If Christian Dior is about craftsmanship, creativity, and history, the appearance of creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri is leading the brand and the entire workshop into the art world, giving it vitality. Arriving at the latest Fall/Winter 2022-2023 haute couture fashion collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri once again presents the brand’s craftsmanship, which has evolved over more than half a century, in the crispest and most direct way, evolving into a poetic fashion aesthetic.
This season, Maria Grazia Chiuri presents an open attitude towards the influence of different cultures’ legends and imaginations, using the work “Tree of Life” by Ukrainian artist Olesia Trofymenko as the creative core. She integrates painting art into clothing embroidery, infusing the entire collection of up to 68 looks with symbols of ancient cultures and myths, attempting once again to transform the Musée Rodin into a fashion realm exclusive to the Christian Dior brand.
Maria Grazia Chiuri shared after the show that she was amazed by the “Tree of Life” she encountered during a visit to the Maxxi contemporary art museum in Rome. The embroidery on a landscape oil painting captivated her, and she later learned that its inspiration came from the traditional folk costumes of Olesia Trofymenko’s homeland in Ukraine. This reminded her of the craftsmanship passed down through the years at the Christian Dior atelier, prompting her to reexamine fashion through art and explore this enduring and revolutionary traditional domain, much like the spirit of haute couture.
The Tree of Life expresses a unique creation that connects different forms, visually resembling holding up the sky and connecting the earth with branches and roots, reuniting nature with the earth, once again endowing all things in the world with the most precious vitality. This imagery, Maria Grazia Chiuri echoes the branches, stems, and roots of the Tree of Life with elaborate embroidery using cotton thread, silk thread, and gauze thread, showcasing a free and beautiful posture on different garments. Beige tones are occasionally accented with a touch of black or blue. Exquisite embroidery on cotton, wool gauze, silk, and cashmere consumes a lot of manpower and time in pursuit of ultimate excellence in quality.
In terms of dresses, they are adorned with a combination of bronze and black lace and mesh embroidery. These light and flowing one-piece maxi dresses are made of sheer silk chiffon, highlighting the body’s curves under the folds. The Bar suit jacket presents a new design with vertical pleated fabric, paired with a ribbon bustier half skirt, reinterpreting the New Look style. Handwoven fabric showcases an exquisite and irregular texture, making the hem of the garment more prominent. Wide silk or cotton embroidered windbreakers embody the style of the one-piece maxi dress.
In addition to the scenery, Maria Grazia Chiuri shares that this is about how to use materials, about how workshops bring reflection to daily life, and about the meaning of creation for modern humans. Inheriting tradition, learning, striving for perfection, it starts all over again. The tree of life is both a call and a warning, through promoting tradition we can restore balance, even if only for a moment.
資料及圖片來源：Courtesy of Christian Dior
