Maria Grazia Chiuri, creative director at the helm of Dior, has long been a herald of empowerment. Her collections stand as living, breathing entities, daring you to heed the suffragette whispers nestled within the fold of every fringe, every cascading lace. She has long married empowerment within Dior’s realm. We’ve experienced it in The Female Divine showcase for Dior’s Haute Couture S/S 2020 show, and embraced it through the homage of Frida Kahlo’s legacy in Dior Cruise 2024. Now, it renews its expression and unfolds anew in the latest S/S 2024 ready-to-wear collection, with a nod to Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own.
Captured by the lens of renowned American photographer Tina Barney, the collection is immortalised by an oddly unearthly campaign video. Ethereal music sweeps through the scene, creating an atmosphere that is both eerie and calming. Cinematic shots capture models in choreographed tableaus, moving through different spaces, subtly described by Dior as “rooms of one’s own” – an implicit allusion to Virginia Woolf’s essay. This homage transcends physical environments, embracing the broader concept of women asserting their creative independence and breaking free from societal confines. Each frame captures the models navigating symbolic spaces, embodying the liberating spirit of autonomy and personal expression, echoing Woolf’s profound sentiments on women’s freedom in creative pursuits.
Both vision and garments position fashion as a robust tool for self-assertion and the multi-faceted expressions of femininity. Such a declaration is strikingly manifested through an audacious collection that bridges opposites, bonding refinement and simplicity into a diverse yet singular expression. Architectural cuts delicately fray jackets and skirts, poetically sketching and sculpting the body in motion. In a nod to historical elegance, the Abandon dress – designed by Christian Dior for the Fall/Winter 1948 Haute Couture line – undergoes a reimagination of contemporary expression by shirts with asymmetrical necklines.
The accessories donning the collection tie together the thematic elements as they mirror that same sense of assertion. We get to see the reinterpreted Dior Toujours bag in a new crinkled leather, featuring the iconic macrocannage motif. The Diorebel lace-up boots are enriched with virtuoso embroidery, and the Adiorable pumps are larger-than-life with white resin beads and straps enveloping the ankle and lower leg up to the knee.
