Maria Grazia Chiuri

PARIS — Shrugging off the impact of political turmoil and the coronavirus pandemic on Hong Kong tourism, Dior has opened a new boutique on Canton Road in the city’s bustling Tsim Sha Tsui district.The 9,500-square-foot flagship, featuring a facade illuminated with a deconstructed version of the French fashion house’s signature “cannage” motif, is spread over two floors carrying women’s and men’s ready-to-wear, leather goods, shoes, accessories, fine jewelry, watches, home wares and perfumes.
The interior takes its cue from the brand’s headquarters at 30 Avenue Montaigne in Paris, with an interior in shades of powdery white, gray and gold featuring accents such as Versailles parquet floors and its trademark Toile de Jouy fabric.

At the main entrance, visitors are welcomed by a giant crystal chandelier, and the store features original works by artists including China’s Lu Song, Wang Yuyang and Hong Hao. A spiral staircase at the rear of the store leads to dedicated areas for fine jewelry and home wares.

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The fine jewelry department in Dior’s flagship on Canton Road in Hong Kong.

Marcel Lam/Courtesy of Dior

To mark the opening, Dior is offering exclusive products including box sets containing four embroidered miniature Lady Dior bags; Rose des Vents jewelry creations adorned with colorful gemstones, and selected items from the fall women’s collection designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri, featuring embroidered motifs.
The store, which opened Monday, is also offering early access to the fall men’s collection by Kim Jones, as part of its pre-launch in the Asia-Pacific region.
The absence of tourism continues to weigh on Hong Kong’s retail market, according to a recent report by global real estate consultancy Knight Frank. Burberry confirmed last month it had closed its flagship on Canton Road, one of the world’s most expensive shopping streets.
“In the near term, the outlook for Hong Kong’s retail market remains highly difficult, so retail rents are expected to face further pressure. Uncertainty in the economy, interest rate hikes and delays in the border reopening could weigh on consumption sentiment,” Knight Frank said in a report last week.
On the upside, the local government is set to hand out a second round of consumption vouchers, worth 5,000 Hong Kong dollars, or $637 at current exchange, in August, which should underpin retail sales and restaurant receipts in the short term.

The VIP men’s department in Dior’s new flagship on Canton Road in Hong Kong.

Marcel Lam/Courtesy of Dior

Ramla Ali in Dior Vibe. Photo: Courtesy of Dior
Creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri offered her unique take on sportswear to the world when she presented the Dior Vibe line as part of the fashion house’s Cruise 2022 collection. Including movement-friendly pieces such as leggings, jackets, and futuristic running shoes, the line is inspired by the freedom of sports, and so, who better than the world’s rising athletes to model it?
Sun Yiwen. Photo: Courtesy of Dior
In a series of photos captured by Dan Beleiu, Wang Ziqian, Min Hyunwoo, and Harry Eelman, the French house highlights eight sports stars including Somali boxer Ramla Ali. As an amateur boxer, she became the first Muslim to win an English title before deciding to represent Somalia in 2017. She would go on to make history in 2021 as the first Somali woman to compete in the Olympics.
Nadia Nadim. Photo: Courtesy of Dior
The series of images also feature Afghan-Danish soccer player Nadia Nadim, Greek athlete Athina Koini, Italian prima ballerina and director of Rome Opera House Ballet Eleonora Abbagnato, Chinese national team fencer Sun Yiwen and surfer Darsea Liu, Korean figure skater and Olympic champion Yuna Kim, and American skateboarder Briana King. Each athlete is photographed in their chosen fields, sporting key pieces from the line that feature the Dior Étoile, Dior Athlet, and Dior Oblique motifs, as well as the Dior Vibe bags.
Eleonora Abbagnato. Photo: Dan Beleiu/ Courtesy of Dior
Unveiled at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, the Dior Cruise 2022 collection is an ode to sports, but more importantly, women’s liberation brought about by them. “Sport has played a great role in the emancipation of women,” the designer shared after the show. “I think we need to remember that women have had to fight to play their favorite sports… [and] that fight still goes on today.”
Birana King. Photo: Courtesy of Dior
In an unexpected yet natural next step, the fashion house also collaborated with Technogym on a line of limited edition home fitness products: a treadmill, a wellness ball, and a multifunction bench, all emblazoned with the unmistakable Christian Dior logo.
Athina Koini. Photo: Courtesy of Dior
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Though only half of them have touched down so far, the girls of Blackpink have taken Paris Fashion Week by storm.
The four members, Jisoo, Rosé, Jennie and Lisa are global ambassadors for the French fashion houses Dior, Saint Laurent, Chanel and Celine, respectively, with the former two already making a splash with the crowds in Paris.
First up was Jisoo, born Ji-soo Kim, whom many were apparently angling to catch a glimpse of at the Dior spring 2022 show on Tuesday.
For her Paris Fashion Week debut, she wore a mini black-and-white patterned A-line dress from the French label’s 2022 cruise collection, which featured embroidery of the ancient Greek goddess Athena. She finished the look with the micro Lady Dior bag in metallic gold and black platform heels.

