maria grazia chiuri

This latest episode in the ‘Dior Talks’ podcast series broaches the topic of heritage. In it biographer and journalist Justine Picardie speaks with Maria Grazia Chiuri, Creative Director of Dior women’s collections, about the parallels between Monsieur Dior’s burst of creativity brought on by his emergence from the trauma and privations of war and the moment in history through which the world is currently living.

The importance of the founding couturier’s relationship with his younger sister Catherine - coincidentally the subject of Picardie’s new book ‘Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture’ - is explored as more than simply a familial relationship. Instead, the pair discuss how so many aspects of Monsieur Dior’s creativity and the long-established House codes that resulted can trace their source to this sibling bond.

The fortune-telling and tarot cards that would shape so many of Monsieur Dior’s decisions - and inspire the House’s various creative directors, right up to Maria Grazia Chiuri today - grew from an initial fascination with the divinatory arts to a key source of comfort and hope when Catherine was imprisoned during WWII and all contact with her vanished. After she was freed and found, these emotions would be translated into the New Look, a sartorial reflection of optimism that produced extraordinarily architectural clothes that balanced an idea of protection with one that celebrated feminine and floral beauty. A keen gardener, Catherine would go on to cultivate flowers in the south of France, near her brother’s summer estate, that would provide ingredients for several of the House’s famous fragrances.

This fascinating exchange, delving into the overlapping and layering of occurrences and inspirations, pulls back the curtain to plumb the hidden and unnoticed depths of the Dior heritage story.

Welcome to ‘Feminism’, the new series of ‘Dior Talks’ podcasts, hosted by Justine Picardie. ‘Dior Talks’ creates fascinating spaces for expression, exploring the imaginations and discourses of the artists and thinkers who influence Maria Grazia Chiuri. ‘Feminism’ engages in dialogue with the women who have inspired the Creative Director of Women’s collections and taken part in bold, empowering collaborations with the House. An exceptional roster of guests shares the magic of their thinking and the key moments of their careers with biographer and journalist Justine Picardie. 

  

In this very special, two-part episode, Justine Picardie goes back to the origins of it all with Maria Grazia Chiuri herself, who was the guest on the very first ‘Dior Talks podcast’ on the subject of feminist art in March last year. On this occasion she is joined by her dynamic daughter and muse Rachele Regini, to delve deep into the issues and passions which drive them both in the work they do and the intellectual and creative journeys on which they embark. 

  

Maria Grazia Chiuri needs little introduction. She has been at the helm of Dior since 2016, creating the ready-to-wear and haute couture collections for the House and pursuing a radical, multi-generational and multinational manifesto for contemporary womenswear. This year she published ‘Her Dior: Maria Grazia Chiuri's New Voice’, featuring the work of over thirty of the photographers with whom she has collaborated for the House. Rachele Regini is her daughter with husband Paolo Regini and was raised in Rome. She studied Art History and then Gender Studies at the prestigious Goldsmiths College of Art in London and now lives and works in Paris, where she is a cultural advisor in the Dior creative department.  

In this episode, the trio discuss the meaning of sisterhood, the female spirit through the generations and the challenges of female creativity past and present. Maria Grazia Chiuri reminisces about her journey to a career in fashion and the changes which have taken place in the roles which women can now play in the industry. Like the Creative Director’s own mother, women were historically expected to be dressmakers, while men became couturiers. Paradoxically, they talk about the huge changes in fashion wrought by Monsieur Dior and how his New Look revolutionized the way women dressed. 

  

Regini elaborates on how her studies and research, into politics, gender, art and activism, have influenced her own style and the dialogue around stylistic and political principles which she shares with her mother. Crucially, the two also discuss manhood, and how the modern notion of masculinity can be reinterpreted, how fashion can play a vital role in removing stereotypes and redefining sexual politics. Both mother and daughter are avid readers and passionate advocates for women’s genius and liberation, and the ways in which fashion can express and promote both.  

Welcome to this 11th episode of the Dior Talks podcast ‘Feminist Art’.  This series explores the connections between Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri, and contemporary women artists and curators.  

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, a London-based curator, writer and art historian, speaks with Eva Jospin, the French artist whose monumental embroidered work lined the walls of the show space at the Musée Rodin for the Autumn-Winter 2021-2022 haute couture collection unveiled on July 5, 2021. 

