Organizational changes connected with the appointment of a new creative director, which the Dior House has been going through for several seasons, do not deter those who care for the future of the seventy-year brand associated with good taste, refined elegance and French courtesy

Maria Grazia Chiuri who became the first woman to head the Dior brand keeps on strengthening her credibility in her debut couture collection for the Maison, radically rejuvenating the brand’s DNA. Having wandered in the labyrinths of her predecessors’ discoveries for two seasons, she makes sure to add her own contribution to the brand style.

Considering the fact that the couture lines are undergoing serious reorganization and contrary to the traditional idea of high mastery ensembles, Maria demonstrates on the catwalk broadly wearable articles of clothing. She believes it her mission to carry out a complete modulation by adapting the bourgeois style in the context of the famous New Look silhouette (which symbolically marked its 70th anniversary on the same day) for the young-spirited and open-minded generation.

Musée Rodin was not a random choice for the fashion show. Its courtyard, where the Duke of Biron, one of the mansion's first owners, had a tulip garden put in at the start of the 20th century, became a meeting point for creative personalities. It was in the nature of things to encounter Henri Matisse or some other representative of the art elite there. They simply loved to spend their time in this unique place drawing inspiration from a rave of colour and its graphic architecture. A century later, Maria Grazia Chiuri picked up the idea and set out a labyrinth garden, which the habitual frequenters of this amazing mansion could only dream of.

Immaculately cut lawns, labyrinth paths covered with moss specially laid out on the territory of the pavilion constructed for the fashion defile, garden cane furniture made in Provence style, and the May Tree in the middle of the hall giving out youth and magic made it possible for the audience to indulge in fantasies about what Maria Grazia had put into the core of her collection.

While the executive management was looking for a replacement for Raf Simons, his assistants Serge Ruffieux and Lucie Meier rather unexpectedly brought the couture line closer to pret-a-porter criteria. Chiuri changed this quite successfully with her first collection by bringing back feminine forms instilled in the DNA, getting rid of overemphasis and elevating the distinguished cut created by Christian Dior.

A deeper analysis suggests that Maria’s creations are more characteristic of Dior’s understanding of couture. Sophisticated play with the BAR jacket resulting in different interpretations ranging from more classical to more brutal models with a widened shoulder line, a hood and decorative elements as well as the dress cut following the form of the legendary New Look silhouette with a neckline more characteristic of a men’s dinner-jacket, shortened sleeves and a skirt with silk drapery casually showing from beneath meet all the standards of fashion craft. It’s possible to achieve this without going into details which other couture brands tend to exploit. The present Dior line makes emphasis on a refined cut and minimum of details.

The X-shaped dress which has the colour of a night sky and is made of velvet with goffering of flowing silk received due regard. The silhouette appropriately accentuated all the attractive female features in the minds of the audience including the collarbone, the bust and shoulder line – in fact, parts of the body glorified by poets and painters as far back as the Renaissance when Titian’s delicate figure was at the height of popularity and those in possession of such graceful and well defined feminine attributes were iconized in romantic poems and novels of the time.

Women’s emancipation to which the brand’s creative director is sympathetic doesn’t go unnoticed. We can see the absence of a high heel and some details of a male suit fashioned for women like a crossover between a hussar pelisse and the BAR jacket designed along the lines of the original monk’s cassock and cape much loved by Chiuri.

It’s impossible to leave out of account the outfit consisting of a white silk basque jacket and a translucent silk pleated skirt with shorts showing from beneath inspired by the Dior founder’s groundwork after the fashion and style of the Edwardian époque to which Chiuri imparted a touch of youthfulness. It demonstrates elegance through the form, colour and texture of the chosen fabrics so characteristic of the stylistic period cited by the designer while bringing into the foreground such important modern Lady Dior criteria as innocence, delicacy and simplicity. Another noteworthy model is a grey dress made of fine lace with a transparent top characteristic of pure modesty rather than open sexuality in spite of an explicit for the brand DNA solution

Though the main line of the 2017 Spring couture collection was devoted to subtly modernized silhouettes carefully verified and reverently revived after the creations of the previous creative directors of the fashion house, the evening block of samples was fully the result of Chiuri’s fantasy where she wholeheartedly played with magic prints on dresses and separates consisting of full-length skirts with accentuated waist and crinolines embellished at the bottom with astrological prints and narrowed tops made of contrastive in colour fabrics.

Astrology is not an accidental theme for the brand since Dior had strongly believed in ancient science even before the world learned about him. He didn’t make a single step without his personal Sibyl. Floral motifs impersonated spring and drew attention to Dior’s talisman, a sprig of lily-of-the-valley, which decorated the buttonholes of the haute couture line outfits while he was the head of the maison.

Refined ensembles were matched with hats and masks in the form of insects designed in cooperation with Stephen Jones. It was a delicate hint at the evening fairy-tale masked ball which drew the beaux monde of the fashion show – a tribute to the tradition dating from the 18th century. All the guests were happy to become part of the magic atmosphere and adorned their looks with phantasmagoric masks and bright accessories.

The fashion show proves that Chiuri is not only an excellent couturier but also a great strategic thinker who has a clear idea of day-to-day realities and is competent enough to transform the product with reference to time, place and modern world tendencies. In her debut collection, she takes into account all the longstanding traditions of one of the leading fashion houses and puts adequate emphasis on current feministic trends. The image of the main heroine of Maria Grazia’s collection, seen in the light of modern life with a note of the designer’s exclusiveness, managed to piece together the eclectic history of the most important stylistic upheavals in the world. There’s no doubt that such a debut will be long remembered and Chiuri stands a good chance to be cherished in the memory of admirers of elegance.