Dior Haute Couture Spring Summer 2022. Review by Eleonora de Gray, Editor-in-Chief of RUNWAY MAGAZINE.
Perhaps this is not a joyful time at the House of Dior. The collection is in black, navy, gray, and brown. Pale tones, no light and no hope. Simple lumpy dresses is an identity of Maria Grazia Chiuri, creative director of Dior’s women’s collections.
In press-release the collection described as 3-dimentional, arty and crafty. Well, not even close. These handmade crafts are invisible to the naked eye. She claimed it to be an avant-garde project. But again the shiluettes are very simple and casual. Nothing catches the eye. Dull in the words of Maria Grazia Chiuri became “quiet fashion” as she said in her interviews. It is not just “quiet”, it is ultra quiet, and ultra dull.
Press-release claims:
Embroidery becomes a three-dimensional conceptual act that reinvents the atelier’s techniques and elemental excellence; it progresses through a choreography of movements and is not merely a decorative detail. It gives fabric its structure, its architecture. The embroidery, which stands out from – and interacts with – the material, rendering it evanescent and prompting an interplay with the surrounding air, as seen in the contrasting of a long, all-over embroidered ecru skirt with a sheer silk organza shirt.
The tights, a signature of the collection, also derive their spectacular dimension from embroidery to establish a lively dialogue with different pieces, from a grisaille-bedecked grey suit to evening dresses that marry the finesse of embroidery with the lightness of tulle, through a series of draped leotards. Here is Maria Grazia Chiuri reasserting the syntax and grammar of the atelier, the purity of lines fundamentally celebrating the very role, the essence of couture: to dress the body.
Elsewhere, cashmere coats embrace the silhouette and sleek capes in resplendent white conceal jacket-and-pant ensembles. Pleated skirts billow under structured coats, while the silver lamé jacquard fabrics of dresses highlight each movement of the body.
These embroidered patterns, through which Dior’s heritage is reinterpreted, become the central element, and, following the rules of couture, are transformed by a vision that makes the atelier a collaborative mode of expression, where haute couture is a form of constant experimentation and questioning.
I looked very close, and I haven’t find any embroideries, nothing at all. But apparently this is where Dior House stands today. Although the backdrops especially prepared for the show were vivid colors.
Dior for Couture Spring Summer 2022 presented work of Madhvi and Manu Parekh, a couple of Indian artists. Their work differs from a formal point of view but is incredibly akin because of their common cultural roots and figurative tradition. The set is entirely created by the Indian Chanakya School of embroidery, alternating Madhvi’s embroidered works with those of Manu, adapted to an environmental dimension, creating a narrative suspended between myth and realism that unfolds along the set walls like a film.
And also today Dior released fabulous book about John Galliano from 1997-2007 with fabulous designs of great designer. This is not just different time of the Dior house. Two different worlds – talent and banality. This is existence and non-existence, High Fashion and class vs absence of taste and sense of style.
