Dior Haute Couture Spring 2021: Mysterious and Beautiful

In uncertain times marked by a palpable desire to reconnect with the world’s soul, Maria Grazia Chiuri wished to explore, through the spring-summer 2021 haute couture collection, the mysterious and pluralistic beauty of the tarot in a series of dresses featuring virtuoso constructions; manifest proof that couture remains the ultimate territory of experimentation and possibility.

The tarot, a pack of playing cards coming from the mid-15th century, are among the keys to accessing the magical realm, to explore the unknown while fearlessly looking deep inside oneself. Maria Grazia Chiuri immediately felt a connection with these imaginary worlds and this visual language whose symbolic lexicon is rich in complex and fascinating characters.

This Couture collection took us back in time featuring a series of extraordinary evening gowns in abstract constructions, some with veritable bas-relief openwork bodices punctuated with illustrations by Pietro Ruffo. In this spirit, the Roman artist created a singular deck of cards in which characters disclose the graphic energy of the symbols. Dior gray appears in tweed, cashmere and organza on shirts, skirts, pants and capes.

The Bar jacket is revisited in black velvet, its curves reinterpreted to express a new attitude.

VELOVE VEXIADD

ORA YANG

CARINA LAU

SARA SERRAIOCCO

In his staging of these haute couture creations, Matteo Garrone, one of Italy’s most high-profile directors, builds on the narrative iconography by drawing on the visual force of the Visconti-Sforza tarot.

Splendid cards embellished in gold, enamel, and vegetal and geometric interlacing have a solemn and enigmatic presence, revealing an inner journey, like an adventure of self-discovery. A voyage to the heart of a castle populated by characters embodying the major arcana who question and disorient, inviting the viewer to look at the world from a new perspective. In the director’s interpretation, this quest surpasses gender boundaries, presenting a synthesis of masculine and feminine

Lace is inlaid with hand-painted embellishments, golden velvet is enlivened with the signs of the zodiac and precious jacquards are sprinkled with stars, while a cape in multicolored feathers showcases 3D volumes. In this story, the insider always needs the feminine complement and vice versa, because only such a fusion makes it possible to approach a formative path leading to self-awareness. As Italo Calvino points out in The Castle of Crossed Destinies: “The world has to be read upside-down”.