Her comments track with the fall collection she showed in February, where her reference was the 1967 opening of the Miss Dior boutique and the launch of a Paris-made ready-to-wear collection designed by one of her predecessors, Marc Bohan. Here, the fall show’s A-line minidresses were replaced by the nipped waist silhouettes of two decades earlier. Several of the jackets were informed by designs Marlene Dietrich commissioned from Dior, and one model sported the top hat, white waistcoat, and black tails the actress wore in the famous nightclub scene from Morocco.
As is Chiuri’s style, there were plenty of other references besides, including simply constructed and ornately beaded slip dresses of the kind she remembers from her early visit to New York—she likes a mannish top coat as an accompaniment, or a chunky handknit sweater—and new versions of the now iconic saddlebag launched in 1999 at the height of John Galliano’s Dior tenure featuring the date of tonight’s show, a collector’s item in the making.
A stars-and-stripes sweatshirt worn with logo track pants punctuated the lineup, but better were the more subtle Americanisms, like the leather aviator jacket and tweed skirt that looked like a nod in Amelia Earhart’s direction, and a belted cotton shirtdress that would’ve delighted Elizabeth Hawes. Truest to the promise of unrestricted movement and ease associated with American sportswear was a little black dress with a shaped waist made from silk knit that was 100% corset-less. “I like this idea that you can rework a shape of Dior with a different technique,” Chiuri said. “It gives immediately a different attitude.”
