Christian Dior: Maria Grazia Chiuri makes The New Look sofa-compatible

Even during a discombobulating, digital fashion month, catwalks still attract protests. Designers ought to be relieved. Isn’t this evidence that fashion can still provoke a reaction? That said, the lone Extinction Rebellion protestor who marched her way onto Dior’s catwalk yesterday with a banner pointing out that We’re All Fashion Victims (a cheeky play on Dior’s £600 We Should All Be Feminists t-shirts), looked tame in comparison with the sometimes feral riots that broke out on the streets after Christian Dior launched his New Look in 1947.

The New Look was in many ways profoundly old, co-opting as it did the corsets and full skirts of the C19th and it created quite the commotion. Millions lapped up its brazen nostalgia, romance and femininity. Others were appalled by its profligacy. The skirt alone required around 13 and a half yards of fabric at a time of acute rationing. The same arguments about waste, albeit for different reasons, are an incendiary issue in fashion now.

Street fights notwithstanding, The New Look became one of the most enduring Dior emblems, endlessly reworked by subsequent designers ever since.

None of them has made The New Look as sofa-compatible as Maria Grazia Chiuri in this live-streamed show, which took place in Paris in front of a handful of guests. But then none of them was a woman.

Chiuri’s New New Look comprises full(ish) calf length skirts in soft, pre-washed fabrics and embroidered or African-inspired wax-printed wrap jackets that could be cinched at the waist or worn open, inspired by the “home” jacket Christian Dior introduced in 1975, based loosely on the kimono.

Could anything be a more apposite starting point for Chiuri, who has been on a mission to make The New Look relevant since she joined the house almost four years ago? The upended lives of Dior customers this year have pushed her further than ever towards this goal with arguably her most deconstructed collection to date. Sheer chiffon maxi dresses worn over sporty-looking race back bras, tie-dye anoraks and silky trousers had been styled to look as though they’d been haphazardly shrugged on. To emphasise this point, she collaborated with collage artist Lucia Marcucci on a collaged set.

Shoes were flat - ballet pumps with ribbons; fabrics were prewashed to soften them and make them feel less precious. Shrunken waistcoats over matching lace maxis were as formal as it got. Sombre colours such as khaki and nude gave way to rose pink and petrol blue. It was quietly lovely, designed for close-up appreciation. Delicate and finely wrought as this was, none of it looked as though it should be saved for best. When no one knows when that might be, “for best” begins to seem an archaic concept.

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