Eva Jospin was born in Paris, France, in 1975. She gave up her initial interest in architecture to study sculpture at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, preferring the physicality of the process. Graduating in 2002, she has become known for her sculptural work using cardboard as a material, building up and combining its flat planes to create striking and very often large-scale pieces of complex depth depicting forests, caves, and country homes. With her art having been exhibited in prestigious locations such as the Palais de Tokyo, Manufacture des Gobelins, Musée du Louvre and the Hayward Gallery, she has also been an artist in residence at the
Villa Medici in Rome.  

It was while in Rome that she discovered the Sala dei Ricami at the Palazzo Colonna, a sumptuous room entirely upholstered in Indian-inspired embroideries. It would prove the inspiration for her collaboration with Maria Grazia Chiuri, a “project that went from big to huge”. Her initial drawings would be developed into a work 40 meters long and 350m2, embroidered by hand by the Chanakya ateliers and the Chanakya School of Craft in Mumbai, India, a phenomenal undertaking requiring in the region of 300 artisans deploying some 400 colors of silk thread in 150 variations of traditional techniques.  

  

In this episode she discusses how she looked to the palette of post-Impressionist painter Edouard Vuillard and the way he built color and perception of depth by utilizing the canvas itself as an intrinsic element. She speaks about how the name of her awe-inspiring installation ‘Chambre de Soie’ (‘Silk Room’), is also a reference to Virginia Woolf’s seminal feminist treatise ‘A Room of One’s Own’, known as ‘Une Chambre à Soi’ in French. With the use of textiles a complete departure, she opens up about embracing this new form of artistic expression and the process behind appreciating the scale and conceiving a visual flow for her expansive installation.  

Welcome to this 10th episode of the Dior Talks podcast ‘Feminist Art’. This series explores the connections between Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri, and contemporary women artists and curators.

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, a London-based curator, writer and art-historian, speaks with musical artist Ioanna Gika, the Greek-American musical artist who performed at the Cruise 2022 show held in Athens, on the evening of June 17, 2021.

Ioanna Gika was born in Washington D.C. She spent her childhood between Greece and the United States, returning to live at her mother’s Greek home after her father’s death, when she started to write her first album, “Thalassa” (“Sea”) about her life and homeland. She is based in Los Angeles where, in 2009, she founded the band Io Echo with Leopold Ross. They released their debut album in 2013 and have supported Nine Inch Nails, Garbage and Florence + the Machine amongst others. They have performed at the Coachella and Lollapalooza festivals, and Gika has written and performed for movies and television consistently since 2012.

Having already performed at the Cruise 2018 show in Los Angeles, Maria Grazia Chiuri was delighted to invite her to collaborate with the House again. On the night, with a live orchestra and multimedia accompaniments, she recited a poem that reflected her roots in Greece and her rich, powerful voice resonated through the Panathenaic Stadium, the first stone of which was laid over 2500 years ago. She talks about this electrifying experience and the feeling of connection to the past which she felt as she performed. Having toured and sung widely around the world, she notes how unique and different this occasion was and how profoundly she seemed to be grounded in the moment. The monumental location itself possesses a huge significance. Constructed in white marble, it was a primary setting for the first modern Olympic Games. Its length symbolizes an ancient unit of measurement and, crucially for both the singer and Maria Grazia Chiuri, it was the first place in Classical Greece where women could freely appear and socialize in public.

Ioanna Gika reflects on notions of the word ‘race’ – the human race, the race against time, to participate in a race. The conjunction of these meanings in the stadium created a poignant combination of symbols and thoughts for her. She goes on to consider the personal and social significance of clothes, both in general and also the creations in the collection and the remarkable outfit specially designed for her. Like Maria Grazia Chiuri, she is inspired by the colors of Greece, by the use of blue and all the historical and mystical connotations which accompany it. She also weaves a beautiful connection between the visual sensations of fashion and womanhood and the sensory streams of consciousness so prevalent in her own music.