Jisoo at the Dior Spring 2022 show during Paris Fashion Week.
Stephane Feugere/WWD

Though Jisoo, as she is known professionally to Blackpink’s fans called “Blinks,” was named the global ambassador for Dior in March, the singer has worked closely with the brand and creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri over the last few years.

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Next was Rosé, coming fresh off her debut at the Met Gala in New York City, who attended Saint Laurent’s spring 2022 show, whose runway was overlooking a brightly lit Eiffel Tower.

Keeping it simple with a little black slipdress by the French label, Rosé, born Chae-young Park, paired it with black knee-high leather boots and layered two gold, jeweled necklaces also by Saint Laurent. She also wore two diamond rings by Tiffany & Co., for which she is also a global ambassador for. She styled her hair in a low ponytail and kept a few strands out to frame her face.
“I’m just really excited to see his new outfits and very honored to be invited again,” she told WWD of the brand’s creative director Anthony Vaccarello. “I love how he supports the strong look for women. I’m just in love with every bit of it.”
In July 2020, after working closely with Saint Laurent for a number of years, she was tapped as the brand’s global ambassador — its first in 59 years. In January, she also became the muse for Yves Saint Laurent Beauté.

Rosé at the Saint Laurent Spring 2022 show during Paris Fashion Week.
Aitor Rosás Suné/WWD

At the Met Gala this year, Rosé made history, becoming one of two K-pop stars, alongside rapper CL, to ever attend the event. For the event, she wore a simple little black dress finished with a giant white bow across the chest from Saint Laurent’s winter 2021 collection. Walking by her side on the red carpet was Vaccarello.
While Blackpink has roots in South Korea, the group’s global fame has accelerated over the last few years, becoming an international pop sensation. Since its debut in 2016, the girl group has broken numerous records, including most viewed music video in 24 hours on YouTube. Blackpink’s hit 2020 song, “How You Like That,” set two Guinness World Records at the time.
With PFW just kicking off, a number of shows have yet to take place. Blinks are eagerly awaiting the arrivals of Jennie and Lisa, who will reportedly attend the Chanel and Celine shows, respectively, later this week and are sure to incite some large crowds.
READ MORE HERE:
Blackpink’s Rosé Debuts at Met Gala in Saint Laurent
Blackpink’s Jennie Is the Face of Chanel’s Coco Neige Campaign

Blackpink’s Jisoo, Elizabeth Debicki and Rosamund Pike on Dior’s Starry Front Row

The world’s a stage, and each must play a part — so said Elvis Presley, and Maria Grazia Chiuri.For the first major show of Paris Fashion Week, the Dior women’s wear designer transformed a tent in the Tuileries gardens into a ‘60s-era nightclub, with a multilevel circular stage where a live band played Italian disco music, and models stood until it was their turn to walk.
It turns out the audience was part of the concept, too. “Fashion is a performance, where the performers are not only the models, but also the people that participate in the show,” Chiuri explained in a preview. “I feel like it’s a new debut in a way, where you are again on stage.”

Marc Bohan’s ‘60s-era designs for the house, currently on display as part of a Dior retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, inspired the look of the collection, which channeled a youthquake spirit with colorful A-line dresses, trapeze coats and miniskirts, paired with white gogo boots or patent leather mary janes.

Chiuri has spent the last 18 months pondering the role of the fashion industry, under fire for fueling overconsumption at a time when climate change is causing widespread natural disasters. She’s worked to introduce more sustainable fabrics into her collections, but has also been feeling the urge to bring back joy after months of lonely lockdowns.

“We have to recognize the fact that humanity needs clothes, because it’s a way to perform in the world,” she said.
That was especially the case at the Piper nightclub in Rome in the ‘60s, a hotbed for the avant-garde where artists, socialites and actors converged to dance their way into a bright new future. Among them was Anna Paparatti, who designed the set for the Dior show based on her 1964 painting “The Game of Nonsense.”
Chiuri’s designs were in perfect synch with the setting. There were skimpy skirt suits in citrus shades; color-blocked dresses and coat; stiff bandeau tops and skirts with oversize prints of exotic animals, borrowed from the house’s signature Toile de Jouy and blown up to abstract proportions; and crystal-fringed dresses that begged for a glitter ball backdrop.
She was particularly inspired by Bohan’s Slim Look collection, presented in 1961 — a departure from founder Christian Dior’s hourglass Bar jacket. “I was obsessed with the idea of showing how many different jacket silhouettes are in the history of Dior, so I did very different shapes, because I don’t just want to speak about the Bar jacket,” she explained.

