A DAY IN THESUN

The 2023 Dior cruise collection will make a splash everywhere for its Andalusian look and feel. We spoke to Maria Grazia Chiuri, the house’s creative director, about her very special flamenco fantasy, which brought together local craftsmanship, contemporary cultural cross-pollination and women’s emancipation in Seville.

- RAFA RODRIGUEZ

It is, at the very least, odd: before arriving at Dior as creative director as, you know, the first woman leading the company in 70 years) in 2016, Maria Grazia Chiuri had never developed a cruise collection. Since then, she has created six, in her own way. Because where others see yet another) business opportunity, the Roman designer has turned the line into a sociocultural research laboratory focused especially on the various artisanal traditions she discovers in the places she travels to.

There is little left to say about the last stop in her trip on 16 June in Seville, given all the Instagram posts showing the designer visiting the Basilica de Santa Maria, leaked pictures of the monumental staging in Plaza de Espafia, spotting the local craftspeople involved in the collection the saddler Javier Menacho, the jeweller Pedro Ramos, the gold embroiderer Jestis Rosado, the queen of Manila shawls Maria José Sanchez Espinar, the hatmakers Fernández y Roche), phenomenal singing and dancing (Blanca Li, Belén López, El Yiyo, Carmen Amaya in spirit), and a frenzy of chatter on the front row just before the show began. After all the excitement, Chiuri sat down with Vogue Spain from Paris to explain a creative process that gives an insight into the designer like never before.

Rafa Rodriguez: Cruise collections have long lost their original meaning to become a formula that makes it possible to maintain a constant flow of new items in the shops between the main prêt-à-porter lines. Why did you decide to add a significant cultural value to what is just a sales strategy?