Welcome to ‘Feminism’, the new series of ‘Dior Talks’ podcasts, hosted by Justine Picardie. ‘Dior Talks’ creates fascinating spaces for expression, exploring the imaginations and discourses of the artists and thinkers who influence Maria Grazia Chiuri. ‘Feminism’ engages in dialogue with the women who have inspired the Creative Director of Women’s collections and taken part in bold, empowering collaborations with the House. An exceptional roster of guests shares the magic of their thinking and the key moments of their careers with biographer and journalist Justine Picardie.

In this third episode, Picardie talks to Eleonora Abbagnato, one of the most important female ballet dancers of her generation. The native Sicilian has risen to the top of the fiercely competitive world of classical dance in both Paris and Rome. She has formed a close and fruitful friendship with Maria Grazia Chiuri, whom she asked, in 2019, to design costumes for ‘Nuit Blanche’, a new production paying tribute to composer Philip Glass, created by young French choreographer Sébastien Bertaud, in which she starred. Chiuri’s enduring love of dance and movement chimed with Abbagnato’s passions to form the first in a series of profound collaborations.

Eleonora Abbagnato was born in Palermo, Sicily, in 1978. No one in her family had ever danced before, but at the age of four she started to dance on her own in front of the mirror at home. She left her childhood home at age ten to study dance in Monte Carlo, and at 13 was touring Europe with legendary choreographer Roland Petit and his production of ‘The Sleeping Beauty’. She studied at the elite École de Danse de l’Opéra de Paris and joined the legendary Paris Opera Ballet in 1996. She has since had a meteoric ascent and, in 2021, is looking forward to her farewell performances as an étoile, or principal, this summer. She has also been highly prolific in her native Italy, where she co-hosted the Sanremo Festival in 2007 and, since 2015, has been the Director of the Corps de Ballet at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma.

Here, Justine Picardie and Abbagnato hit the discursive ground running, comparing impassioned notes on the history of classical dance, the changing role of female dancers and the challenges, both mental and physical, that ballet presents. Abbagnato opens up about the huge strain female dancers in particular are put under by (mostly male) choreographers but goes on to reflect on the important and vitalizing contribution women directors and choreographers are now making to the field. She considers the importance of motherhood, both the inspirations of her own mother and also her hopes and ambitions for her young daughters today. They unwrap the special connection she has formed with Maria Grazia Chiuri, and the understanding of the essence of form and movement that has enabled her and her fellow dancers to express such beauty and empowerment while performing in the designs of the house of Dior.

Welcome to ‘Feminism’, the new series of ‘Dior Talks’ podcasts, hosted by Justine Picardie. ‘Dior Talks’ creates fascinating spaces for expression, exploring the imaginations and discourses of the artists and thinkers who influence Maria Grazia Chiuri. ‘Feminism’ engages in dialogue with the women who have inspired the Creative Director of Women’s collections and taken part in bold, empowering collaborations with the House. An exceptional roster of guests shares the magic of their thinking and the key moments of their careers with biographer and journalist Justine Picardie.

In this second episode, Picardie talks to Robin Morgan, a hugely influential feminist theorist and much-published writer and journalist. Morgan has been a key figure in the women’s movement, both in the USA and internationally, since the early 1960s, and was also an early participant in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements of the time. She is widely considered a crucial figure in the development of modern feminism and has been forming international networks of like-minded campaigners throughout her adult life.

Robin Morgan was born in Florida in 1941, to a single woman who had come south to avoid the censure surrounding unmarried motherhood. She spent her early years as a child model and actor, appearing regularly in TV shows. However, her desire to write led her away from her mother’s ambitions for her acting career and towards a degree at Columbia University. She worked as a secretary for a literary agent after college and married poet Kenneth Pitchford in 1962, with whom she had a son, the musician Blake Morgan.

At this time, Morgan became active in various leftwing movements, writing for radical publications such as ‘Liberation’ and ‘The National Guardian’. She joined the Civil Rights Movement and in 1967 co-founded the New York Radical Women group. In 1970, she published her first anthology of theoretical texts, ‘Sisterhood is Powerful’. Concurrently publishing volumes of poetry and works of fiction, she received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1979 and has, to date, published 21 books of feminist theory, poetry and fiction and, including several years as editor-in-chief of Ms., has written for multiple newspapers and magazines in the USA and internationally. In 1984, she founded the Sisterhood is Global Institute with Simone de Beauvoir, and in 2005 co-founded the Women’s Media Center.

