Christian Dior feted its 70th birthday at Paris’ Couture Week Monday in style with an accomplished, star-filled show that mapped the iconic house’s expansion across the world. It was an unabashed, encyclopedic celebration of femininity in all its guises for Maria Grazia Chiuri — the house’s first female designer.
Dior breathed a sigh of relief that it did not rain on Chiuri’s first outdoor presentation — and was her best show to date.
But the unexpected rays of sun caused their own set of problems for the myriad VIP guests that included singer Celine Dion and actresses Jennifer Lawrence, Natalie Portman and Kirsten Dunst.
They sweltered alongside the forest-like show decor of verdant grass, exotic trees, huge wooden elephants, crocodiles and eagles at the Invalides venue.
“I’m going to stand in the shade as it’s just too hot,” model Karlie Kloss explained as she raced away momentarily for the refuge of a tree from her front row seat.
Meanwhile, actor Robert Pattinson — a Dior brand ambassador — mingled with guests in the cool of the shade cast surreally by a gargantuan atlas, hoisted up above the show foliage.
The starting point of Chiuri’s empowering, feminist display was a 1953 Atlas etching of five continents discovered in the Dior archives, which mapped the house’s global expansion.
Chiuri took Monsieur Dior’s own words — that a collection should represent “all types of women in all countries” — and gave them renewed legitimacy — as the house’s first female head.
The ankle-length silhouettes, which riffed on the 1950s, celebrated powerful female trailblazers of history — and the bold styles worn by women thousands of miles apart.
A loose, pleated gray wool menswear aviator outfit was called “Amelia Earhart,” in celebration of the American aviation pioneer who succeeded in a man’s world.

Source: Arab News