dior resort 2026
Dior’s first female director delivers her final fashion statement ~
“I always like to see life in a fantasy key” is a quote attributed to Fellini but may equally have been spoken by Dior’s outgoing creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri for her Resort 2026 collection, Les Fantômes du Cinéma. Accompanied by light rain and live orchestra, women floated in white, like diaphanous ghosts, through the night mist of the Albani Torlonia Villa gardens.
The women were portrayed as attendees of a Bal Blanc, some dressed for masquerade in black lace, yet they seemed to emerge from different historical periods. Much has been said of the ‘bella confusione’ aspect of the scattered allusions, entwining references from high and low art, Paris and Rome, past and present. And yet, the soft movement of the dresses in the wind, the twinkling of the beading, and the whispering silhouettes invoke the delicacy of dreams and the softness of impression, creating beautiful thematic symmetry with an overarching theme of memory. This was a master stroke of quiet sophistication.
In the associated film by Matteo Garrone, ghost figures in powdered Rococo and Victorian dress are seen awakening in a storeroom, dusting out their heavy skirts and wigs in a manner reminiscent of retrieving old archival pieces. Some are dressed in real archival pieces, such as Tirelli’s copy of Claudia Cardinale’s dress in The Leopard (1964), and others pay visual homage to Fellini’s works, with one character in a costume reminiscent of Giacomo in Casanova (1976) – done, of course, in Chiuri’s muted palette. While the characters may be interpreted as spirits resurrected from an aristocratic past, I encourage you to read this scene as the metaphorical reimagining of Chiuri herself trolling through the costume archives at Tirelli in preparation for the runway. Her experience is inverted for the film: instead of Chiuri discovering the ghosts of cinema, the ghosts of cinema are discovering her.
As the ghosts observe the runway, both in the film and live on the night, they are portrayed as curious and approving onlookers. They walk with the models and take their arms, signalling a playful kinship; the ghosts are, after all, the palimpsest to this new court of female fashion. Interestingly, by inviting guests to similarly dress in white, Chiuri almost creates a linear line between the ghosts, the audience, and the Dior collection as a kind of past, present and future of luxury fashion.
The recording of the runway is no less striking and referential, with the models’ white outfits gathering the light against the shadow of the night, creating the illusion of a spotlight, in a manner common to black-and-white neorealistic films. In this, each woman is given the moment. The moment that all great directors of a certain period strove to create for their leading ladies, wherein she became a figure of great romance and intrigue. Of myth.
But Chiuri could never be accused of succumbing to the male gaze so often associated with such scenes. From the outset of her time as Dior’s first female creative director, she noted the difficulty of creating a new grammar of femininity, separate to the one she inherited from her many male predecessors. Her first show opened with a declaratory “We Should All Be Feminists,” taken from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel of the same name, however as she closes out her long tenure of exploring the meaning of femininity, Chiuri trades normativity for subjectivity – this show (possibly her last?) has largely been considered autobiographical. I put to you that it represents Chiuri’s own personal view of feminine beaty. After years of exploring many other perspectives, Chiuri finally brings us back to her vision, her home – literally, in the case of the Roman setting.
She celebrates female strength – not as men would have it, but on her terms – by appropriating the male iconography of power. The jabot one sees on judge’s robes, or the armour of a centurion, are softened with sparkle and ethereal fabric. She extends the pteruges (the leather skirt protecting the upper legs of a Roman solider) into a full-length dress and incorporates pronounced shoulders but with a soft curve. The androgyny borrows the power of male fashion but centres the female body shape. She places them in dialogue, producing an effortless thesis on femininity as lead by women – our bodies with elements of male power made to fit, rather than us fit it.
That is to say, the female body is leading the design, which is a total reversal (read rejection) of house Dior which famously (under male leadership) created the bar jacket, the unattainable but ‘ideal’ female shape. The gossamer fabric on many of the dresses emphasise the uninterrupted female body underneath through the subtly of shadow. It is not the colour or the shape of the outfits, but rather their interaction with the female body that creates dynamism and dimension – a kind of sensual testimony to the natural beauty of women. The bodies are not something to be obscured or distorted but rather incorporated fearlessly. To do so without sexualisation is a feat. It’s a creative decision that manifests sentiments Chiuri has long expressed in interview. I am glad it made it into what could be her final Dior fashion statement.
“On one side, I want to be a curator for the past. On the other side, I want to give my point of view about the future” is a quote attributed to Chiuri but may have equally been spoken by Fellini. Both are visual archaeologists who in pursuit of fantasy have discovered something profoundly real.