Dior RTW Spring 2022
Delphine Achard/WWD

Chiuri has a strong sense of the house’s heritage, but she’s also grounded in the present, and she knows that many young women are no longer wearing tailored jackets at all.
Expanding on the sportswear elements she introduced with her cruise collection, she balanced the retro looks with items such as satiny boxing robes and shorts in jewel tones; cannage-patterned quilted puffer jackets; printed army surplus jackets and cargo pants, and mini versions of the new Dior Vibe gym bag, the first of which will hit stores in November.
Ultimately, Chiuri wants the wearer to express themselves — whether that means donning a pair of thick-soled boots, or a dainty cape-backed minidress. The industry still hasn’t figured out how to balance the human need for creativity with its responsibility towards the planet, she recognized.
“Like all games, there are some aspects that are serious, and some aspects that are fun,” Chiuri mused. This season, at least, her girls just want to have fun.
SEE ALSO:
Dior Channels Olympic Spirit for Cruise Show in Greece
Christian Dior Brooklyn Museum Exhibition Touts New York Influence
Dior Lady Art Handbag Show Heads to China

ATHENS, Greece — Maria Grazia Chiuri, who has made feminism the guiding theme of her tenure at Dior, could scarcely have picked a better location for her cruise collection than Greece, a country whose mythology spawned a battalion of powerful female deities, from Athena to Nemesis.
The goddess gown is to the Italian designer what the Bar jacket was to Christian Dior. A staple of her collections, it embodies not just the feminine divine, but also a certain notion of freedom — its loosely draped, pleated folds the antithesis of the corseted rigor imposed by Dior’s architectural designs in the 1950s. 
This season, Chiuri is propelling the peplos — the robe traditionally worn by women in ancient Greece — into the 21st century by combining classically elegant gowns, seemingly lifted from the caryatid sculptures on the Acropolis, with athleisure staples and futuristic sneakers: Nike the goddess meets Nike the sportswear maker, so to speak.

“It gives this idea that they are not statues, but are active in the world,” she explained during a preview in Paris. “It’s really something absolutely contemporary: all the things that are under the dress are technical things that you can use also to run.” 
To emphasize her point, Chiuri will show the collection today at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens in a livestreamed show scheduled to take place at 8.30 p.m. CET, setting the scene for the upcoming Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

“The idea to show inside the stadium was my obsession, because I think it speaks about the relationship that the clothes have with the body — a body that is a performing body,” Chiuri said of the venue, which hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the first modern Olympics in 1896. 
“The peplos also is an element that allows the body to move freely, that evokes women in movement, and no one more than an athlete moves their body in a really active way. So my idea was to culminate all these elements inside the show,” she added.

Dior Resort 2022 Preview in Athens, Greece 
Giovanni Giannoni/WWD

Stripping the gowns of their eveningwear connotations, she imagined a wardrobe for a goddess on the go. Chiuri draped panels of pleated white jersey over a flesh-colored bodysuit dotted with pearls; layered a diaphanous pleated dress over a hooded bodysuit, and paired a white vest with a loose neckline with waterproof track pants.
Her personal favorite is a toga-like black recycled nylon dress with adjustable drawstrings. “I want it for myself: I think it’s super functional, super cool,” she enthused. 
The designer has tried her share of sports in the past. (A few years ago, she even took a trapeze lesson with her then-design partner, Pierpaolo Piccioli.) These days, the 57-year-old practices Pilates and yoga at home. “Because of my age, now I have to be safe, also because I broke my femur two years ago,” she said apologetically. 
Still, she’ll be watching the Summer Olympics — assuming the event, postponed by 12 months due to the coronavirus pandemic, goes ahead despite public opposition. “My husband is super obsessed with all kinds of sport. He’s a completely typical Italian man, so we see everything,” she said. “I really like the high jump. I think it’s beautiful.”

Anyone inspired to join a gym will find a full array of workout gear at Dior, such as leggings, boxing shorts and running bras in patterns designed by artist Pietro Ruffo, including an Aegean blue motif inspired by the bodies of athletes painted on antique Greek vases. 

