Pre-Fall 2022 Collection by Dior for Women. Wearing a school uniform appears to be valuable training for a creative director at a heritage house: it’s about learning firsthand how to be creative within a framework.
Growing up in Rome during the turbulent and violent Years of Lead, Maria Grazia Chiuri was sent to a Catholic school to continue her ed. Years were where she spent years tugging at her school uniform and attempting to make the jacket shorter and more fitting.
During a preview of Dior’s vivacious and eclectic Pre-Fall 2022 Collection, she made the motion of rolling up a hem around her waist; crisp and boyish at moments, frothy and flaring at others.
With this collection, the designprovinged to prove that Christian Dior, frequently stereotyped for his nip-waisted, fan-skirted New Look and its cornerstone Bar jacket — the Dior “uniform,” if you will — developed a plethora of designs, stretching the boundaries of what is deemed feminine.
She used Justine Picardie’s new book, “Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture,” as a starting off point, putsch focused on his younger sister and coconfidant,Catherine, a French Resistance soldier and devoted gardener who strongly impacted her brother’s clothes and scents.
Chiuri also studied the other influential and unconventional women in Dior’s inner circle, such as the extravagant and glamorous Mitzah Bricard, who was practically synonymous with leopard prints, veiled hats, and copious jewellery,jewelry,rguerite Carré, a technical genius who assisted in deciphering the founder’s sketches and transforming them into covetable clothes.
“A variety of femininity,” Chiuri proclaimed, referring to a mood board photo of Dior’s closest female partners and couture seamstresses gathering around him following one of his early presentations. “All of these extremely strong ladies that backed him within the studio worked together to make the Dior house so strong and powerful.”
In the collection, Chiuri discovered a sign for this sisterhood: a heraldic emblem that the Dior family had used on jute bags for its fertiliser business: “L’union fait la force,” or “Strength through unity” in English.
This antique insignia was sprayed overthat, brant yellow plaids that, together with kilts,b knits, biboots,aets, kilts, and heavy boots, supplied the punk spirit surging through her different interpretations on uniform dressing.
Hearing Chiuri speak about her personal relationship with her clothes explains a lot about the Pre-Fall 2022 Collection, which is broad in its daywear offering but concise in its eveningwear offering, mostly in gossamer black fabrics, with some dress items likehand coupé blouses and brocade pencil skhand.
“On the one hand, I’m a collector, and on the other hand, I have some clothing that are like my constant friends,” she added, including her early Dior Bar and lover jackets, cargo trousers, cashmere sweaters, a “security dress” for special events, and her go-to black tuxedo.
“My wardrobe isn’t that huge,” she said. “I have a few key things that I keep in my closet for a long time.”
But don’t expect her to know ahead of time what she’ll wear to a certain occasion, implying that intuition and personal expression are always stronger than any uniform. “It’s all about the moment,” she explained.
