Maria Grazia Chiuri had 164 trees for the Dior show at the Paris Hippodrome de Longchamp. Elaborate show scenes as a guarantee for attention are not uncommon in fashion, but Chiuri had considered another level of meaning: The Defilee should be a comment on the climate crisis, the trees are now, in collaboration with the environmental collective Atelier Coloco, in and planted around the French capital. For the first time, the forest in miniature served as the background for the new spring collection - and as a media-effective statement for its own efforts.
Sustainability and fair production conditions are becoming more and more important for customers in the fashion industry. Chiuri knows that, too. The focus on nature not only shaped the set, but also the look of the collection.
The starting point was Christian Diors preference for flowers - the founder of the fashion house once compared the shape of his clothes with flowers. His successors also cultivated the tradition; Raf Simons, for example, showed his first haute couture collection in 2012 in rooms completely covered with flowers. Chirui took the issue more pragmatically: Flowers, that does not mean silhouettes or wall decorations, but flowers. Floor-length dresses were printed or embroidered with plant motifs, and a playsuit was made from colorful lace in floral patterns. This was followed by a knee-length jacket that reminded of thickets with its thick feathers, inside dark green camouflage pattern.
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Spring / Summer 2020: Dior on forest walkNot only in the approach did Chirui remain true to her monothematic handwriting. Even the slender silhouettes were continuations of the aesthetics that she has established over the past three years as creative director of the fashion house. Skirts were in the waist, clothes flowed around the body. Even the somewhat stiffer Bar Jacket - a classic by Dior - gave Chiuri a refreshingly playful touch. Always the pieces are especially suitable for everyday use, the clothes should not only look nice, but also just as can be worn on the catwalk.
Chiuri knows how to create covetous products
This endeavor is sometimes not metaphorical and theatrical enough for the international trade press, consumers are even more convinced by the directness of the Italian woman. The industry service "Business of Fashion" reported that Dior's sales had increased by 26 percent this year to 3.2 billion euros. Chiuri knows how to create covetous products that have a message to them - and they are particularly successful when the message is simply printed on the front, in letters or pictures.
Her customers are now accustomed to consuming clothes mainly two-dimensionally. And on Instagram or on the computer screen, crisp slogans are better than difficult to understand designs. In 2016 she proclaimed in her first collection for Dior: "We should all be feminists." A year later, a striped pullover asked "Why have not there been any great women artists?" - an allusion to the eponymous essay by the US art historian Linda Nochlin.
Although there were no sayings this season, enough of everything else. Overall, Chiuri featured 89 looks made up of several products - items that are all manufactured, transported, and ideally sold, so as not to end up as remnants. It is important for Maria Grazia Chiuri, one of the most influential designers, to signal the contribution of the fashion industry to climate change. Nevertheless, the result of their walk in the forest is an ecological footprint, which alone 164 trees can not outweigh.
