To Brooklyn, by Way of Paris and Rome

A whirlwind week with Dior creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri as she stages the brand's first New York runway show in a decade.

- Chantal Fernandez

USUALLY, FASHION DESIGNERS are hidden away before their runway shows. But on a Monday night in April, Maria Grazia Chiuri casually slips through the lobby of the Brooklyn Museum, heading outside with two colleagues in matching black oversize suits for a quick cigarette break. (It's her only preshow ritual, she says later, laughing, "but honestly, I would like to stop.") The understated Italian doesn't give off the air of someone with one of the most prestigious jobs in fashion. As the creative director of womenswear collections at Dior, she is the rare woman to sit atop a luxury brand, let alone one of the world's largest. And, in about an hour, she will show its pre-fall to 1,000 eager onlookers.

After eight years with Dior, and 17 before that with Valentino, Chiuri doesn't get nervous ahead of her fashion shows anymore. "Of course, there is emotion," she says, "but at the same time, you have to be in control of it." The Brooklyn Museum is one of Chiuri's favorite places in the city. Growing up in Rome, where the legacy of the old masters still dominates, she rarely saw the work of female artists. But here, the home of Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party, "was the first time that I found a public institution with a space dedicated to feminist art," she says.