In this second episode of ‘Feminism’, Justine Picardie and Robin Morgan get right to the heart of the major concerns and challenges which have faced and continue to face feminist struggles internationally. Morgan reflects on the surprises and insights of having lived eight decades and recalls the injustices which women faced in their daily lives when she was young. They discuss the transition to post-feminism and the different approaches to women’s causes around the world. Morgan considers the ever-evolving relationship between feminism and the cultural left, and also the perennial hostility from the right. They also talk about Morgan and Maria Grazia Chiuri’s mutual admiration and budding friendship, and the unlikely but magical interaction of fashion and radical feminism which occurred when Chiuri chose to honor Morgan’s remarkable career at a special ceremony in February 2019 in Paris. Morgan has been a long-standing inspiration for the Creative Director of Women’s collections.

Welcome to ‘Feminism’, the new series of ‘Dior Talks’ podcasts, hosted by Justine Picardie. ‘Dior Talks’ creates fascinating spaces for expression, exploring the imaginations and discourses of the artists and thinkers who influence Maria Grazia Chiuri. ‘Feminism’ engages in dialogue with the women who have inspired the Creative Director of Women’s collections and taken part in bold, empowering collaborations with the House. An exceptional roster of guests shares the magic of their thinking and the key moments of their careers with biographer and journalist Justine Picardie.

Here, Picardie talks to Sharon Eyal, the highly esteemed dancer and choreographer, who directs the L-E-V Company, the unconventional yet rigorous dance troupe she founded with performance curator Gai Behar.  Trained in classical ballet, she swiftly developed her own uncompromised style early in her career. She has become known for an expansive range of reference, strongly defined aesthetics and complex choreography, has won numerous major awards for her work and performed with her company worldwide.

Sharon Eyal was born in Jerusalem, a self-described ‘hyperactive child’ until her parents signed her up for ballet lessons at the age of 4. From 1990 to 2008 she danced with the Batsheva Dance Company, founded by Martha Graham in 1964, and served as associate artistic director for the Batsheva Dancers Create program from 2005-12. Since its founding in 2013, L-E-V has been the arena for her profound, beguiling vision of choreography, with electronic music, fashion, contemporary art and club culture regular references. The company has performed at major venues such as the Joyce Theater, New York, and Sadler’s Wells, London, and international festivals including Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Montpellier Danse and Julidans.

In this first episode of ‘Feminism’, Justine Picardie, a longtime fan, asks Eyal about her unrelenting passion for dance and movement as they discuss the central themes of freedom, physicality and flight, both corporeal and emotional. Despite its grueling realities, dance has been a release for Eyal and, intriguingly, a centering source of calm. She talks about the connection she formed with Maria Grazia Chiuri collaborating on the Spring-Summer 2019 show at which Eyal’s dancers gave a remarkable performance, an experience repeated in ‘Disturbing Beauty’, the film that presented the Autumn-Winter 2021-2022 collection. Eyal finds huge inspiration in Maria Grazia Chiuri’s designs and recognizes the importance of female movement, female expression and, most crucially, female liberation in the women’s collections.

Welcome to the eighth episode of the new Dior Talks podcast series ‘Feminist Art’. This series will highlight some of the key practitioners in the pioneering and evolving field of feminist art, a source of endless inspiration for Maria Grazia Chiuri, Creative Director of Women’s collections. 

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, a London-based curator, writer and art-historian, speaks with Marinella Senatore, the Rome-based multimedia artist, about her challenging and politically uncompromising approach to making her work.

For the unveiling of the Cruise 2021 collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri commissioned Senatore to collaborate with local artisans on a series of mammoth light sculptures – luminarie – for the audience-free show, streamed live from Lecce in Puglia, Italy. These works incorporate varied phrases which inspired Maria Grazia Chiuri during the creation of the collection, the spirit of which is summed up by the statement, “We rise by lifting others”.

Marinella Senatore was born in Italy in 1977 and studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli, the Conservatorio and the Scuola Nazionale di Cinema in Rome. This expansive education has influenced her impressively wide-ranging artistic practice ever since, as she works with video, action, photography, installation, sculpture and painting. Fascinated by ideas of participation, dialogue, history and social structures, she is highly prolific and has exhibited widely. She has shown at the Centre Pompidou, MAXXI, the Queens Museum, Kunsthaus Zürich and Castello di Rivoli amongst many others, and has participated in numerous group shows, screenings and residences.

