Reflecting On Status

The Dior Spring/Summer 2023 Collection reflects Maria Grazia Chiuri's mission to portray femininity in a strong manner - this time, through Catherine de' Medici, the most powerful woman of the 16th century.

- John NG

After breathing life into a cabinet of curiosities with the juxtaposition of technology and traditional tailoring on the autumn/winter runway, Maria Grazia Chiuri glances back at the historical past for the Dior Spring/Summer 2023 collection. The creative director isn’t only influenced by a map of Paris printed on a 1950s-era Dior scarf (which Chiuri made it a focal point of the collection), but also her fascination with Catherine de’ Medici, an Italian noblewoman who married Henry II of France in the 16th century.

For this season, Chiuri scrutinises the connection between women and power, while paying tribute to fashion as the art of invention that is perpetually steeped in the cultural realm we navigate daily. “Noncompliant with predetermined existences, women are capable of exercising power in many ways, including by escaping through the mind. The power of fashion becomes the power of women, a form of awareness that draws on this attraction to the outside world, to what lies beyond perception, knowledge and common experience,” Dior states in the show note.