Dior Spring 2023 Couture Review
The voice, and incredible, effervescent presence of Josephine Baker was felt throughout Dior’s Spring 2023 couture collection.
No single artist has had quite the impact Baker did, and yet, so few modern fashion references involving her come to mind. Leave it to Maria Grazia Chiuri to devote an entire collection to her, against an original set design by Mickalene Thomas, the renowned Black visual artist. Though Chiuri’s work for Dior has been contentious since she took the helm in 2016, she’s long been an active voice and champion of women in the arts and in 2023, still stands as one of the very few female creative directors in the high fashion space.
The Dior Spring 2023 couture collection opened up with a range of 1920s inspired looks that slowly built to reach a fever pitch celebrating the female form. It started with a black smocked satin swimsuit paired under an oversized robe jacket, followed by a luscious velvet black jumpsuit and next, an embroidered silk evening coat over an ecru satin shirt with tailored black pants. The very beginnings of the collection seemed to represent the building blocks of the kind of modern wardrobe that might suit Baker’s character on the day to day; silk jacquard pleated day dresses, marled wool jackets, simple coat dresses. According to the show notes, Chiuri conceived this part of the collection as “the cozy, intimate dressing room that preceeds her entrance on stage.” At first glance, these pieces were simple, and maybe even a bit matronly, but as we’ve seen with Chiuri’s past collections for Dior, conservative is key and keeps the clients coming back.
Where things got more interesting was in the delicately embellished depths of the collection. Take, for instance, a silver satin top embroidered with a geometric pattern in crystal satin beads, a sheer steel-beaded mesh set trimmed with fringe, or even the gilded gown embroidered with stripes of hammered metal sequins. And yet! In the canon of fashion, Baker is best remembered as someone who shocked, broke barriers and dressed without limits. She subverted stereotypes and quite literally, changed fashion. Her most iconic ensemble consisted of pearls, a little bra, and that skirt made of 16 fake bananas. The shock value and subversion just wasn’t present in Dior’s Spring 2023 couture collection, however. The moment that may have come closest was a collar made of rooster feathers–a potential nod to the playfulness of which Baker so brilliantly displayed when dressing. Coral bead embroidery on another dress may have been a subtle tribute to the skirt.
However, at a time when talk of quiet luxury and stealth wealth is saturated throughout the high fashion space, Dior’s Spring 2023 couture collection fit right in. Many may be thinking how to recession-proof their wardrobes. But whether or not that means reverting to classic, less risk averse pieces remains to be seen.
Dior as a brand doesn’t have the best reputation for diversity when it comes to casting, however, the brand made an effort in casting more models of darker skin tones for this collection. There were no non-sample size models to be found however. An attempt to cast some size diverse models here wouldn’t just be appreciated–it would also prove to be pivotal to the narrative of the collection, and alas, integral to the thesis. Baker was absolutely known for her seductive costumes and curvy body and the history of her life has everything to do with Europeans’ obsession with the jazz age and Black culture in the 1920s; but the body types of the average women of that culture were not represented here on that runway. Baker was also primarily a woman of the people, no matter how famous she got. After all, she adopted 12 children, aided the French Resistance and made major progress as an activist for civil rights. Presenting an entire collection in her honor with not a single average sized woman feels not particularly well suited to the narrative that Dior tried to push, but so often, that’s been the frustration with Chiuri; and representation is vital when you’re incredibly vocal about women. There aren’t very many stars that did what Baker did and one could only imagine her celebrating a collection that was unequivocally inclusive.
An incredible detail of this particular collection was the makeup, led by Peter Philips. Inspired by Baker herself, he created the ultimate, imperfectly smudged black eyeshadow. He layered moisturizer on top of a matte black shadow to get a worn-in effect that looked lived-in, as if each model had been sweating under the sultry bright lights of a jazz club for hours. Not only did it suit the theme, it fit in with the larger picture of makeup’s move towards a messy aesthetic. Hairstylist Guido Palau paired this with slicked back hair, braids, and stylized edges.
Chiuri certainly has the right ideas when it comes to sourcing inspiration, but for her to break more ground at Dior and gain a wider and more youthful fan base, she’d do well to push hard at the walls of her concepts more. A simple glance at any imagery of Baker would make one wonder who she is and what kind of life she lived, based on her clothing alone. This collection didn’t deliver the same effect but until then, we’ll be watching and waiting with bated breath for what Chiuri does next. At best, she has a knack for choosing incredible women as muses.
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