Christian Dior

Spring 2019 Couture

It was a circus out there! Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri pulled off a class act with her Spring 2019 Couture line for Christian Dior. The show was held at a traditional circus tent designed by Shona Heath and Bureau Betak, which was set up in the lawns of the Rodin Museum in Paris, complete with a harlequin floor. Eighteen acrobats from the East London based all-women acrobatic theatre troupe Mimbre put up a spectacular show, choreographed and performed by Mimbre co-artistic directors Lina Johansson and Silvia Fratelli. It was a strong message of women-power by Maria Grazia Chiuri, who happens to be the first woman ever to head Christian Dior.

But none of this distracted from the exotic parade of 68 models, dressed in elegant clothes. Chiuri worked around the circus theme, seeking inspirations from works of masters where the circus was muse. The brilliance of Richard Avedon’s Dovima with Elephants, which he shot in Paris’s Cirque d’Hiver circa 1955, artist Pablo Picasso, the French poet Jean Cocteau, American photographer Cindy Sherman. The aviator style skullcaps with sequins, hand embroidery, beadwork, frills, lace, pleats – it was impressive. Chiuri reportedly said, “Every look has its own personality, just like circus characters,brave, funny, happy and sad.The circus is a world of its own, which passes from town to town, changing each one a little as it goes — a bit like fashion week.”