MIt could be mistaken for spring, but the sun setting over the Jardin des Tuileries is deceptive as a cold wind sweeps across the waiting crowd in front of the monumental white building that will host the first big spectacle of Paris Fashion Week. The appearance is also deceptive. One could mistake the cuboid with the wide staircase, on which Dior is written in huge golden letters, for masculine megalomania. But what will happen inside is almost entirely the work of women.
The first sits before the show on one of the comfortable upholstered benches at the edge of the catwalk. Joana Vasconcelos is an artist and has created a gigantic fabric installation that is emblazoned over the catwalk as an octopus-like structure with fantasy flowers. It bears the cryptic title “Valkyrie Miss Dior”. But what does a stately Valkyrie have to do with Miss Dior, an elegant French woman?
Don’t think about Wagner, Vasconcelos warns with a smile. But to the woman who was the model for the Miss Dior perfume: Catherine Dior, the little sister and muse of the couturier and a modern Valkyrie, as Vasconcelos says, because she fought in the Résistance during the German occupation, survived the Ravensbrück concentration camp and later devoted herself to flowers, first as a wholesaler, then as a breeder. A strong woman, says the Portuguese. “For me, part of that is that she was simultaneously sensitive and turned to something poetic like flowers after the horrific experiences.”
The new look of the fifties is being redefined
This polar opposite is reflected in the collection that Dior designer Maria Grazia Chiuri sent down the catwalk shortly afterwards. At first glance a feminine collection that redefines the new look of the fifties: narrow waists, wide skirts, flat shoulders. The floral motifs from back then have been digitally alienated. With soft fabrics, she takes the formality out of the dresses. In addition, Chiuri mixes masculine elements such as black pants, white shirts with ties, loose jackets and berets, the style of clothing that women in the Résistance wore because pleated skirts and blouses did not fight.
„We should all be feminists“ druckte Chiuri auf T-Shirts
For Chiuri, who was appointed to the fashion house in 2016 as the first female creative director and shortly thereafter set the motto of her work with the simple slogan “We should all be feminists” on shirts, Catherine Dior is one of those women who subverted stereotypical ways of thinking by her led a self-determined life. In many ways, she, who died in 2008 at the age of 90, was the more robust compared to her brother. Chiuri’s designs for next fall and winter are not only to be understood as feminist, but simply feminine, because they bring back the waist that had disappeared in the oversized theme of previous seasons.
Some women might like that. And, if it sells well, Delphine Arnault, who will sit next to Charlize Theron in the front row during the show. Recently, she has been running Dior – another strong woman in the Dior cosmos who is stepping out of the shadow of her father Bernard Arnault, head of the luxury group LVMH and again the second richest man in the world.