The show took place in Marrakech
After a two-day adventure around the palaces of Marrakech, on Monday evening Maria Grazia Chiuri invited guests to the Palais El Badi for her Dior Cruise 2020 show. Surrounded by the terracotta colonnades of the 16th century fortress, models walked around the courtyard’s epic pool set alight with hundreds of torches glistening above the surface, giant bonfires cutting through the Moroccan night. This was a collection close to the heart of Chiuri: a cultural exchange between the codes of Dior and the pan-African craftsmanship she has always admired. Working with traditional wax print fabric manufactured in the Ivory Coast, she fused the trademarks of Dior – toile de jouy, tarot card motifs and the New Look silhouette – with a fabric, whose history is as cross-cultural as her clientele.
It was a message of cultural exchange
The show notes opened with a quote by Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun: “Culture teaches us to live together, teaches us that we’re not alone in the world, that other people have different traditions and ways of living that are just as valid as our own
Anthropologist Anne Grosfilley consulted on the collection
Educating herself on the wax fabrics of the African continent, Maria Grazia Chiuri joined forces with the French anthropologist Anne Grosfilley, who served as a guide throughout the creation of the collection. Grosfilley introduced Chiuri to Uniwax, an expert wax factory in the Ivory Coast, and the intricate hand-made print technique that forms the patterns. This collection can be worn by anyone because it’s about the connection between all the continents in the world.”
The collection featured several collaborations
Describing her collection as “a world map”, Maria Grazia Chiuri invited a number of specialists to collaborate on her show. Focusing on wax fabric – “the fabric of a cultural melting pot” – she worked with Grosfilley and Uniwax on weaving the codes of Dior into toiles de jouy, landscapes and tarot motifs realised in new interpretations. British-Jamaican designer Grace Wales Bonner and African-American artist Mickalene Thomas reimagined Dior’s Classic Bar Jacket and New Look skirt.
Dior has historic ties to Marrakech
In 1951, Christian Dior created the ‘Maroc’, a white tulle dress and coat with silver embroidery inspired by the cooling white colours of the city – which reached 36 degrees on Monday afternoon. Under the cross-cultural eye of John Galliano, who served at the house between 1997 and 2011, Moroccan influences continuously found their way into the house’s collections. But no designer is more synonymous with Marrakech than the Algerian-born Yves Saint Laurent, who became Dior’s assistant in 1955 and took the reins at the house when his mentor died two years later.
