Sportswear Couture by Christian Dior
Inspired by the upcoming Olympic Games, Maria Grazia Chiuri imagines a collection that pays tribute to all those female athletes who, from Antiquity to the present day, have overcome prejudices and obstacles to have an equal place in sporting competitions, but also to have the athletic dignity of their body recognized in competition.
The artistic director of the House of Dior , Maria Grazia Chiuri , thus returns to this first clothing form which is dear to her which is the peplos, absolute and ductile at the same time. It is within the perimeter of a political freedom won by the body that this new Christian Dior Couture collection operates. An idea where Couture is capable of shaping bodies and being shaped by them. Chiuri then decides to use a material that does not belong to Couture, like jersey which caresses the body, like a metallic mesh of gold, silver, white.
Pleats recur in many pieces in this collection: they are sewn or opened to follow movements. Together, the drapes, a visual reference to classical statuary, permeate the collection in the shiny black silk velvet dresses, in the moiré jacquard skirts transformed by time, in these suits where the pants are revealed in the approach of the skirt draped. Or, as in goddess dresses, stopped on one shoulder, it reveals transparent metallic tank tops edged with satin. The sports suit is, in a Couture idea, covered with gold leaf or studded with micro-sequins. Red, “color of life” according to Christian Dior , enhances the runway. While the bathrobe, embroidered with mirror mosaics, transgresses its function.
This collection represents for Chiuri an extraordinary opportunity to interweave Couture, sportswear, classicism, rebellion, collective energy, but above all the political value of the female body. Affirming the experimental and at the same time reflexive power of the research which defines the actions of Haute Couture , and its capacity to rethink the forms of a feminine that is both delicate and powerful.
