Haute Couture Week in Paris has officially begun! It feels like a zillion designers have already shown, but the one I felt compelled to share here was Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Dior presentation – here’s the video, in all its’ mesmerizing glory, then, you may notice, I have just a few thoughts.
Want a crash course in what haute couture is? Check out this post.
First, the Set
Chiuri brought on the talents of American artist Judy Chicago, who had envisioned a massive public art project in 1977 celebrating creativity and womanhood. Until now, budget and scale had kept Chicago’s plans on paper. Chiuri, perenially invested in following and amplifying the feminist thread in fashion, brought Chicago on to create the runway set for the Dior Spring 2020 Couture presentation.
The idea was to explore feminine creativity outside of childbirth, which is so often framed as the epitome of female creative power. Chiuri (herself a mother) would argue that the bounds of women’s creativity extend far beyond reproduction, although the runway set-turned-art-piece would suggest that the womb is indeed the seat of our inspiration.
The runway structure itself, when viewed from above, depicted a reclining nude woman, and guests entered through, well, the only logical entrance south of her teeth. Not to mention the womb-like repeating circles down the catwalk, itself a mildly suggestive, warm pink color. With flowers.
Hand-embroidered banners hung over the onlookers with questions like, “would there be violence?” “would men and women be equal?” and “would the earth be protected?” all implicitly answering the question hovering at the head of the runway: “What if women ruled the world?”
Then, the Clothes
Chiuri takes us to the apex of western feminine ideas of power and creativity – the Roman goddesses (Chiuri is herself Roman, hence the emphasis on the Roman rather than Greek pantheon). She plays to great affect with iterations of peplos, the flowy, draped garments we all think of when we think of the goddesses of the ancient world.
In many ways, there is indeed power in her use of peplos. After all, few techniques can offer range of motion (read: freedom) without falling into the realms of traditionally masculine attire. Her draping and pleating achieve both: unapologetically feminine, but AND with what I call “eating room.”
What About Minerva?
Bridget Foley over at WWD notes that Chiuri failed to apply the gossamer folds and delicate gloss of her evening wear to the collection’s suiting. Who am I to disagree with a WWD reporter? No one, so I’ll do it it anyways: I humbly disagree.
Yes, there is a heaviness to metallic, thickly pleated or – incredibly – draped blazers and suit jackets. But here’s the thing – not all goddesses pranced around in filmy evening wear, ok Bridget? Minerva (Athena in the Greek pantheon and the goddess of wisdom, wartime strategy, and crafts, among other things) was born wearing full battle armor.
Armor is exactly the image evoked by so many of these pieces, especially the daywear. For so many of us, daytime is when we strategize, negotiate, employ our strongest alter-ego to move business along, to build our lives. Save the sumptuously flimsy, flowy flou for the evening, yes? So of course armor makes sense, armor in gorgeous, glimmering silvers golds, no less. Heavy? Yes. Bad? Nope.
The Pedestal Problem
Here’s where Chiuri’s latest offering to the feminist altar starts to curdle, at least for me: while we can all find ourselves in the faces and myths of goddesses, Chiuri isn’t actually saying anything new here. She isn’t saying anything against the status-quo, either. The idea of a sort of Feminine Exceptionalism has co-existed alongside of chauvinism for a long time, long before Friedman and The Feminine Mystique.
Of course, it’s true – and beautiful – that there is an element of divinity in all of us; the problem is that that concept has been weaponized as a springboard to pop women onto gilded pedestals. It is used to deny us the right to imperfection, to messiness, to anger, to impatience, to a variety of ways to be considered beautiful, to imply that women can’t be funny, and on, and on.
It would have been so easy to curb this problem, to make an at least somewhat courageous attempt at novelty (beyond having your guests enter through a vagina – I mean, brava!). How about taking those beautiful embroidered banners seriously, specifically the one reading, “would old women be revered?”
How about casting models of different ages, as opposed to the normal 18-24 crowd? Running with that idea, how about women of different sizes? Different types of beauty? Because if you’re going to commit to a goddess statement, make it a powerful one, one worthy of your audience.
The Dior Spring 2020 Couture show had so much potential, especially with Chicago on board. There is no denying that the clothes are exquisite, celestial, even. Unfortunately, Chiuri relied too much on old tropes to create a show that accurately reflects the hearts and minds of its subjects: us, the very mortal, at times divine, normal women.
love,
Stig
Sources: Vogue, The New York Times, The Guardian, and WWD
