[vc_row njt-role=”people-in-the-roles” njt-role-user-roles=”administrator,armember”][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Yesterday, Tuesday, September 29th, in the middle of Paris Fashion Week and for the first time since the beginning of the global pandemic, the runway show of the great French haute couture house Dior took place at the Palais Royal. As one of the only historic houses to have organized a physical fashion show, no more than 300 guests were present, less than a third of the previous year’s guests.
It is with enthusiasm and caution that the Paris Fashion Week shows were able to resume yesterday.
However, due to this period of crisis, many shows had to take place virtually, particularly that of the luxury house Hermès, which opted for a live presentation of its men’s collections.
With a masked audience and no more than 300 people on site to participate, it was essential for some to make a presence at the Dior fashion show. “It’s a great emotion, we’re living a very difficult moment and resuming the shows is a positive sign that we can adapt to its difficulties“, Dior’s artistic director Maria Grazia Chiuri told AFP.
Dior has nevertheless thought of absent subscribers by broadcasting the presentation of its new women’s spring-summer 2021 collection on a dedicated online platform and on the social network Tiktok.
The federation of Haute Couture and Fashion is reinventing itself, the traditional fashion shows are not on the agenda this year, which is why the haute couture houses must also follow suit: “The show is a fashion ritual, like Fashion Week in Paris, Milan or New York. The Covid-19 crisis made us lose our rituals, so we have to think about the future how to allow this important part of the fashion industry to exist” said Maria-Grazia Chiuri.
The world has changed, body habits and lifestyles are no longer the same. One of the new needs today is to feel good about your body, at home and in security, which brings many things into question, according to Maria-Grazia Chiuri: “Today, I believe that people have a different relationship with their own bodies. The simple need to protect ourselves is something we didn’t consider before, and the fact that we also have a different lifestyle, much more private, less public, that’s why I believe that the relationship with our clothes will be much more personal, more intimate“.
The haute couture house wanted to make the space intimate and privileged during its fashion show. Using an Italian artist, Lucia Marcucci, she transformed the Palais Royal de Paris into a gothic cathedral with magnificent stained glass windows, letting the light shine in on the mannequins. A high-pitched a capella song accompanied them throughout the presentation by the Sequenza 9.3 ensemble.
All sorts of pieces were presented, reinvented, including the brand’s iconic Bar jacket that emphasizes the waist and marks the shoulders, now soft and supple on the shoulders, to be worn at home in total privacy. The idea came from a drawing by Christian Dior in 1957 called the “paletot“: “The idea was to create a jacket in which you would feel at home. We worked a lot on soft fabrics, or rustic fabrics such as linen or knit“, explains Maria-Grazia Chiuri.
The themes are intimacy, protection and chic, but at home. The protective register describes this period, pieces are reinvented or used elsewhere, men’s shirts are worn as a shirt dress, over shorts or over baggy pants. The idea is to feel comfortable in what one wears, like in a pyjama.
Read also > ROBERTO CAVALLI WANTS TO CLOSE ITS HEADQUARTERS AND REPATRIATE ITS 170 TOSCANO EMPLOYEES TO MILAN
Featured photo: © Dior
