Who’s in? Who’s out? With front row chatter about designer changes at European houses reaching fever pitch, it can be hard to focus on what the fashion press is — theoretically — there for: the clothes.
Not for the first time, Maria Grazia Chiuri is a hot topic this season, amid speculation that she’s preparing to exit her post as creative director of womenswear at Dior. Over the years her name has repeatedly surfaced as a contender for the top post at Gucci, and as Paris Fashion Week kicked off, she was said to be in talks with Fendi.
Through it all, she has maintained a Stakhanovite work pace and brushed off the rumors like lint from a jacket. Her fall ready-to-wear show, however, spoke volumes.
Breaking with her tradition of working with fellow women creatives, Chiuri asked U.S. theater director and playwright Robert Wilson to create a performance in five acts to showcase her time-traveling collection — a timely reminder that the current game of designer musical chairs is but a blip in the landscape of fashion history.
While Wilson stuck to his signature minimalist scenography, with a starkly lit set punctuated with a swing, columns of smoke and levitating rocks, Chiuri’s collection oscillated between Baroque romance and Shakespearean drama.
The designer was inspired by Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando,” about a Renaissance poet who lives for centuries and changes sex from man to woman.
She thought of Wilson because he previously adapted the novel for the theater, and had apparently never worked on a fashion show — though guests with very long memories recalled a presentation he did with Giorgio Armani at the Pitti menswear trade show back in 1996.
“It’s really to reflect how much fashion helps you to perform,” Chiuri said in a preview at Dior headquarters.
Corsets and crinolines were two big trends to come out of the Paris couture shows in January, sparking debate about how relevant these historic styles are to 21st-century wardrobes. Chiuri made sure that the clothes in this confident collection never felt restrictive, thanks to modular constructions and lightweight materials.
Rifling through a rack, she pulled out a military-inspired velvet jacket to show how the embroidered corset panel in front could be zipped off. Ample trenchcoats in millefleurs motifs looked like brocade, but were in fact made from a crunchy nylon technical fabric.
“You need to look at the past and at the same time move into the future, to work on these references with different technologies, and also in a way that is playful and desirable,” she said. “All the work was done in a way that is very flexible, and you can create your identity.”
The look of the day might be a dandy highwayman in a red frock coat, ruffled shirt, pantaloons and trompe-l’oeil riding boots; a lady of the castle in a silvery embroidered column gown with a flyaway ruff collar; a Harajuku Goth in a mini crini and knee-high socks, or a leather outfit best described as “Hamlet goes motorbiking.”
Chiuri’s asymmetric layered pleated skirts and monastic wool felt coats, some trailing shredded ruffled collars, nodded to the historically tinged aesthetic of Japanese designers like Junya Watanabe or Yohji Yamamoto.
But her clearest influences were two of her predecessors at Dior: Gianfranco Ferré and John Galliano. While the latter overshadowed the former, she noted that Ferré played a key role in distilling brand codes such as the cannage motif and medallion chairs.
“He defined, in a synthesized way, the alphabet. He analyzed very well the work of Mr. Dior, in my opinion,” she said.
She echoed Ferré’s signature white shirts and use of brocades and crinolines. From Galliano, she borrowed vintage-style J’Adore slogan T-shirts that were trimmed with lace or layered under a corset in weathered velvet jacquard.
“They are actually part of fashion history, like Ferré’s white shirt, so it’s to play with the codes,” she said. “When you explore fashion, it’s not only about the historical pieces.”
The items that will eventually define Chiuri’s own heritage were sprinkled throughout this collection: a book tote here, an underwear-exposing black lace gown there and plenty of androgynous allure.
