Dior Fall 2022. Review by Eleonora de Gray, Editor-in-Chief of RUNWAY MAGAZINE.
This is supposed to be a New Year holiday collection under the romantic “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m yours” flag. But Maria Grazia Chiuri, creative director of Dior house, even here made it all dark and unyielding. Huge Dior stamp on a rough burlap jute, commonly known fabric for potato sac, characterized by a coarse, open weave, with lots of texture is the leitmotif of this collection. Oh yes, of course “natural” and “bio” one might think… and scratchy… very scratchy if used as a skirt. But somehow in her imagination the potato sac transformed into the “Coat of arms” of Dior family.
Maria Grazia Chiuri, so fond of peasant Italian looks, brought to us for this Holiday season another collection of her favorite looks, and this time from potato sacs. And somehow she imagined that the sister of Christian Dior, the founder of the house, Catherine should be associated with it. She went all intellectual in the far away past, losing herself in the imagination and the story of Christian Dior family she barely knows and doesn’t care about. Not Christian Dior, not his family can be associated with burlap jute, and a potato bag with a stamp on it can’t be, even in the worst nightmare be a “Coat of Arms” of Dior family.
Father of Christian Dior was a wealthy fertilizer manufacturer in Normandy, and he imagined his son would be a diplomat and have a political career. No potatoes, no jute involved. Fertilizer is a substance (mixture) used to make soil more fertile. FERTILE!!!! Maria Grazia Chiuri probably should have some for next season, it’s organic, and might boost her imagination and make it finally fertile, so she’ll be able to produce something extraordinary.
Dior Fall 2022 press-release
For Maria Grazia Chiuri, each collection represents visual poetry, a dialogue between the history of Dior and the ever-changing constellation that is the contemporary world. Justine Picardie’s book miss Dior: a story of courage and couture* retraces the life of Catherine, Christian Dior’s sister, and celebrates figures such as Mizza Bricard and Marguerite Carré who contributed to the success of monsieur Dior. A network of women, a true creative force in the Dior universe, that Maria Grazia Chiuri decided to honor by transforming the emblem found on the jute bags of the Dior family business into a heraldic motif that emblazons numerous pieces. It has become the symbol of a new sisterhood: that of the house of Dior, with the motto l’union fait la force (strength through unity). The rallying cry is brandished by the Dior Fall 2022 line, reaffirming the collaborative dimension at the heart of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s creative process.
This coat of arms underlines the major inspiration of the show: the use of the uniform revisited by monsieur Dior’s sophisticated interpretation, with its pleated jackets and skirts. While it can refer to personal sartorial choices that define one’s identity, the word “uniform” predominantly elicits notions of a group that erases differences. Maria Grazia Chiuri became interested in school outfits and, above all, in the way students dust off, revamp, and update the tropes of these garments, personalizing them with distinctive details, verging on punk overtones, before venturing through urban landscapes in search of spaces of freedom.
This Dior Fall 2022 collection thus offers a repertoire of perfect shapes with continuous digressions. It is composed of pleated skirts, black and white kilts; jackets that borrow from the men’s wardrobe, reinventing the iconic bar jacket; men’s long coats and ultra-short skirts; biker shorts matched with white blouses and black ties. Elsewhere, 3d embroidery reveals itself through knitwear, while a fantastic pixelated zodiac is rendered in the style of a video game. The materials favored include fabrics most associated with menswear, but also technical fabrics basking in a reflective Dior grey.
The silhouettes evoke strong concepts such as involvement, communion and sharing – central values for the female figures being paid tribute to, in parallel with the atelier’s petites mains, and their golden fingers that have woven Dior’s history.