Her all-encompassing approach to making art was a perfect contribution to Maria Grazia Chiuri’s concept for the staging of the 2021 Cruise show, and the unique set of cultural and social conditions present in the province of Puglia, which was also the collection’s primary inspiration. Senatore is constantly inspired by communities and the actions and creations achievable through a site-specific, in-person approach to examining concepts of physical and virtual space and the challenges posed by the technical limitations of photography and cinematography. With Katy Hessel she discusses the collaboration and the origins of the bond she and Maria Grazia Chiuri formed over their shared passion for Italian feminist art.

Welcome to this sixth episode of the new Dior Talks series ‘The Female Gaze’. With the term developed in response to the writings of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, this podcast series will explore how the work of the female photographers and creatives collaborating with Dior offers a radically new and progressive image of women.

In this episode, series host Charlotte Jansen, a British journalist and author, speaks with Sarah Waiswa about her life and career. Waiswa is a documentary and portrait photographer who has dedicated her practice to the study and portrayal of the people of her home continent, in all their extraordinary variety. She takes a very contemporary approach to examining social issues, avoiding trap of the clichés, and views herself as a visual poet and storyteller.

Sarah Waiswa was born in Uganda during the time of the brutal dictatorship of Idi Amin, with her family forced to flee shortly afterwards. She grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, where she lives and works to this day. A self-taught photographer, having originally studied psychology and sociology in the US, it was her fascination with social topics in Kenya and the wider region which led her to take up the camera. She has photographed many subjects in many countries, and in 2016 won the prestigious Rencontres d’Arles Discovery Award for her moving and incisive project on the persecution of albinos in sub-Saharan Africa. Waiswa documents what she calls a ‘new African identity’ and is much focused on how the continent and its inhabitants portray themselves and are portrayed by the rest of the world.

In this week’s episode, Jansen and Waiswa discuss the strains of lockdown, motherhood and her unlikely route to photography. They also discuss how the camera was a tool of colonialism almost as deadly as the gun, and how images have been used to both dominate and demean African nations and peoples. Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri was inspired by Waiswa’s journey as a female African photographer and invited her, along with five other women photographers from the continent, to collaborate on shooting the cruise 2020 collection.

Welcome to this fifth episode of the new Dior Talks series ‘The Female Gaze’. With the term developed in response to the writings of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, this podcast series will explore how the work of the female photographers and creatives collaborating with Dior offers a radically new and progressive image of women.

In this episode, series host Charlotte Jansen, a British journalist and author, chats with Brigitte Niedermair, a fashion photographer who, over twenty five years, has developed and honed a highly individual approach to creating the fashion image, upending stereotypes about the genre, and expanding the parameters through which we understand the portrayal of women, and also how we view the female gaze.

Brigitte Niedermair was born in the South Tyrol region of Italy in 1971. After dropping out of a photography course, she eventually ended up in the U.S. She worked as a casting director and photographer’s assistant, before taking up the camera herself. She spent ten years constantly on the road, shooting at the highest levels of the industry, using her self-belief and determination to push boundaries and succeed in a stultifyingly male-dominated world. She moved back to her home region in the 2000s, where she has since been based and has always considered her style and creative force to be deeply influenced by her origins. Her editorial work has been published widely and she has staged monographic exhibitions of her patiently composed images worldwide, including a major solo show at the Palazzo Mocenigo as part of the Venice Biennale in 2019. In 2017, she shot Maria Grazia Chiuri’s first collection for the House for Dior Magazine, returning to shoot the autumn-winter 2019 and spring-summer 2020 campaigns, as well as the new fall 2020 campaign, which she also art directed, starring Jennifer Lawrence.

In this week’s episode, Charlotte meets with Niedermair virtually at her mountain home and they talk about her experience of lockdown, her thoughts on her own journey as a woman photographer, both in Italy and the wider world, and the profound and varied ideas behind her starkly elegant work. Originally fascinated by painting, Niedermair was eventually drawn to the sense of reality required by photography and its relative newness as a means of image creation. She reflects on this combination of the concrete, the modern and the immediate, which has long drawn her to the camera.

