Maria Grazia Chiuri: "Dior Has To Be About Female Empowerment"

Maria Grazia Chiuri has been artistic director of Dior for just over a year. It’s a role she never dreamed she would have. “And why is that?” she asks. “Because there was never a woman in that position [before].” We’re seated in a spacious reception room in Dior’s Paris headquarters. Gilt mirrors line the walls. A pair of crystal-tipped chandeliers hang overhead. The rest has been cast in Dior’s signature pale grey: ceiling, walls, sofa, a pair of oval-backed Louis XVI chairs. Chiuri, 52, is all in black. Black trousers, black blouse, black heels and sooty black eyeliner. Her cropped, bleached hair is parted severely on one side. Like Gucci’s Alessandro Michele, her fingers are dressed in heavy rings – one a skull from Codognato, another of her own design.

It’s only been nine months since the former Valentino co-creative director made her debut at the Musée Rodin during Paris Couture Week, and her impact on the 70-year-old house has been nothing short of transformational. Under Chiuri, the catwalk has become a platform for an ongoing conversation about feminism and the arts. This season, she paid tribute to two powerful women, constructing a showspace in the style of artist and former Dior model Niki de Saint Phalle’s Tarot Garden in Tuscany, and sending Breton-striped shirts stamped with the title of art historian Linda Nochlin’s 1971 essay, “Why have there been no great women artists?” down the catwalk. (They’ve gotten more than just the fashion world talking.) Her efforts haven’t stopped there: She has proposed a new vision of the modern-day Dior woman, one that may still don a ball gown and stiletto on an occasional evening, but for day prefers long-sleeved shirts, boyfriend jeans and a pair of easy walking flats, a cross-body bag slung across one shoulder. Chiuri expands upon that vision below.

You have been described as an activist designer. How do you feel about that label?

I don’t think that I’m an activist. Dior is about femininity. When I arrived here, everybody told me that. Okay, I said, we have to speak about femininity, but what does that mean today? I try to speak about women now, and for the future. Dior has to be about female empowerment. Only with flowers? It’s not enough. I know that there are a lot of nostalgic people that want a world that references the past and [Dior in] the 1950s, and I think the references of the past are beautiful, and I really appreciate our heritage. But if I’m a modern woman who wants a vintage dress I go to Didier Ludot and I buy an authentic Dior dress. If I go to the [Dior] store, I want something that speaks about the heritage, but in a modern way, for contemporary life. I know there are other points of view, and I respect those, but that’s my point of view.

Marc Bohan was the head designer of Dior longer than anyone, but his influence is often overlooked in the archives. Have you been particularly inspired by his work?

Yes. If you look at [Yves] Saint Laurent, [his designs] are more similar to Mr. Dior’s. When Marc Bohan arrived, he completely changed the line. The shapes are Sixties, they are clean, short. And why? Because there was a revolution in women, a big change in women’s attitudes. It was not the designer who changed the line, but the woman changed and the designer understood that the woman was different. The designer has to understand the women. Sometimes we have this message that the designer was a revolutionary. No, sorry. It was the woman that changed, and the designer understood and changed the line. Now, we have to understand this new generation, and it’s not easy. The new generation are completely different to the past. They ask for more information, they are more personal in their point of view. My son looks to see if the T-shirt is cotton, where the cotton is from. There is a completely different audience with different values and ideas about what is good and not good. Now, they can buy fashion everywhere, also they can do the same look in a very cheap way. A luxury house has to maintain the value, the brand, the quality, the craftsmanship, but at the same time has to start a new dialogue with these guys. The new dialogue [has to be] about value. Not only about dress.

Your latest collection references the work of Niki de Saint Phalle. How did you discover her?

When I arrived at the company, I started immediately to work on the exhibition at Les Arts Décoratifs, which [immersed me] in the history of Dior. Dior has a huge story, with different creative directors who have maintained the values for such a long time. During this research I also found the images of Niki de Saint Phalle in Dior and a letter she wrote to Marc Bohan [asking for a dress]. So I started to read more about her. And step by step I tried to translate in the collection these different ideas about a woman who started as a model for Dior in the Fifties, who was really beautiful and [whom] everybody would ask to be an actress, and she decided to work in art in a moment that was not too easy to work in art for women.#SuzyPFW: Dior’s Modern Muse, Artist Niki de Saint Phalle

On the runway, you sent out T-shirts with the title of Linda Nochlin’s 1971 essay, "Why have there been no great women artists?" Why do you feel that question still needs to be posed today?

If you are not lucky, if you do not have the opportunity to go to a good school or to be born into a family that can support you, and if the society doesn’t help and support, I think it’s very difficult not only in art but also in other jobs. And I think that sometimes this idea is inside of women, that they know that it is very difficult and so they don’t try to make what they really like. Very often people ask me, ‘Have you ever imagined that you can arrive in Dior’s house?’ No. ‘But why?’ Because there was never a woman in that position. I believed that it could be possible to work in the fashion system, and honestly I was very lucky because I started at Fendi, where there were unbelievable women that supported me. But why did I have this kind of mentality inside me? Because this was in my DNA in some way, so the problem is not only outside, but also inside. You can’t believe that you can do something when your patriarchal idea is that women can’t do that. I don’t think there is a young girl that today believes that she can become Michelangelo. Probably she says, oh no it’s too difficult, it’s impossible. It’s inside us, we are a limit for ourselves.

You’re known for having a pragmatic approach to your role – you visit factories, you’re involved in the business side of things. Why is that important to you?

As a designer, creativity is the first part of our job, but I don’t think that creativity only has use on the runway. It’s very important that the message you have in the show you also have in the [store] window, also in the merchandise inside the store. I have a huge team around me that supports me, but if you only do the show you lose the message. Now fashion is another story, it’s not like in the past. Fashion [used to be] a big show to sell other products – if we speak about the Eighties, Nineties, there were the licences, you’d have a big show but after you sell other products. I want to sell it all – clothes, bags, shoes. We have to be honest. If we don’t speak about fashion as a system, in a real way, it’s a trick. We have to be honest with our consumer. We want to give very good quality, good creativity, but which you can also find in the store.