Dior Resort 2022 Preview in Athens, Greece 
Giovanni Giannoni/WWD

In an echo of her debut collection for the house in 2016, Chiuri included mesh or embroidered fencing vests that she likened to the shield of Athena, the goddess of war. “These corsets protect your solar plexus,” she said. “It’s also my idea to translate a reference like the Dior corset in a contemporary way.”
The starting point for the collection was a vintage fashion shoot featuring models in gowns from Christian Dior’s fall 1951 haute couture collection in front of the Acropolis. The brand is also using the event to showcase the creativity of local artists and artisans, as it has done with other destination resort shows in Lecce, Italy, and Marrakech, Morocco.
Chiuri tapped Aris Tzernovakis, a tailor and embroiderer based near Argos in southern Greece, to embroider a classic Bar jacket and her signature Book tote bag, and artist Christiana Soulou to make drawings of female figures from mythology that appear in the folds of dresses.
Pulling out a copy of “Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine” by Joseph Campbell, she said preparing the collection had inspired her to revisit her history classes.
“It was beautiful to have the opportunity to rethink and to see these references that probably, when I studied them at school, I didn’t read and learn about with the same interest and consciousness that I have today. That’s touching me a lot,” she mused.
Chiuri sees a direct link between figures like Arachne, who challenged Athena to a weaving contest, and clothing. “Craftsmanship, especially the loom, is really the first human activity,” she noted. “It’s like a thread that goes around the word, that speaks about our humanity.”

Dior Resort 2022 
Giovanni Giannoni/WWD

The designer has often spoken about the importance of preserving this ancient know-how, or risk losing it forever — a mission she has combined with a pragmatic approach to dressing women. 
She’s certainly not the first to pair evening gowns with sneakers, but coming from a house like Dior, it was the clearest acknowledgment yet of sportswear’s takeover of high fashion — and of the consumer’s relentless appetite for activewear following a year of successive lockdowns.

Grimacing at the idea of wearing high heels, Chiuri pointed at the brand’s new Dior Vibe sneakers, featuring a transparent upper with gold or silver accents. “We are doing fashion for now, not for the past and not for the future, but about now. After the pandemic — though we’re not completely out of it yet — we want to move,” she said. 
See also:
Dior Cruise 2021 in Lecce, Italy
Dior Cruise 2020 in Marrakech, Morocco
Dior Teams Up With Sacai on First Co-branded Collection

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Photographed by Mazen Abusrour
Warm hues with golden undertones don’t just hark to the desert sands but also the textiles whipping in the wind. The Dior Gold Ramadan capsule, designed by creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri, has landed. “I wanted to design a special capsule for a region whose atmosphere, colors, and culture I find fascinating,” she says. “When I had the opportunity to visit, I spoke with some extraordinary women who really helped me to understand the region better. It’s important for me to deepen my knowledge through careful research, which then allows me to design a series of pieces that express the Dior brand identity as well as my own sensibility, in order to connect directly with the desires, tastes, and needs of the people who live there and call it home.”
Photographed by Mazen Abusrour
Having visited the region and connected with locals, Chiuri shares that these conversations led to design the series of pieces that express the Dior brand identity as well as her own feelings. Her ideas stemmed from the Dior codes that evoke the colors and vitality of the Middle East. “For me, gold embodies the house’s daring and timeless creativity, so I decided to reinterpret some of Dior’s iconic pieces and styles by enriching them with the vibrant power of this color that is both dazzling and inviting,” she says.
Photographed by Mazen Abusrour
Shop dresses and skirts in tulle, silk, or mesh, with embroidery; the J’Adior 8 T-shirt, a tribute to Monsieur Dior’s lucky number – the maison Dior is located at 28 avenue Montaigne in the 8th arrondissement in Paris. There is also the Palto jacket, which sculpts the waist, and accessories like the Dior Book Tote, also available in a mini format, the Lady Dior, the Saddle (left), the DiorTravel vanity, and the Dior Caro. This latest bag features Dior’s signature cannage and is embellished with a CD link chain, while its embroidery features metallic threads creating fine stripes; a couture-like addition. Shoes like the J’Adior pumps, Walk’n’Dior sneakers, Dway mules, and Dior Granville espadrilles are also offered in neutral, soft hues that celebrate light. “An ode to the precious, even sacred, dimension of femininity,” Chiuri muses, adding that stoles, bracelets, and a belt signed Christian Dior finish the capsule with romantic and refined flair. “The Middle East represents a middle ground – geographically, and also therefore culturally. It’s an extremely rich area in terms of traditions, fueled by a strong passion for beauty and quality,” considers Chiuri. Shop the exclusive series in all Dior boutiques in the Middle East set within dedicated pop-ups. There will also be a popup store in Riyadh, and on the Dior website in the UAE.

Read Next: The Exclusive Ramadan Capsule Collections You Don’t Want to Miss
Originally published in the April 2021 issue of Vogue Arabia