Welcome to this second episode of the new Dior Talks series ‘The Female Gaze’. With the term developed in response to the writings of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, this podcast series which explore how the work of the female photographers and creatives collaborating with Dior offers a radically new and progressive image of women. 

In this episode, series host Charlotte Jansen, a British journalist and author, speaks with Maripol, an icon of 1980s culture in New York and an influential artist, filmmaker, designer and stylist. Maripol discusses her extraordinary career and her passions and influences from her childhood in France to the heady days and multidisciplinary inspirations of Manhattan, and her photographic collaborations with Maria Grazia Chiuri, Creative Director of Women’s collections.

Having moved to New York City in 1976 at the age of 20 with her then-boyfriend Edo Bertoglio, the Swiss photographer and director with whom she would have a highly fruitful artistic collaboration, Maripol became art director of Fiorucci by the early ‘80s, before opening her own boutique, Maripolitan, in the mid-80s. She was Madonna’s stylist for her first two iconic albums, creating the famous look for Like a Virgin, and also made numerous documentary films. She directed The Message, about the life of Keith Haring, and also produced Downtown 81, starring Jean-Michel Basquiat and Blondie. She is noted for her pioneering use of the Polaroid camera – her first SX-70 was a gift from Bertoglio – particularly for fashion photography and portraiture, and in 2014 published a book of her work, MARIPOLARAMA.

Always outspoken and audacious, she divulges her unique take on life, culture and feminism in this episode. She has always collaborated with remarkable individuals and has always been fascinated with fashion. She brought to it her broad education in the arts and her rebellious, punk sensibility, and as soon as she landed in New York, people noticed her for her unique style and self-made accessories. She fully embraced the collaborative spirit of the city at that time and has been creating and working with like-minded pioneers ever since, most recently with her Polaroid shoots of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s collections.

Discover a selection of works: 

- "The Women Behind the Lens: Maripol, Dior Mag, 20th March 2016 https://www.dior.com/diormag/en_hk/article/the-photos-of-maripol 

-  "The Photos of Maripol", Dior Mag, 20th March 2016 https://www.dior.com/diormag/en_hk/article/the-photos-of-maripol 

- Backstage Dior Spring-Summer ready-to-wear 2017 by Maripol https://vimeo.com/306933860

Grace Jones by Maripol at Studio 54, 1979https://www.phillips.com/detail/maripol/NY000309/289 

-  Hanra, "Maripol: Did I discover Madonna? She discovered me!", The Guardian, 2015https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/mar/20/maripol-madonna-photographer-stylist-polaroids-exhibition

- Debbie Harry by Maripol, 1980https://www.absolutart.com/us/artist/maripol/artwork/deborah-harry-1980/ 

- "Keith Haring: The Message" directed by Maripol, 2013https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xzb9ki 

- "Downtown 81" directed by Edo Bertoglio produced by Maripol, 2001 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6GoKk-iMOs

- Geller "Jewelry designer Maripol on Fiorucci, Grace Jones and Madonna", Interview Magazine, 2018 https://www.interviewmagazine.com/fashion/maripol-lynn-geller-interview

- Grace Jones modelling Maripol's rubber bracelets for Fiorucci, 1980s https://www.vfiles.com/vfiles/53612 

- Museum of Sex,"Punk Lust: Raw Provocation 1971–1985", New York, November 29, 2018 – November 19, 2019 https://www.museumofsex.com/portfolio_page/punk/

- A whip belt and brace necklace by Maripol in Bettridge "A new exhibition of punk-era lust reminds us how gentrified sex has become", Interview Magazine, 2018 https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/maripol-and-the-museum-of-sex-exhibit-reminds-us-how-gentrified-sex-is 

- "Andy Warhol with Polaroid" by Anton Perish, 1977 in Sirisuk "Un photographe s'est immiscé dans les clubs new-yorkais les plus cools des années 1970", I-D Magazine, 2018 https://i-d.vice.com/fr/article/d35e5y/un-photographe-sest-immisce-dans-les-clubs-new-yorkais-les-plus-cools-des-annees-1970 

- Interview Magazine, December 1985  https://www.interviewmagazine.com/tag/new-again-december-1985 

- Maripol, "Little Red Riding Hood", 2010 https://maripol.com/books/ 

- Lisa Lyon by Robert Mapplethorpe, 1982 https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/90662/lisa-lyon

- "Robert Mapplethorpe's Sensual Flowers", AnOther Magazine, 2016 https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/8524/robert-mapplethorpes-sensual-flowers 

- “Girl On Girl”, Charlotte Jansen https://smarturl.it/girlongirl

Welcome to this first episode of the new Dior Talks series ‘The Female Gaze’. With the term developed in response to the writings of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, this podcast series will explore how the work of the female photographers and creatives collaborating with Dior offers a radically new and progressive image of women. 

