Profile | Dior’s artistic director Maria Grazia Chiuri on working at the pinnacle of a male-dominated fashion industry, and inclusivity in haute couture
- Maria Grazia Chiuri has elevated Dior to an international powerhouse as artistic director, but says success doesn’t always mean due respect for women in fashion
- Promoting women’s rights and hosting shows in under-represented places are some of the ways she’s brought Dior out of the patriarchy and into the 21st century
Since taking over as women’s artistic director of Dior six years ago, designer Maria Grazia Chiuri has turned the LVMH-owned label into a commercial juggernaut, which you’d think would earn her plenty of praise.
Fashion, however, is a funny world, one where unbound creativity – often of the male kind – gets all the attention at the expense of commercial success, even though making clothes that women actually want to wear should be the ultimate seal of approval.
The crown jewel of luxury group LVMH – owner of brands such as Louis Vuitton, Bulgari and Givenchy – Dior has always been the more refined and elegant sibling to mega brand Louis Vuitton.
Less ostentatious and very Parisian, Dior, like Chanel, is one of the few houses that make haute couture, that rarefied niche devoted to one-of-a-kind, custom garments made in Paris and purchased by a handful of clients who can afford dresses worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Before Chiuri’s arrival – and that of her partner in crime, CEO Pietro Beccari, who joined the label not long after her appointment – Dior was known for its elegance and refinement, what the French call bon chic, bon genre, a specific aesthetic rooted in Parisian allure and a tad old-fashioned and snobbish.
Chiuri, who had worked at Italian brands Fendi and Valentino, didn’t waste time in changing things when she joined the house.
