Dior Haute Couture: embroidery obsession

Paris - Sleek outfits embellished with embroidery: Dior celebrates this craft in the haute couture collection presented Monday in Paris in a multicolored decor, also embroidered by young Indian women.

"I'm obsessed with embroidery, it's very personal, I'm Italian, part of my family lives in the south, I've seen women embroidering all the time, my grandmother, my aunts, my mother… I have always been fascinated, it is a whole language through which women express themselves”, confides to AFP Maria Grazia Chiuri, artistic director of the women's collections. A gray geometric bodysuit worn over black tights with gray socks and black shoes, all tight-fitting and embroidered: this obsession is evident from the first look in the show, as if the body itself had been embroidered.

The know-how is secular but the approach is innovative: the dresses are not embellished by embroidering them, they are designed entirely by embroidery, practically without seams. After the last very colorful ready-to-wear collection, it is largely available in shades of white and gray. The extremely sophisticated embroideries are also monochrome, with a lot of overtoning.

The silhouette is longer and simpler, moving away from the curved line of Dior towards more purity. In the same spirit, the hairstyles are smooth, bun or square chignons, nude makeup with a line of white liner under the lower eyelid. The jackets without liners are treated in double face, a technique consisting in opening the first fabric and inserting the another inside, also echoing that of the embroidery.

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380 embroiderers in Bombay

The sober palette of the dresses contrasts with the exuberance of the multicolored and saturated decor at the Rodin Museum, where the parade takes place which highlights and brings together French and Indian craftsmanship. The decor reproduces in embroidery works by the couple of Indian artists Madhvi Parekh and Manu Parekh, highlighting the male/female dichotomy, contemporary art abstract for him, naive for her. This is the third time that the decor for Dio's haute couture shows has been produced by the Chanakya school in Bombay (India), where students learn about 700 gestures necessary to become a master craftsman, a rare thing in a country where this profession is transmitted from father to son.

These collaborations are part of Maria Grazia Chiuri's feminist approach. She initially planned to bring the embroiderers to Paris for the parade, a project prevented by the health context. “It is an honor for them to have this international visibility,” said Karishma Swali, founder and director of the establishment, to AFP. At the end of an 18-month training, they put into practice what they have learned. "It's an incredible opportunity that they couldn't even dream of," she adds.

The installation at the Rodin Museum, which will be open or public the week following the show, was created by 380 embroiderers over 3 months. One more way for Maria Grazia Chiuri to prove that craftsmanship is an art and haute couture an international cultural project. Many pieces from the collection are also embroidered in the Chanakya school. “It is very important to talk about craftsmanship, it is crucial for haute couture. We must show the link between artistic and artisanal work, the latter being considered less important in certain countries” such as Italy or India, she underlines.

For Maria Grazia Chiuri, this reflection has become vital since the pandemic. “Nobody knows yet how many companies will not survive the crisis and how much creative capacity will be lost. They are not easily replaceable workers. It is a priority for Dior to support them,” she concludes. (AFP)