Couture
architecture

While each collection represents a new way for Maria Grazia Chiuri to explore clothing’s role, the Dior Autumn-Winter 2023-2024 women’s ready-to-wear line is open territory for original textile experimentation. By Mathilda Panigada.

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“I think of my
work as ephemeral architecture, dedicated to the beauty of the female body.”

– Christian Dior

Deconstructing means reconstructing, reinventing. For the Dior autumn-winter 2023-2024 women’s ready-to-wear show, the Creative Director celebrated the House’s heritage from a new perspective, by imagining a neo-Parisian wardrobe from the 1950s infused with infinite modernity. That vision translates into the use of novel, almost hybrid fabrics that revisit the technique of warp prints. Dating back to the eighteenth century, this process is as precious as it is exacting, and consists of affixing a motif to warp threads before weaving, resulting in a unique, delicately blurred, almost striated rendering of the design. From the mid-twentieth century onwards, these chinés à la branche flourished on House creations, embellishing dresses and coats with enchanting floral and Japanese-inspired themes.

Embodying rigorous research and reinterpretation of the House archives, the looks are informed by collections from decades past. Bucolic sketches for the Singerie coat, created for the autumn-winter 1957 haute couture show, or the Mois de Mai (spring-summer 1957) and Aubade (spring-summer 1958) dresses, constellated sumptuous evening gowns in a palette of ruby, emerald, topaz yellow and blue. Leopard – first unveiled with the consecration of the New Look, on February 12^th, 1947 – elevates body-con dresses that follow the shape of feminine curves. Timeless houndstooth, typically used to give a garment an architectural effect, is revealed in a softened version, adorning blouses with small, puffed sleeves, or pleated skirts. The hallmark of beautiful (and slightly rebellious) femininity, black reveals all its subtlety of tone in a series that renews the moiré technique thanks to threads of stainless steel that magnify fabric with hypnotic, undulating reflections.

“Like sap, the creative idea now circulates throughout the entire House. It reaches the apprentices and the seamstresses;
soon the fingers that work on the toiles – the fingers that prick themselves on a needle or hesitate over a seam – are fashioning the styles of tomorrow.”

Conference written by Christian Dior for the Sorbonne, 1955-1957

Obscuring the lines between heritage and innovation, Maria Grazia Chiuri’s goal for this collection was to revive craft with avant-garde savoir-faire that incorporates metallic threads directly into the weave. “My idea was to interpret traditional couture fabrics in a more contemporary way,” Maria Grazia Chiuri notes. After the application of a first motif, the weft thread is re-cut and partially removed to retain a light structure, meticulously interwoven with extremely fine threads in stainless steel. This combination lends the material a singular texture, making it modular and almost alive, allowing for daring plays of volume.

When transposed into strapless or off-the-shoulder dresses, straight or “corolla” skirts, such metamorphic textiles seem to blur the clean lines of the Dior silhouette. “This type of material allows the garment to be modelled on the body,” the Creative Director explains. “It’s no longer that defined Dior line, but a softer line that changes and evolves depending on the person wearing the garment and how they want to wear it.”

A celebration of craftsmanship and the excellence in the Ateliers, which always push the limits of inventiveness.

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