While Donald Trump may have had his day in court in Manhattan Monday, Maria Grazia Chiuri owned the night at the Brooklyn Museum. For its Fall 2024 ready-to-wear collection, Dior chose New York, which bears a close tie to the French Haute Couture and fashion brand since its inception. The event and collection managed to channel its Parisian Je Ne Sais Quoi via New York’s gritty artistic edge using Marlene Dietrich as muse, employing each city’s famous monuments as print, the art duo Claire Fontaine, Roman-based, Brooklyn-born artist Suzanne Santoro, Yoko Ono on the runway soundtrack, Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth in person and the sounds of legendary club DJ Justin Strauss into an evening oozing cool subversion, with a feminist undertone.
Backstage, Chiuri was relaxed and convivial meeting a group of fashion press just after taking the moment to sing Happy Birthday to a Dior design studio member, complete with cake. The press had just been pre-briefed by the brand that explained the importance of Dior in New York, and Marlene Dietrich, who was a part of the earliest days of the house.
Apparently, Maria Grazia found archival images of Marlene Dietrich, a lifelong customer, and the looks she purchased from the first debut collection in 1947. It wasn’t the New Look, but rather grey wool suiting styles. The way Dietrich was able to alternate masculine style of the 30s and 40s with the hyper glamour of a Silver Screen goddess intrigued Chiuri.
The collection paid homage to the two great fashion capitals intertwining. Pret-a-Porter is generally thought of as a product of the 60s but Dior predated himself in 1948 when he opened a separate business, Christian Dior New York, Inc., to reproduce and adapt his Haute Couture designs to a more pragmatic American customer eschewing total Parisian elegance.
Indeed, the American garment manufacturing industry was mighty in the era and had the most advanced and efficient techniques for making ready-to-wear and sportswear. Legendary Harper’s Bazaar fashion editor Carmel Snow was also reportedly the one to coin the term “the New Look”.
Chiuri was elated at the first ready-to-wear show during her tenure coming together. “This was a dream I didn’t imagine was possible, especially inside the Brooklyn Museum, with a collection that celebrates the strong relationship of New York and Dior,” she said pre-show.
Dietrich, who lived in New York post World War II until 1963, undoubtedly was an exciting character from the Dior archives for the artistic director to explore. “She was an actress who understood the power of fashion and used the look to define herself, mixing masculine and feminine together and sportswear and ready-to-wear,” Chiuri explained of the tight-knit partnership of Christian Dior himself and the mysterious German-born actress.
To that, decidedly Dietrich touches showed up in the collection through jackets influenced by those early purchases, gray suiting looks, often embroidered with house motifs such as stars, flowers, and bees to mimic brooches, riffs on tuxedo looks, even on complete with top hat in hand but also siren gowns in velvet and fringy beaded styles, often in open work worn over an underdress.
“But there is another important New York chapter at Dior, the John Galliano era synonymous with the Sex and the City era, with slip dresses worn with a coat on top. “It’s this kind of attitude and idea in New York when I come here, especially when I was young and saw these girls with this look. It’s different than Europe. There is a freer approach to fashion here,” she explained.
This also translates into the mixing of sportswear into dressier ideas.
“New York impressed me for its strong sportswear presence; the woman in sneakers carrying their heels in the bag. It was a strong part of our imagination. Mixing formal dresses and sportswear, it’s a city where everyone walks, so functionality is very strong. It’s my idea of New York,” she continued, adding, “It’s an influence on my style too; I like sportswear and denim, but I also like embroidered pieces.”
Perhaps the most progressive way the designer expressed the sportswear message was through a series of elegant, barely-there silk knits in languid, clingy dresses. “I like trying to work the Dior shape in knitwear because it’s a different result and attitude, recreating the same shape in another material,” she offered. Walking-friendly platforms grounded most looks.
The collection also references a well-known Bert Stern image of Marilyn Monroe with the actress wearing an open-back Dior dress, shot from behind with her face turned toward the camera. This manifested in open-back, off-the-shoulder styles in gowns and shirting material tops.
In a particularly apropos moment. Chiuri dug up an archival scarf designed by Alexandre Sache during the Marc Bohan years at Dior depicting the American and French flags. The print was transformed for this show into oversized tracksuit attire, befitting another New York institution, Hip Hop music. The style was also realized in the Dior logo pattern.
Showing each city was a series of prints depicting a New York skyline complete with Lady Liberty, the infamous gift from the French seen on everything from denim, dresses, and bags to the Eiffel Tower that appeared on the back of a flowing silver anorak coat.
Chiuri noted that she felt happy being in the city. “I feel it’s a strong sense of a community in New York City, in this museum, with the other fashion designers and how they know each other.”
The designer brought her community of creatives, such as Fulvia Carnevale and James Thornhill of Claire Fontaine, the Palermo-based feminist-centric artist who also designed the Fall/Winter 2020 show space. Speaking with Fashion Network pre-show, they explained the design of the show slash party space.
Pointing to the neon hand sculptures towering above the space, Carnevale explained the art.” The light sculptures are made from drawings of the hands of the female seamstresses, curators, and the women involved in the production,” she said.
“We created this feminist gesture, ‘Towards New Expression’ Santoro’s work based on the groundbreaking writings of Carla Lonzi. We reproduced the vagina with the hands in a way that it can be seen and symbolizes the women affirmatively, not in the absence of the male sex but in an empowering, positive way,” she continued noting that the linoleum flooring overlay in the room was based on the worn and weathered tiles seen in Palermo.
The duo, whose work “Foreigners Everywhere” influenced the title of this year’s Venice Biennale, was also instrumental in Santoro’s presence in Chiuri’s life and at the museum. “Maria Grazia has some of Suzanne’s work; we introduced them, and it was love at first sight. She convinced Suzanne to return to Brooklyn after a long time to have a show here,” Carnevale added.
Thus, guests who stayed to witness Gordon’s electrifying post-show live performance and to dance to Strauss’s retro-modernized soundtrack until midnight were able to take in Santoro’s exhibit on the first floor as well as peruse the ‘Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys’ exhibit as they sauntered into the night, still pulsating from creating a true New York moment.
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