Joséphine Baker, African-American singer, dancer who arrived from America in the mid-1920s in cosmopolitan and worldly Paris, destination and mirage for artists, writers, tailors, on the run or in search of something, is the guiding character who inspired the new high fashion collection for Dior spring/summer 2023, designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri.
For the creative director of the French maison, each haute couture collection is an exploration of that imaginative complexity of a dress built for a body.
The couture dress is a prosthesis that becomes a body.
Dressed body.
Home body.
manifest body.
A glamorous icon, Baker embodies the modernity of those years, beyond stereotypes and prejudices in that mix of cultures and shared experiences that animated the frenetic and crazy world of cabaret.
Naturalized French, acclaimed in Europe, in the post-war period she trod the scenes of the Strand Theater and Carnegie Hall in New York, wearing French fashion, including Dior, to claim charisma and success.
The images of Baker, stylized energy, a sort of vestimental biography (dancer, performer, member of the French resistance, activist for the civil rights of African Americans, humanist and benefactress), become a trace to follow in the creation and construction of the garments.
The collection.
The comfort and intimacy of that situation of passage towards the stage which is the dressing room,
they are evoked by a series of coats modeled on that dressing gown that conceals and protects.
In light, crumpled and nervous velvet, or lined in matelassé.
They open on light petticoats, on an underwear, the protagonist, in powdery black satin, a contemporary interpretation of Fifties costumes.
Dresses that slip on the body and caress it.
They are in silk, they are in velvet, many with that creased effect, with a syncopated rhythm, which makes the fabric vital.
Wide trousers like the georgette tunics.
The embroideries are minute.
Very small silver studs, tiny sequins, become expanses that absorb the stage lights to reflect them on the audience.
Fringes degrading in silver and gold accompany and enhance the choreography of body movements.
Suits have sculpted Bar jackets that highlight the waist.
The coats are in men's fabrics dear to Monsieur Dior.
The length always above the ankle reveals shoes with a prominent heel and base.
The colors are neutral, black, gray, beige, interrupted by the final interventions of three dresses in smooth velvet in shades of dark brown, acid green and purple.
The set-up of African-American artist Mickalene Thomas' show highlights those black and mixed-ethnic female figures, such as Joséphine Baker, who have become role models,
breaking racial barriers, going against the tide, and reveals the deepest meaning of this collection.
The perspective of couture garments changes, the essence of fashion which can become a radical gesture of awareness of one's own value, of one's strength.