For Christian Dior Fall 2019 RTW collection, the Artistic and Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri turned her attention to Teddy Girls – one of the first British subcultures – as a way of revisiting the 1950s. The queens of a ravaged landscape, Teddy Girls were impertinent characters with wild quiffs who wore Edwardian-style men’s jackets with velvet scarves, ample skirts, jeans and black leather jackets.

These references offer a new perspective on the 1950s, which Maria Grazia Chiuri chose to associate with the character of Princess Margaret. One by one, Maria Grazia Chiuri reclaims Dior codes, drawing in turn from its lexicon to create and reinvent the designs of tomorrow.

The Bar suit is revisited along a more masculine line, through cut, fabric and a velvet collar. It converses with gathered skirts made suppler through the use of technical fabrics that are also worked into dresses inspired by Christian Dior’s nipped-waist silhouettes.

Through the modernity of its materials and techniques, the iconic silhouette of the Miss Dior dress – which Christian Dior designed for the Spring-Summer 1949 haute couture collection – expresses the mix of strength and grace the Artistic Director favors. This inspiration also informs evening dresses composed of bodysuits and skirts that may be embroidered with transparent paillettes or embellished with flowers in relief. Low-heeled shoes are tapered and cut low in front. A new palm tree version of Toile de Jouy recalls the work of the artist Mario Schifano, and appears on a series of shirts or combines with checks and gingham, in black and red or black and white.

The show’s scenography relies on ABCs – with each letter representing a different woman – created by the Italian artist Tomaso Binga. In so doing, the pieces in the collection reconnect with an idea of femininity that transcends gender and anatomy.

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