Miss Dior with her Sixties glamor parades in Paris on the Dior catwalk for Fashion Week.
Photo story The elegance of Dior in the Paris fashion show /THE PHOTOS - Photos - Ansa.it
The inspiration for the new ready-to-wear collection for Autumn/Winter 2024/25, as the designer Maria Grazia Chiuri points out, was a female figure linked to the Dior maison for 20 years.
This is Gabriella Crespi, Italian designer and sculptor, born in 1922, who during her long career (she died in 2017) produced over two thousand pieces.
Her working methods were reminiscent of those of Renaissance workshops, as they combined craftsmanship and an artistic approach.
Her designer pieces have been appreciated by the likes of King Faisal, Shah Reza Pahlavi, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Gunter Sachs.
Her glamorous style did not go unnoticed by Dior, with whom she collaborated in the 1960s, creating a line of home and gift items.
The bond between Crespi and Dior lasted almost twenty years.
Her world takes us back to the end of the 60s.
Back then, her objects decorated the maison's boutiques, as Gabriella was the muse of artistic director Marc Bohan.
That is the period in which Dior embraced ready-to-wear, launching the Miss Dior line, opening up to the world and to all women, now the protagonists of a great change.
The collection evokes silhouettes and materials from the 1960s, a period in which the opening of the Miss Dior boutique in Paris introduced a new way of dressing for women.
The fashion house's iconic mini suits are then on show, complete with pouch jackets and minimal skirts or trousers.
Also and above all the very short A-line dresses and skirts, which once again transform into a symbol of freedom, since their silhouette does not limit movement, belong to that period.
And the writing "Miss Dior" is imprinted and embroidered on the 72 items of the collection like a poster.
In the background, an installation featuring nine works by the Indian artist Shakuntala Kulkarni, who reflects on the female body and the relationship with spaces, with a series of mannequins with bamboo armor. "I was particularly fascinated by these armor - she writes on Instagram the director of Dior Maria Grazia Chiuri at the end of the show - defend the female body while caging it, hindering its freedom".
The research that Kulkarni has been carrying out since the early 2000s is based on the themes of power and vulnerability.
The creation of armor for women is intended to protect the body from the social and patriarchal constraints intrinsic to the traditional social and domestic system.
At the end, group photos on Instagram and thanks from Chiuri to the 72 models who paraded with the clothes designed by her, one for each outfit.
Reproduction reserved © Copyright ANSA