On Wednesday morning, French luxury house Dior invited a handful of lucky guests to preview “Dior Metamorphosis”, the latest in its behind-the-scenes series of Cruise collection documentaries, which aim to celebrate the culture and craftsmanship of the artisans involved in the making of each interseasonal line.
After setting sail for Athens, Morocco, and more recently Andalusia in 2023, Maria Grazia Chiuri, head womenswear designer at Dior, chose Mexico City to stage her latest Cruise collection, which took place back in May of this year.
As attendees laid back in the plushy, two-seater couches of the projection room below contemporary Parisian boutique hotel “Hôtel Marignan”, the documentary opened with an introduction to Mexican painter and feminist icon Frida Kahlo — to whom Chiuri largely attributes her inspiration behind the Cruise 2024 show.
The factual film’s name, “Metamorphosis”, is a wink at Kahlo’s concealment through clothing of her right leg, which fell shorter than her left counterpart after she was diagnosed with polio as a child. In an attempt to deflect attention from her injury, she only wore Tehuana dresses from then on, which are by definition an assemblage of both a long skirt and a huipil (a cotton blouse adorned with elaborate emboridery motifs). Both attributes of the traditional Mexican garment helped draw the eye to her bust and away from her deformity. And as a result, the Tehuana dress is now synonymous with Kahlo’s style, earning her title as a fashion symbol amongst great women artists. By controlling the trajectory of others’ eyes from her physical weakness, she transformed the latter into an element of strength.
In another ode to Kahlo, the show itself occurred in the late artist’s high school, San Ildefenso, where she met her mentor and longtime lover: muralist Diego Rivera.
The rest of the one-hour film then unravels into the designer’s search for capable artisans within the region. Which yielded a fruitful result, as Chiuri shares midtape that she would’ve picked every single talent she’d seen at work, had it been possible. After selecting — mainly from the Southern state of Oaxaca — an array of well-trained embroiderers, weavers, silversmiths and artists, the latter including Elina Chauvet, known for her feminist installation “Zapatos Rojos”, the camera then focuses on each of their astonishing techniques within their respective places of work. Often within their homes, as they do not have access to ateliers. Weavings of butterflies — Mexico’s symbol for the return of the souls of their ancestors — take shape on a huipil and are adorned onto silver belts buckles. Dior’s signature Bar jacket was also revisited with traditional Mexican motifs, modernizing its otherwise classic form.
If male artisans are featured in the film, it is the women that undoubtedly hold the title of protagonists within “Dior Metamorphosis”. Depicted as passionate fighters of their cultural heritage, one passed down generation after generation by their mothers and grandmothers before that, each woman speaks of her artistry with pride and genuine devotion. “The work these women do, because they were made by women, is usually deprived of any cultural relevance. My job with Dior is to change that,” says Chiuri at one point during the film.
The documentary ends with the unveiling of the Cruise 2024 show itself, a monumental event to which — of course — each collaborating artisan was invited. A young weaver boy of the name of Hilan, who struck Dior’s head designer as a pure talent, was even invited back to Paris to help teach his craft within the French ateliers. In this homage to women, Mexico and art, Maria Grazia Chiuri’s message resonates: the know-hows of the world’s respective cultural heritages must transcend as a “dialogue between present and future.” Never to be left in the past.
“Metamorphosis” Dior’s latest documentary will be available on the Dior website from December 6.
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