Dior says it with wildflowers and Greta Thunberg plaits
- 25 Sep 2019
Dior went back to nature in its Paris fashion week show Tuesday with Greta Thunberg plaits and a garden-inspired collection that seemed to spring straight from the earth.
With climate change biting at the heels of the fashion industry, and the London shows hit by environmental protests, designer Maria Grazia Chiuri said she wanted to create clothes that "were not just about image but action".
To do that, she embraced the wild, with hemp gardening jackets and a series of stunning diaphanous dresses embroidered with wildflowers.
These were not the dainty pink roses of Dior yore but sinuous survivors, thistles and other prickly customers flowering on stoney ground.
Most of her models also wore their hair in plaits not dissimilar to those of the teenage Swedish environmental activist Thunberg.
Three of the most striking looks bore the ghostly prints of real wildflowers, gathered and applied by an artist who has mastered the natural technique.
Resistance hero
The couturier's first perfume, Miss Dior, was named after her, and Chiuri felt her legacy had been a little forgotten.
Catherine ran a Resistence intelligence gathering network from Dior's Paris apartment during the German Nazi Occupation of France.
A model wears a creation as part of the Dior Ready To Wear Spring-Summer 2020 collection.
When she was arrested, she refused to betray her comrades despite being tortured by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp.
Chiuri said she was struck by a phrase of Christian Dior's after the war, "Fortunately there are the flowers" -- which she took as a sign of hope after the dark days of World War II.
Vaccarello rails at 'puritanism'
Saint Laurent's Anthony Vaccarello went into his Paris show -- which featured British model Naomi Campbell -- complaining about the "witch-hunt atmosphere" of our times.
The Belgian-born designer has come in for heavy criticism from feminists for his "sexist and demeaning" advertising campaigns -- posters for one of which regulators forced him to pull -- although the label's sales have risen by a quarter.
"It has become impossible to have an opinion that goes against the general view," Vaccarello said.
Agence France-Presse