The latest lifestyle, fashion and travel trends
Dior staged one of the first in-person events of Paris Fashion Week today, with a physical runway show that was also livestreamed on TikTok.
Located in the Jardin des Tuilieres in Paris, the show was attended by a reduced guest list of celebrities, with Natalia Vodianova, Christine and the Queens, Maisie Williams, Christian Louboutin and Ellen von Unwerth all seated front row.
Six immense light boxes, each seven metres high, mimicking the sacred stained-glass windows of Gothic cathedrals punctuated the vast and dimly lit show venue. The 24 contemporary stained-glass windows were created in collaboration with visual artist Lucia Marcucci, and composed of a collage of images taken from magazines focussing on important works in Art History – from Giotto to Piero della Francesca, Georges de La Tour and Claude Monet.
Collage also featured heavily throughout the collection, with patchwork lace-embellished paisley and floral scarves quilted onto dresses and trousers. A WFH-friendly fluidity reigned supreme through silk chiffon long dresses in shades of light, matte blue, deep ochre and pale orange and smocked, dropped waists which gave movement.
Dior’s famous “new look” of 1947 also provided inspiration, with Maria Grazia Chiuri transforming the Dior silhouette to respect its radical heritage. In 1957, Mr Dior created two new coat silhouettes for the Dior AW 1957 collection for Japan, which had more volume, simplicity of shape than the bar jacket. Chiuri has drawn inspiration from the coats to create bar jackets with a more simple structure for the SS21 collection, but has added laces at the sides so the wearer can adapt how they wear the jackets.
When it came to tailoring, Chiuri drew inspiration from a series of female poets, intellectuals and authors, from Virginia Woolf’s colourful layering to Susan Sontag’s crisp white shirts.
Dior is the first major brand to show on the Paris Fashion Week schedule, with further physical shows set to come over the next few days from the likes of Balmain, Chloe, Isabel Marant and Gabriella Hearst. Dior is one of the first of several brands including the likes of Saint Laurent, JW Anderson, and Louis Vuitton that will utilize TikTok to livestream their runway shows.
