Scenography ©Adrien Drand ©Chanakya School of Craft
Courtesy of Dior.
Yesterday at Dior’s show in Paris, two women textile artists and activists communed on the runway. The luxury maison’s outspoken creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri’s collection was framed by scenography derived from past works by the recently departed feminist artist, iconoclast, and quilter Faith Ringgold, who died on April 12 at the age of 93. It was an emotional haute couture send-off for Ringgold whose heady craft-centric works explored race, class, gender, family, and a multitude of other themes.
The haute couture autumn-winter 2024–2025 show featured renderings of such Ringgold classics as the paper-on-board call-to-arms protest piece, Woman Freedom Now. In fact, the 1971 piece’s abstract triangle motif was wrapped around the exterior of the temporary space at the Musee Rodin. Elsewhere were banners inspired by 1974’s abstract confluence Windows of the Wedding #1. Ringgold collaborated on this series with her mother, Madame Willi Posey, a celebrated Harlem fashion designer who taught her daughter how to sew.
But the showstopper of the set design was certainly the 32 panels that served as the gloriously colorful backdrop. Past Dior collaborators, the Mumbai-based Chanakya ateliers and Chanakya School of Craft, rendered L.A. Subway Commission Mosaics as embroidered life-sized panels. Many of these characters depicted were playing sports, such as soccer, baseball, or running, which fit into the Olympics-theme of the collection.
It was like Chiuri’s serene take on the Amazonian myth; her collection, inspired by ancient Greek garments, played off of the panoply Ringgold’s universe. The stars aligned for this collaboration.
Jun 26, 2024
