Is it possible to celebrate haute couture while also offering a critical reading of it?
Is it possible to stay faithful to the strict rules decreed by the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture while breaking them down to create a new order?
These are the questions that Maria Grazia Chiuri raises in this Fall/Winter 2018 haute couture collection and following the exhibition ‘’Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams’’, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, which, by placing the spotlight on the haute couture creations, paid tribute to the sacred and timeless place that is the atelier.
She took inspiration from Elisabetta Orsini’s book, ‘’Atelier: Places of Thought and Creation’’, and commissioned for her set a calm white floor-to-ceiling grid in which she installed all of the collection’s toiles on dress forms.
Her haute couture outing for Christian Dior was entirely devoted to the precious dignity of such beautiful but quiet clothes, pieces sculpted and pleated and constructed (mostly sans corsets) in such a way that they could literally never exist in prêt-à-porter . . . or at least with any notion of proper fit. The palette was blush, navy, celery, rose, tea, and every interpretation of nude one might imagine.
©Dior
