For the first time ever in the 70 years that the house has existed, Dior has hired a female couturier to take the creative lead. Today, half of Valentino’s creative director duo Maria Grazia Chiuri has been confirmed to take the reigns of the legendary French house as of immediately. Her first collection will be shown September 30, 2016 at Paris fashion week.
“It is a great honor to be joining the house of Dior; I measure the tremendous responsibility of being the first woman in charge of the creation in a house so deeply rooted in the pure expression of femininity,” Chiuri said in a statement. “The endless wealth of its heritage continues to be a constant source of inspiration for fashion, and I cannot wait to express my own vision.”
Chiuri started out as a menswear designer and has spent most of her career working directly with her Valentino co-director Pier Paolo Piccioli. The duo met in fashion school and started working together when Piccioli joined her at Fendi where the pair designed the now iconic Fendi baguette.
In 1999, the pair, personally courted by Valentino, left Fendi for Valentino SpA to help up the designer’s accessory department. They still remember the first pair of shoes they designed for the house – a pair of red sandals with roses (in winter). They spent 9 years working directly with the iconic designer before he retired and Chiuri and Piccioli were buying fildena online.
The designers have since evolved the style that Valentino mastered so famously. The romanticism that has always been a signature was twisted with spikes and studs and the duo famously created an anti-sex and almost medieval silhouette, which girls around the world immediately took to.
Last year, we documented Valentino Haute Couture FW15 and had the pleasure of eternalizing the beautiful, intricate yet natural process of Chiuri and Piccioli. We are going to revisit this film many times in order to imagine the magic that the 52-year-old will create at Dior. 