Show Notes: Dior Fall/Winter 2024 Womenswear Collection
Creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri pays tribute to her predecessor and seminal Dior designer Marc Bohan for the French maison's '60s-inflected Fall Winter 2024 womenswear collection.
When: February 27, 2024
Where: The familiar Dior monolith that’s set in the middle of Paris’ Tuileries Garden. This season, the female artist being spotlighted (Dior creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri ardently believes in championing feminine power, and routinely does so at all her shows) is Indian artist Shakuntala Kulkarni, who is known for exploring the female body and its relationship to different spaces. A rather apt choice - more details below.
The takeaway: Chiuri is a highly introspective and respectful person - she demonstrated it right from her first Dior collection, where she included tributes to every single of her predecessors at the house. This season, she zoomed in onto one particular predecessor: the late Marc Bohan, who passed last year and was the longest-serving head at Dior from 1960 to 1988.
The year was 1967: Dior was a couture house, led by Marc Bohan during this period. Acknowledging the fact that the world was changing (the next generation of fashion clients wanted their clothes immediately, rather than wait six months for a couture piece), Dior had just launched Miss Dior, a ready-to-wear line. It was timely; after all, the '60s saw the emergence of the sexual revolution and the then-nascent women's liberation movement.
The A-line silhouette Chiuri favoured for this collection spoke to the desire for ease of movement that women of that era desired - a smart choice, because that's frankly a universal, evergreen desire. Key looks included jaunty miniskirts, belted trench coats, and chic relaxed pantsuits in predominantly monochromatic tones.
And that impossible-to-miss "Miss Dior" slogan splashed liberally across many trenchcoats and skirts in the collection? That came from an archival advertising artwork made for the Miss Dior boutique when it opened in 1967.
The things we’re eyeing: All variations of the pantsuits (looks 1 and 34); the patent leather boots adorned with gold ball-shaped heels found throughout the collection, the Catherine Deneuve-esque leopard trench coat (look 57); and the easy and elegant evening dresses (looks 62 and 69).
The looks: