craftmanship and Dior’s own artisanal heritage; a meeting of ideas as well as a celebration. ‘You have to cast the net a little wider than what is already at your fingertips,’ says Thomas of the open-minded outlook she shares with Chiuri. ‘To do that is to look at the world around you and ask, “Who hasn’t been included? What conversations haven’t we had?”’ Now that the pair have opened up a dialogue, the creative possibilities are endless. www.mickalenethomas.com