In this episode, series host Charlotte Jansen, a British journalist and author, speaks with Maria Grazia Chiuri about how the Creative Director of Women’s collections has initiated a new dialogue around the perception of women by women in the 21st century.

Upon arriving at the House, Maria Grazia Chiuri made the idea of the female gaze an essential part of her work. Aware that the DNA of Dior is defined by femininity, she set out to explore how to make this correspond to her world view and chose to work solely with female photographers, writers and artists, which proved a surprisingly revolutionary concept. As she notes of her own experience, women behave differently when they are the subject of a female photographer. With the fashion world dominated by male image makers, she called on a wide variety of talents, some renowned in other areas – such as the war photographer Christine Spengler – and others much more under the radar, with the condition that they be given creative free rein in their interpretation of her work. Dior is a name recognized all over the world, so it was key to seek out an equally international roster of talents to convey non-stereotypical representations of Dior femininity, celebrating differences and rewriting preconceptions. 

Discover a selection of works: 

Laura Mulvey, « Visual pleasure and narrative cinema », Screen, n°16, Autumn 1975

Cindy Sherman, Untitled film stills, 1977-1980 https://www.moma.org/collection/works/56618

- Dior Cruise 2020 x Ruth Ginka Ossai  https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/wjwv59/dior-new-cruise-campaign-modern-african-photography-female-gaze https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c40oibKskX8&list=PLzPXOOq1r2gFjNSl4siIBfzMLrSUcRBr0&index=5&t=0s 

« Feminine, plural » : the women photographers shooting the Dior Cruise 2020 collection https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABcBejpQ7UQ&list=PLzPXOOq1r2gFjNSl4siIBfzMLrSUcRBr0&index=1

Deborah Tuberville ( 1932-2013) https://www.parismuseescollections.paris.fr/fr/recherche/type/oeuvre/auteur/Turbeville%2C%20Deborah

- Dior Autumn-Winter 2018 x Christine Spengler https://www.dior.com/diormag/it_it/article/intervista-christine-spengler

Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider : Essais and Speeches, 1984https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/314/314706/sister-outsider/9780241410509.html 

- “Girl On Girl”, Charlotte Jansen https://smarturl.it/girlongirl

In this first, highly compelling episode of the podcast series “Mes Chéries: The Women of Christian Dior”, recorded at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Oriole Cullen, curator of Modern Textiles and Fashion, and Justine Picardie, fashion editor and biographer, discuss two of the most important and most influential women in Monsieur Dior’s life: his mother and his sister.

An embodiment of Belle Époque society, Madeleine Dior, the founding couturier’s mother, lived a charmed existence. The wife of a wealthy industrialist, she could afford to dress well and, for the first part of his childhood, raised her son in a large, well-staffed villa overlooking the sea at Granville, where the expansive gardens, and his passion for spending time with her there to learn about plants and flowers, would exert an enormous influence on his later career.

His sister, Catherine, younger by twelve years, was also passionate about flowers, and would in adulthood become a highly successful commercial grower. They were very close, despite their age gap, and when their mother died prematurely, he became almost a surrogate parent to her. During WWII, this passionate and principled young woman joined the French Resistance and was ultimately captured and imprisoned. Her distraught brother turned to another trusted woman, his clairvoyant, to be reassured that he would be reunited with his beloved Catherine.

Welcome to this seventh episode of Dior Talks. This podcast series will explore the connections between Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri and contemporary women artists and curators. 

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, a London-based curator, writer and art historian, speaks to Vicki Noble, the iconic and trailblazing proponent of shamanic feminism, the Goddess Movement and the second-wave feminism of the 1970s.

