The most powerful woman of the 16th century, Catherine de’ Medici chose to express her strength through her fashion – and that is what attracted Maria Grazia Chiuri to her for her Spring/Summer 2023 Dior show
There’s a connection, of course, in that both are Italian women welding their power on French soil. There’s also something of a connection between the silhouettes of de’ Medici’s court and the trademark styles of Dior – the designeronce cited the 16th century as the source of inspiration for Dior’s silhouettes, and certainly, his sweeping petticoats and wasped waists find an echo in the stays and farthingales of the mid-1500s.
Generally, that was the mood – to take the unexpected raiments of court dress of the distant past, and to re-energise and reinvigorate them with a mood of the now. Hood skirts were abbreviated, or lightened to bounce with the models’ rapid pace; rich lace, once worth more by weight than gold, is crafted into dresses with an easy air; a courtly wide skirt may be topped with a simple jersey tank, which could, in turn, be tugged down into a chemise dress, like underwear of the past.
In the sequence of Chiuri’s work, in her embracing of female empowerment and suffrage of various origins, this collection makes total sense. Herdeclared we should all be feminists – and, here, she brings to light an early woman of power, who wielded true political influence as the only ruling queen of France. Her statements of power through cloth still have resonance almost 500 years later.
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