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Christian Dior said, “A
good fit is something very difficult to obtain and you can never spend too
much time on it.” He was referring to the cut of a dress but the same could
be said for the search to replace Raf Simons as creative director of the
seventy-year-old house.
Last year, I wrote a piece for FashionUnited entitled in response to
seeing the same male designers’ names posited for the two just-vacated
thrones of Paris fashion, Lanvin and Dior. The “old boys club” nature of
the industry was wearing thin. Where was our next Phoebe Philo to come from
if only men need apply for the top jobs? Then, out of left field, they
hired Bouchra Jarrar for Lanvin. Could an anomaly become a norm? We waited
and watched.
The world at large descended into tumult. Dramatic changes have been
foisted upon us in politics, the climate, international security, not to
mention the tornado rolling through the fashion system tearing up the
ground. All of this is reflected in Dior’s announcement last week that,
after an eight month search, it has hired its first ever female creative
director, Maria Grazia Chiuri.
Just as Christian Dior’s 1947 “New Look” celebrated an end to rationing
and wartime austerity, unveiling a silhouette with bustier style bodice and
wasp waist, padded hips and flared skirt, this current move by the
executives at Dior signals that things are shaping up to be a lot more
curvaceous in the face of bleakness. Fashion at its best must reflect the
times in which we live. In a July 12th piece in The Washington Post,
entitled, “Here’s why Theresa May will become Britain’s first female leader
since Thatcher,” written by Karen Beckwith and Diana Z. O’Brien, an
interesting point caught my eye: “Male candidates are often senior and
well-networked, and usually favored for leader. They are significantly more
likely to first select female leaders, in contrast, when they are out of
power and losing seats. Being qualified usually isn’t enough for women to
become leaders. Crisis provides the opportunity… It’s no accident that a
woman came to the fore now…women generally get the opportunity to lead
during times of loss, decline and crisis.”
Teresa May has, of course, since stepped into the role vacated by David
Cameron and must clean up his mess from which he walked away singing his
now viral little ditty. A commentator on NPR summed it up along the lines
of Judy Dench’s M swooping in to negotiate Bond out of a mess.
The fashion industry’s crises are numerous––sustainability, supply chains,
an unworkable fashion calendar, among others. But the luxury industry
which, for some time, had seemed infallible to the doldrums effecting other
sectors of the marketplace has now been hit. For more than a decade,
Burberry was one of its shining examples of canny rebranding under the
respective business and creative leadership of Angela Ahrendts and
Christopher Bailey. Its innovative digital platform and solid expansion
into China were just two ways it became the leader others imitated. Now,
with travel to Europe down and shoppers spooked by terrorism, Brexit
uncertainty, and demand in China dropping off, it is just one of many
luxury houses whose stock is plummeting and growth has stalled, leading to
its recent reshuffles in management. Maybe they should get Ahrendts on the
phone; she left the company for Apple in 2014.
A corps of women are being drafted in to fix problems or formulate
strategies. French luxury giant Kering, owner of Gucci, Bottega Veneta and
Saint Laurent among others, recruited Sarah Crook just over a year ago as
chief executive of growing label Christopher Kane; Hélène Poulit-Duquesne
was hired for Boucheron; and Grita Loebsack for Kering’s couture and
leather goods emerging brands division.
Women are reportedly responsible for 85 percent of luxury sales so it’s
not surprising that they should figure in the creation of product as well
as its consumption. What is surprising is that it has taken brands like
Dior so long to realize this. An assessment of corporate demographics
carried out by digital platform Ethics & Boards found that only four
companies of thirty-three studied boasted above 40 percent female
directors: Michael Kors, Estée Lauder, Kate Spade and Hermès.
A rethinking of gender stereotypes is also happening throughout popular
culture. This BBC.com review of the current Ghostbusters remake
nails the significance of the new “New Look”: “It’s exhilarating to see
four grown women striding into combat in practical grey boiler suits, as
opposed to the skimpy leotards favoured by most big-screen superheroines. And
it’s inspiring to see them use their scientific brilliance to defeat a
crowd of supernatural villains…contentious (as) it was when Sony
announced that its new Ghostbusters would be female, it’s not
until you see the climactic battle that you appreciate just how genuinely
radical the casting was. There has simply never been a scene like it in a
Hollywood blockbuster before.”
In her previous role at Valentino, Maria Grazia Chiuri, along with
creative partner Pierpaolo Piccioli, favoured a highnecked, gentle
sensuality in their collections that stood out as modern in a time when
aggressive figure-hugging sexiness has become almost mandatory. While many
designers only travelled back to the 1980s and 90s in recent seasons,
Chiuri and Piccioli set their sights a century further beyond, to
Renaissance poets and Pre-Raphaelite princesses. The lyrical romanticism of
the clothes had buyers clamouring, and magazine editors enraptured, as well
as earning them the approval of the now-retired founder of the house,
Valentino Garavani. As Sarah Burton has done at McQueen, Chiuri at Dior is
no doubt destined to take the dna of this much loved house that was founded
and managed by men, and inject an intimacy and charm instinctively
associated with her gender. Men can certainly do womenswear but women can
do women. Or as Sydney Toledano, president and CEO of Dior put it when
elaborating on the company’s new hire, “She has this approach of a woman.
The eyes of a woman for Dior, for the woman’s side, is important.”
As we watch over the next few months to see if we will crown our first
female president, Trump will do all in his power to invalidate Clinton’s
“woman’s card.” While the White House is the ultimate prize in politics,
there possibly isn’t a more desirable house for a designer working in
luxury fashion than Dior. Congratulations Maria Grazia Chiuri.
By contributing guest editor Jackie Mallon, who is on the teaching
faculty of several NYC fashion programmes and is the author of Silk for the
Feed Dogs, a novel set in the international fashion industry.
All photos from Dior.com