“As in all fairy tales, before I found the treasure, I met dragons, witches, magicians and the angel of temperance along the way. “Niki de Saint Phalle
While researching the Dior archives, Maria Grazia Chiuri, Artistic Director of the women’s collections, became interested in a series of photographs by Niki de Saint Phalle. In one of them, the artist is seen riding a camel; in others, she poses for Dior, in the era of Marc Bohan, her great friend, then head of the House’s creations. Embodying the beauty of her time, slender and strong, more adolescent than androgynous, she asserted a sartorial style that was both iconic and personal, contemporary in its proportions and impertinence. Her life seems worthy of a novel. At a time of women’s emancipation, Niki de Saint Phalle embarked on a body-to-body confrontation with art, the world and herself. Like all artists, she was driven by her emotions. It is this feminine creativity that speaks to Maria Grazia Chiuri.
“Why haven’t there been any great women artists?” This is the question posed by Linda Nochlin’s essay, published in 1971, and also by Maria Grazia Chiuri. It’s necessary to give these different and unique artists their rightful place, for it is they who transgress the traditionally masculine discourse of art history and fashion. Nanas, sculptures of outsized women, as well as multicolored hearts, dragons, the Tree of Love and the wildly disproportionate Tarot Garden in Tuscany, become motifs, bursts of embroidery and mosaics of mirrors in Maria Grazia Chiuri’s collection and the show’s scenography. She’s not afraid to use Niki de Saint Phalle’s colorful, almost garish palette, in dialogue with lace, silk, leather and plastic.
This collection, inspired by the artist, also refers to Marc Bohan and his little dresses and jumpsuits, sometimes combined with full skirts open at the front. Large polka dots, black and white checks, pants worn with jackets or saharan jackets, paired, depending on the mood, with masculine shirts in fine stripes, polka dots or romantic white: all borrowings from Marc Bohan’s vocabulary. Finally, the collection’s atmosphere and references, whether explicit or implicit, transport us back to the cheeky hustle and bustle of the 1960s, illustrating the ever-changing power of feminine universes. They are not only changing fashion, but also the contemporary world.
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