Dior Chasseresse, with forceful femininity

Sports, fashion, action at Dior, with a surprisingly sporty collection, whose star was the Neapolitan artist SAGG Napoli, playing the role of contemporary Diane Chasseresse.

A much-loved figure in France – hard to find a park here without a stature of Diane and her tightened bow – she was the leitmotif of the collection very much in synch with France today. A post-Olympic yearning for fitness and physical form.
 
Presented inside an elongated tent within the garden of the Rodin Museum, with a central glass enclosed space, where SAGG Napoli fired off arrows from a high-tech bow throughout the show, several hitting their target. Its entrance, a gate marked with the bold text: “May the building of a strong mind and a strong body be the greatest work I have ever made.”

Yet ultimately, in the weeks before a woman may be elected to the most important job on our planet – a statement about female empowerment, worn by a Brat gals cast en route to the gym.
 
Opening with leotards and swimsuits, anchored by a great new hybrid gladiator sneaker; black trench coats cut warrior style décolleté with shoulder straps and buckles; brilliant cut bias cut little black dresses though in knit not silk. An all-black opening, with logos everywhere, often a small white Christian Dior at the hip, or the house’s signature busy bee at the side. 
 
Never on a Dior catwalk has there been so much knitwear, all the way from the super snuggly cut bar jackets to the techy knit pants, like the pair Dior’s women’s designer Maria Grazia Chiuri wore at a pre-show preview.
 
At times, it was so active sport chic it could have been Y-3, albeit cut with much more understanding of a woman’s body. Maria Grazia even developed a multi-line piping, which morphed into the word Dior, smartly preventing any possible lawsuit. And finished mid-length skirts with checkered flags.
 
Sport in many disciplines from mountaineering, boxing shorts, gymnastic leotards to all-white posh punch judo suits and motorcycling jackets – seen in tough leather bombers with logoed arms. An optical and graphic collection with lots of punch.

Though at times deceptively simple, the collection seems certain to be highly influential, given the desire of so many women to look sporty with style.
 
All driven on by an almost all-gal soundtrack – Charli XCX & Billie Eilish; Four Tet & Ellie Goulding and DJ Gigola – courtesy of French sound Meister Michel Gaubert. Before ending with Grecian goddess gowns all in gold medal hues.
 
Dipping back into the house’s archive, Maria Grazia riffed on Marc Bohan mixing sport and technical fabrics in a Dior Sport collection from the 1960s. 
 
“I believe that fashion must respect and note these changes in how a woman dresses. So, this is a very precisely urban collection – where the bar jacket is made as a technical expression rather than couture statement. We even combined a bar made in knitwear with trousers,” explained Chiuri, dressed in a look from the collection.
 
Though she also played on Monsieur’s ideas, specifically revamping a famed 1952 Amazone dress, created my Christian, in a new techy take. 
 
Her other audacious move was sporty handbags and footwear.
 
“Accessories are always considered accessories. But, to me, in fact they are a key part of the silhouette. Which is why we worked very hard to make a cross body Lady Dior. While shoes turned into urban tennis shoes or sneaker. And the sneaker becomes high heels,” she explained.
 
At the finale, Chiuri took her bow with SAGG Napoli, a multi-disciplinary fine artist, whose work combines performance art, sculpture, Instagram posting extolling the Bay of Naples, and even ads. She has worked with Jean-Paul Gaultier before.
 
“And artist incarnates in themselves the battle to express their ideas,” concluded Maria Grazia, capturing in words the vitality of SAGG Napoli’s creation.
 
And this pean to the seductive power of the softer south of Europe, not Paris on a wet day, and an evocation of feminine force and fierceness. Light years from classical Dior perhaps, but all the more  powerful fashion statement for that.