Dior at Panathenaic Stadium
A series of photographs of one of Monsieur Dior’s haute couture lines, taken near the iconic Parthenon in 1951, was the inspiration for the Dior cruise 2022 collection. In the heart of the city dedicated to Athena, Maria Grazia Chiuri reinvents her genealogy and tweaks the codes – art lies not in the object created, but in one’s ability to create – such as the peplum. The goddess tunic, evoking marble and ancient statuary, is resolutely ethereal thanks to its fabrics and handmade pleats, a chiaroscuro in fluting.
A rediscovery of civilization’s roots – not out of nostalgia, but out of a desire to recompose, in the present, the fragmentation necessary to our understanding of the world. Maria Grazia Chiuri was inspired by Giorgio De Chirico, a pioneer of Surrealism who drew on poignant memories of Greece to paint metaphysical places frozen in the silent contrast of light and shadow. The Creative Director then explored the universe of Alexander Iolas, the cosmopolitan gallery owner who preserved his close ties to Greece and his home in Athens. There, he assembled an incredible collection of vases decorated with the intertwined bodies of wrestlers. Giant close-ups of those silhouettes stand out in sketches by the artist Pietro Ruffo, or are camouflaged on a selection of sportswear pieces, a synthesis of technical and formal research, the backbone and manifesto of a body performing beyond gender boundaries, in the Panathenaic Stadium where the cruise show is staged.
That body dons a series of white suits – jackets and pants – like those worn by Marlene Dietrich, structuring a sartorial lexicon poised between classicism and freedom: the oversized houndstooth is Hellenized; cannage reveals new abstractions. Gold dialogues with white: a hood grafted onto different looks is like punctuation, an engraved inscription. Greek blue becomes both a signature and an homage.
Each collection is an ongoing reflection on the paradigms that distinguish fashion and the House of Dior; an occasion to further expand collective work. Maria Grazia Chiuri underscores the extent to which the variations on femininity in Dior creations emerge from a past that honors a beauty with multiple facets.
Photos: Courtesy of House Dior
© View the full film here, directed by Marianna Economou
Silk Line - Mouhtaridis is a factory based in Soufli, a town renowned for its centuries-old silk industry, located in the Eastern Macedonia and Thrace region. It perpetuates the traditional Greek silk weaving technique using a jacquard loom. Dior invited Silk Line to weave the House’s iconic motifs, such as stripes and houndstooth, using this ancestral savoir-faire.
The ancient Grecian Peplos continues its contemporary transformation for Dior’s Cruise 22 collection by Maria Grazia Chiuri with the Greek artisan Kostas Mouhtaridis from Soufli and Zeus+Dione.
Silk and metallic threads were woven together in order to create a draping fabric that inspires unfettered movement. The iconic pattern of the “houndstooth” shone in the awe-inspiring setting of the Panathenaic Stadium!
More about Z+D's silk - Read
Aristeidis Tzonevrakis is a tailor and embroiderer. A visit to his atelier near Argos in the Peloponnese region in southern Greece was decisive for Maria Grazia Chiuri. He collaborated with the Creative Director on an embroidery for a jacket and a Dior Book Tote, with his unique method of structuring and embellishing dresses and accessories.
More about Aristeidis Tzonevrakis - Read
The spectacular setting for the Dior cruise 2022 show was the Panathenaic Stadium where the games in honor of the goddess Athena were held in ancient times, drawing up to 70,000 spectators. Built entirely of Pentelic marble, this extraordinary monument was buried for centuries, and was restored in the second half of the 19th century. Today, it is the stadium of all Athenians – a unifying emblem, essential in the cultural life of the Greek capital.
