Held in the heartbeat of Paris was Dior’s autumn-winter 2022 women’s ready-to-wear runway show in Jardin des Tuileries- Bassin de l’octogone. In true Dior fashion, themed The Next Era, the space was covered from top to bottom, left and right in burgundy adding a mysterious aura. And on all four walls were large black and white photographs of women with stacked eyes, wrapped in a golden frame. For the French house, it was a collection that incorporates the present and the future, brining simultaneity and synchronicity.
With a lot to take in terms of the designs, cuts, fabrics, and detailing it leaves something for everyone. In attendance were American actresses Yara Shahidi, Ana Taylor Joy, and multi-award-winning singer Rihanna. The iconic Dior Bar jacket was done in black and matched with a black pleated skirt- and was also done in gray. According to notes from the house the jacket, “was revisited by the Creative Director [Maria Grazia Chiuri] for this collection, transforming the structure of the original model into a system that regulates the body’s humidity and warms it.” This design technology was done by D-Air lab, an Italian start-up founded by Lino Dainese in 2015, but it’s Silvia Dainese, an architect that led the special project for Dior for D-Air Lab.
A trench coat included embroidered silver designs on the back. Poncho inspired long coats are eye catching. As you look at the collection, it’s clear that the Chiuri has tapped into house codes, “revealing an extraordinary construction system” of Monsieur Dior’s garments.
The skirts in the collection are redone in fabrics borrowed from the men’s side of the House, like grisaille. Chiuri incorporated embroidery on technical knitwear, waterproof materials, Nylon and cashmere. Pieces in the collection were designed to be worn in combination or alone, evoking a versatile and sustainable way of wearing fashion. And the Roger Vivier for Dior pump is reimagined with embroidery.
The Next Era was imagined by Italian artist Mariella Bettineschi, who conceptualized a gallery of paintings of large-scale portraits of women from the 16th to the 19th centuries in an art instillation. “Their cut up, stacked eyes question the judgement that has conditioned- and still conditions- women past and present. All of this tie in Chiuri’s fashion designer concepts, “notably (re)contructing a performative relationship between the body and the garment in a technical, aesthetic perspective, in a succession of operations associating forms, savoir-faire, materials and futuristic technologies.”
With this collection Chiuri is able to look back at history while looking forward to create the un-invented with the lines of tomorrow.
