Grace. Dior Resort 2026

May 29, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

Today, Lorde released Man Of The Year, her second single from the highly-anticipated Virgin album. The song is heart-and-gut-wrenching in the most Lorde way you can imagine: raw, vulnerable, unfiltered. By the time we reach the outro, Let’s hear it for the man of the year, there is a subtle shift from mourning to ecstatic celebration. The phrase is repeated like a sarcastic toast, both honoring and burying (burning alive!) the man who inspired the deep, painful turmoil. But ultimately, Man of the Year is not really about him. It is about Lorde reclaiming the narrative, re-emerging from ego death and heartbreak with sharpened clarity.

Quite coincidentally, it was officially announced today (after months of speculation) that Maria Grazia Chiuri is stepping down from Dior. Social media raved: finally!; fashion gods heard our prayers; the end of a nightmare. Voiced especially by men, you just can’t not agree with @lewissmag that there’s a tinge (or even plenty) of misogyny sparking that excitement of a woman departuring a maison like Dior after a decade of immense volume of work. A reminder that the fashion males, queer or not, had a very similar blast when Virginie Viard left Chanel. They were in heaven.

Now don’t get me wrong: I’ve never been a number one fan of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s work at Dior – just not my cup of tea, aesthetically. But I do realize that all the logo totes aren’t her sin: it’s in fact LVMH and Bernault Arnault’s endless financial insatiability that powered Dior’s horrific merchandise in the last decade. Just think of the once sophisticated and chic Dior boutique on Avenue Montaigne that now looks like a massive, tacky department store. It’s also not Chiuri’s fault. Unfortunately, creative directors really don’t have all the power when leading a brand.

What this female designer managed to make out of Dior is turning it into a brand that’s in a way similar to Giorgio Armani’s universe: you don’t have to follow it from season to season, because you won’t really see a revolution on the runway – but there’s always a beautiful dress, a great coat, a proper jacket. A continuity that has its rhyme and rhythm.

In a way, it seems to me that Maria Grazia Chiuri truly refound herself at the very end of her tenure at Dior. Her pre-fall 2025 show in Tokyo had a spark. Her swan song outing, for resort 2026, presented in the enchanting garden of Villa Albani Torlonia in Rome, was powerful in its grace. Those velvet column gowns are pure delights, just as the remarkable fur coats that are actually made from plume. The collection’s opening look, a masculine white tailcoat worn with a maxi-length, matching skirt, is the absolute essence of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s contribution to fashion, in past misguided by unfortunate styling or simply obscured under all the gimmicks of fashion show spectacles. This ideal, minimalist yet sumptuous simplicity was followed by many variations on the theme of the long, slim, semi-sheer dress. The lace effects were almost countless – 3D florals, rivulets of ruffles, leafy cut-outs, wavy art deco frills, gilded latticework covered with silken fringe. Underwear visible, shoes flat. A statement.

And then, the haute couture finale featuring caviar-beaded, trompe l’oeil-effect dresses that looked like statues dating back to Ancient Rome. Male statues, to be precise. Torsos, like armors (a theme moved very literally by Nicolas Ghesquière at Louis Vuitton just a week ago). Going back to Lorde, Man Of The Year’s cover art is a Talia Chetrit photograph of the singer’s bust, covered with duct tape. Now, do you see the connection between these two?

Will Maria Grazia Chiuri return to fashion in the near future? Probably she will spend her time on cultural initiatives, like the Teatro Della Cometa she renovated and reopened to the public a couple of days ago. And who will lead Dior’s womenswear now? Probably Jonathan Anderson. Another M.O.T.Y.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Haute Refinement. Dior Men AW25

January 29, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

Kim Jones‘ sensational Dior Men collection is exactly what happens when a designer is unburdened from another super-demanding job (meaning Fendi, the Roman brand where the British designer just couldn’t find his rhythm). This autumn-winter 2025 menswear collection was evidently thoroughly considered and planned, like an haute couture outing. The most stunning silhouette was either a trouser nor a skirt. It was a coat, worn backward, with the collar creating a kind of asymmetric cummerbund, the tucked-in sleeves forming “pockets,” and buttons running down the back. The silk-ribbon blindfold some of the models wore gave a pinch of extra-seduction. If only Dior womenswear was this good. Maybe when – as the rumor has it – Jonathan Anderson takes helm?

