About Christian Dior SS18..What You Need To Know ..Fashionweekly..On Fow24news.com

This season, Maria Grazia Chirui explained that she was directly inspired by the artist Niki de Saint Phalle, who was one of the first 20th Century female artists to be recognized by the establishment as well as a close friend of former Dior creative director Marc Bohan.
On each seat lay a copy of feminist art historian Linda Nochlin’s 1971 essay, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?", which explores the institutional sexism of the art world. It certainly positioned the location of the venue – Musée Rodin – in a new light.

Saint Phalle’s artworks – figurative, experimental sculptures and paintings – were translated into prints, knitted into jumpers, or turned into appliqué embellishments. Her name, too was writ large across the collection: a continuation of the feminist theme that Chiuri has made her missive at Dior. She might have been oft-ignored during her lifetime, but today Saint Phalle certainly had her moment on the runway.

Saint Phalle’s Tarot Garden – a 14-acre sculpture park in Tuscany, which was built to show that “a woman can work on a monumental scale” – was also translated into the showspace itself. The mirrored mosaics that decorate the interior of her sculpture, Empress, today appeared on the walls of a giant cavern that Dior had erected behind the Musée Rodin. These shards also became the inspiration behind the closing looks: modern day disco glamour as refracted through the prism of feminist art history.

Since being appointed artistic director of the house’s womenswear, Chiuri has excavated and paid homage to the house’s immense archives – and Saint Laurent’s final Beat collection for the house (after which he was summarily fired) was clearly referenced here. There were plenty of Breton stripes, those Dior berets and a remarkable revival of existential chic.

But most visibly present was the legacy of Marc Bohan – his polka dots, checked prints, little black dresses and excellent tailoring – and the Seventies, left-bank spirit that his friends (women like Saint Phalle) embodied: playful; eccentric and idiosyncratic. His women are clearly the same sort that Chiuri is designing for – and this collection is likely to prove a hit with the eclectic sensibility of the new generation.