Dior opened Paris Fashion Week at Jardin des Tuileries on February 27 with an homage to the house’s pioneering feminist spirit and the genesis of ready-to-wear clothing. The show’s livestream, held at 10pm Beijing time, attracted a big audience in China, resulting in 126 million views during the livestream period alone.
The maison ranked No. 1 throughout 2023 on Re-Hub’s Compass China Luxury Index, which measures user engagement across Chinese social media platforms. The historic French maison’s sophisticated approach to storytelling appears to have followers in its thrall. From Apple TV+’s hit drama The New Look, and recent runways that don’t shy away from social and political commentary, to global exhibitions and forums, Dior is driving engagement well beyond fashion circles.
Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Fall/Winter 24-25 womenswear show enriched the conversation.
Reviving Miss Dior: A manifesto of women’s creativity and freedom#
For her latest collection, Chiuri looked to 1967, the year that Dior, under the direction of Marc Bohan, became the first Parisian haute couture house to diversify into ready-to-wear designer fashion, enabling a broader audience of women to freely choose suitable styles.
The lives of career women in the 1960s and the requirements of mass factory production ushered in new silhouettes, tailoring, and fabrics. Extending beyond the atelier, a new generation of boutiques was named Miss Dior after Christian Dior’s sister, French resistance fighter Catherine Dior.
In a trippy parallel, actor Maisie Williams, who plays Catherine Dior in the TV drama The New Look, was front row at the show on Tuesday.
Also at the show were Dior ambassadors from China, Lang Lang and Liu Yuxin. Dior’s Chinese ambassadors represent a diversity of backgrounds and Chinese pianist Lang Lang is the most recent addition to the group, which also includes singer Jay Chou, singer/dancer Liu Yuxin, and F1 driver Zhou Guanyu.
Chiuri explored multiple Miss Dior touchpoints and took inspiration from glamorous avant-garde Italian furniture designer Gabriella Crespi, who was commissioned to design the original Miss Dior stores.
Slouchy pants and jackets, free-flowing A-line dresses, and skirts cut above the knee were revealed in a monochromatic and tan color palette, with the occasional flourish of fringe or beading embellishments. A hand-drawn “Miss Dior” archival logo from 1967 was revived as a manifesto-signature, emblazoned across coats, suits, and handbags.
Dior’s evolving feminist messaging#
Following on from the 1950s-inspired “sombre yet sexy” Fall/Winter 23 collection and Spring/Summer 2024’s powerful anti-sexism and anti-capitalism themes, the new collection takes a feminist stance but with a notably less severe aesthetic. The looks are refined and relaxed, imbued with the sense of freedom and versatile femininity pioneered by Dior’s ready-to-wear revolution.
Models paraded around a striking installation of ornate cane sculptures and large-scale canvases by Indian artist Shakuntala Kulkarni. Through her art, such as the piece titled Of Bodies, Armour and Cages on display at the show, Kulkarni explores the relationship between the female body and urban public and private spaces.
Like the fabric-wrapped installationValkyrie Miss Dior by Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos that lorded over Dior’s Fall/Winter 2023 womenswear show in Paris and later in Shenzhen, Chiuri’s collaborations with female artists across different cultures add a dramatic and thought-provoking lens to her runway shows.
Storytelling on a monumental scale #
Just as Dior’s new collections and runways are indelibly linked to the brand’s heritage and spirit, its eclectic marketing activations and artistic collaborations delve into its storied past to spark new conversations for our times.
Dior’s artistic projects and exhibitions have proven especially popular in China, which has a seemingly insatiable appetite for luxury brand exhibitions as a form of cultural entertainment and social media engagement. Highlighting the brand’s optimistic outlook and high expectation for the China luxury market, Dior simultaneously ran two major exhibitions in Shanghai in 2023, and is taking them to other Chinese cities, such as Villa Dior in Xiamen, this year.
In 2023, Villa Dior occupied the central villa in Shanghai’s revived Zhang Yuan heritage neighborhood. The pop-up, including a Café Dior, showcased new collections and archival pieces, such as Philippe Starck’s Miss Dior oval back chair, which debuted in China, and seasonal bespoke art installations. The Villa Dior experience will move to Xiamen next month.
Mixing fashion with contemporary art and design, Dior presented a second edition of its “Art'N Dior” exhibition at ART021, the Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair. The exhibition, which continues into 2024, features interpretations of the iconic Lady Dior handbag and Miss Dior fragrance by global artists, including pieces by Chinese artists Xu Zhen and Zhou Li. Another Philippe Starck piece, the Monsieur Dior armchair, explores the relationship between Dior and the disruptive French designer.
Extending its influence into the world of cinema, Dior has supported the Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) since 2020. In 2023, Dior co-presented the “Her Film Era Forum: Life Without Limits” that brought together a panel of Chinese directors and actresses including Chan Ho-San and “filmmaker of the year” Zhang Ziyi to share their career experiences.
As China and France celebrate the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties in 2024, we can expect more from Dior in China this year. The brand will continue its partnership with SIFF and celebrate its deep ties with China at the 2024 China International Import Expo (CIIE) in November.
Further afield, Dior will take part in Anna Wintour’s Vogue fashion show in the lead-up to the Paris Olympic Games, honoring 100 years of French fashion alongside the spirit of the Olympics. Paris last welcomed the Games in 1924.
From sports to the silver screen to social issues, Dior is driving conversation and innovation — and reminding us that it has done so for generations.
Presented by Dior.