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Nureyev Would Approve. Dior Men AW24

January 21, 2024January 21, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Autumn-winter 2024 collection might be Kim Jones‘ finest endeavor to date at Dior Men. There were 40 ready-to-wear looks and 20 couture, and according to the show notes, through the idea Rudolf Nureyev’s personal life and onstage persona, Jones explored an “idea of two lives lived … the world of the couture reflects the extravagance of his stage presence, of Nureyev’s flamboyance, insolence and elegance”. With the theatrical staging and dramatic soundtrack – a “revisiting” of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s music from the ballet Romeo and Juliet, courtesy of modern day composer Max Richter – in the background, Jones delivered a line-up that not only mused on Nureyev’s style, but also yet again gracefully told a story of queer experience. The ballet dancer’s off-duty, 70s style of zip-up suits was replicated in zipped wool jumpsuits in shades of dove-grey. The magnificent silver uchikake kimono was based on one Nureyev – a collector of vintage textiles – owned. It apparently took 10 craftspeople in Japan three months to complete. The garments were embellished with pearls or awed with the richness of croc-embossed leather. Sheer, metallic mesh tops with floor-sweeping veils were worn with louchely tailored trousers and overcoats with crystal embroideries. Some models wore velvet headwraps; the footwear was all about, you guessed it, ballet shoes. Interestingly, Jones and Nureyev have a brief, yet crucial family connection: Jones’s uncle was the ballet dancer and photographer Colin Jones, whose pictures of Nureyev, driving, reading, chatting on the phone, as well as dancing, formed a book left on each seat for the show’s guests. This outing was definitely one of the most enchanting moments of the menswear Paris Fashion Week, along with phenomenal Rick Owens’ at-home show.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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What’s Hot (28.7.23)

July 28, 2023July 22, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Men’s – Higher Than The Sun. Dior SS24

June 24, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Kim Jones‘ first collection for Dior seems like yesterday, but believe it or not, 5 years have passed since his big debut. I wasn’t always a fan of his work at the Parisian brand, but his recent collection – and especially spring-summer 2024 – make me change my mind. For this anniversary collection, Jones turned towards a canonical trio of Dior designers who preceded him. He referenced Yves Saint Laurent, Gianfranco Ferré, and Marc Bohan, enmeshing motifs from their times here with propositions of his own. The membrane the connected them all was Christian Dior’s cannage, the pattern the house founder based on the woven rattan chairs in which guests sat at his first salon show in 1947. The show opened with a coup de théâtre: the wide runway was composed of polished metal gray tiles. As the first Andrew Weatherall–conjured wheezing whalesong of Primal Scream’s “Higher Than the Sun” began to roll, the entire cast of models was raised from beneath the runway in a three-wide, 17-long grid of looks.

Jones’s design credentials are undisputed. He is also an extremely accomplished visual editor. He studded polished jewels on cardigans draped over the collection’s straight-legged, high-hemmed, high skirted tailoring, and then that over piqué polo shirts set with yet more jewels. Can we talk about the knitted beanies with velvet flower brooches?! Obsessed. Tweed loafers had buckles derived from a Lady Dior fragrance motif. Marled jacquard cannage knits in punchy colors were worn shoulder robed over more of the tailoring. Some jackets, semi-safarienne, were set with a bow at the breast pocket. Long tweed coats, high notch-collared and double breasted, featured the faded rattan shape within their muesli flecks and appeared to be bonded dresses worn from the shoulder. Dior’s Mitzah Bricard–inspired leopard print was reproduced on Saddle bags and vests. These were worn with sporty tweed shorts, which were later placed against tweed and piqué twinsets. The punches of fluoro green and orange added a psychedelic touch. As the designer put it himself: “It’s a collage of different designers in the archive expressed in shape, color, form and mood.”

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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