As dance has been a lifelong passion for Maria Grazia Chiuri, the Creative Director enthusiastically accepted the invitation to work with the Director of Ballet at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma Eleonora Abbagnato, for the Christian Dior ‘Nuit Blanche’ collection.

For her, creating the costumes represented the opportunity to deepen creative research at the crossroads of dance, culture and couture. “I’ve admired Eleonora Abbagnato’s work for years,” she says. “She is an extraordinary artist who has worked hard to achieve her goals. She represents a great source of inspiration for a new generation of women. Her career, much like mine, was forged between Italy and France, which brings the two of us even closer together,” said the Creative Director.

For this unique homage, the dazzling Eleonora Abbagnato dances alongside the internationally renowned Friedemann Vogel, in a powerful performance blending emotion and technical virtuosity. “I am delighted and honored to be able to contribute to the staging of a project that combines so many elements of performance art, including music, choreography, set design and costume design,” notes Maria Grazia Chiuri, who returned to Rome, her hometown, especially to work with the Ateliers at the Opera of Rome on this project.

The designer’s starting point was a reflection on the specificities of dancers’ bodies. Maria Grazia Chiuri created sixteen costumes focused on new, contemporary definitions of femininity and masculinity. Knits and tulle are layered together on bodysuits and ensembles that are at once functional and enchanting. Eleonora Abbagnato’s full skirt is dotted with romantic silk flowers visible between two layers of tulle, as if preserved between the pages of a book, a symbolic floral reference in tribute to Dior’s heritage. The star dancers Eleonora Abbagnato and Friedemann Vogel symbolically wear ivory costumes, while the ballet corps appears in a kaleidoscope of powdery hues sheathed in black tulle worked with delicate silk flowers.

Take a new look at Dior’s savoir-faire in an exceptional project, for which Maria Grazia Chiuri collaborated with the star dancer and ballet director Eleonora Abbagnato.