For the Dior Cruise 2018 collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri was inspired to collaborate with Noble on an exquisite and mystical series of clothing, accessories and jewelry based on the groundbreaking Motherpeace Tarot cards which she created with Karen Vogel in Berkeley, California in the 1970s. The captivating results were subsequently debuted in a selection of dedicated pop-up stores around the world that had been specially decorated with paintings and hangings featuring arcana from the deck such as ‘The Wheel of Fortune’, ‘The High Priestess’ and ‘The Sun’.

Vicki Noble was born in Iowa in 1947 but moved to Berkeley, then the epicenter of the hippy and feminist movements, in 1976, where she met her future collaborator Vogel. Together they created the Motherpeace Tarot deck of cards after being inspired by the contemporary Goddess Movement and the vibrant, radical feminism of the era. In this critical period of feminist development, visual art was extremely important and Noble was a crucial figure in the drive to weave links between the new progressive politics, the occult, mysticism and creativity.

In this new episode of Dior Talks we speak to Noble about her extraordinary, surprising and avant-garde career, and about the famous deck of cards which has never been out of production since it was created over four decades ago and which has inspired generations of feminists worldwide.

Discover a selection of works:

Vicki Noble, Karen Vogel, The Motherpeace Tarot, 1978https://books.google.fr/books?id=UWsKAAAACAAJ&dq=vicki+noble&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjOx7zYl-3oAhWQ4IUKHR7wBwsQ6AEIZzAG

https://fr-fr.facebook.com/Dior/videos/the-motherpeace-tarot-by-vicki-noble-and-karen-vogel/1606501142737878/

Vicki Noble, Shakti Woman : Feeling our Fire, Healing our World, 1991https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062281470/shakti-woman/

An interview with Vicki Noble, Dior Resort Show, 2017 https://fr-fr.facebook.com/Dior/videos/1356667151054613/

Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess : Unearthing the Hidden Symbols of Western Civilization, 1989 ttps://books.google.fr/books/about/The_Language_of_the_Goddess.html?id=WTmVQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

Benvenuti a questo quinto episodio di Dior Talks. Questa serie esplora la relazione tra  il Direttore Creativo delle collezioni donna, Maria Grazia Chiuri, e artiste e curatrici contemporanee. In questo episodio, Katy Hessel, una curatrice, scrittrice e storica dell’arte con base a Londra, parla con Tomaso Binga dell’inizio della sua carriera come artista concettuale femminista in occasione dell’apertura della sua mostra alla Galleria Il Mascherino di Roma. 

Tomaso Binga è lo pseudonimo di Bianca Pucciarelli, nata a Salerno nel 1931. A 18 anni lascia la sua città natale per spostarsi a Roma dove, negli anni 60, inizia la sua carriera artistica. Le viene chiesto di esporre le sue opere nel 1971, dopo un attimo di esitazione, inizia a creare ed esporre una serie di opere considerate controverse e provocanti dalla società dell’epoca. Il suo alter ego nasce negli anni 70 quando decide di adottare un nome maschile per denunciare il sessismo del mondo dell’arte e della società italiana. L’unione tra Bianca e Tomaso viene celebrata tramite la performance del 1977, Oggi Spose, dove Bianca Pucciarelli sposa il suo alter ego maschile. Il nome è un omaggio al celebre esponente del Futurismo, Tommaso Marinetti, una fonte di ispirazione per Binga. Il nome Tomaso Binga viene creato come sfida al controllo egemonico degli uomini. Una delle opere più celebri dell’artista è il suo Alfabeto creato negli anni 70, dove il corpo nudo di Binga forma le lettere dell’alfabeto. È questo stesso alfabeto che viene reinterpretato per la scenografia della sfilata Dior Autunno-Inverno 2019. Bianca Pucciarelli è professoressa all’Accademia di Belle Arti di Frosinone e vice presidente della Fondazione Filiberto Menna a Salerno. Le sue opere sono state esposte sia in Itali che all’estero in occasione della 38esima edizione della Biennale di Venezia, la 14esima edizione della Biennale di San Paolo e la Biennale di Lione. 

Le opere discusse in questo episodio includono:   Tomaso Binga, Feminist Works, 1970-1980, Galleria Mascherino (March – April 2020), Rome https://flash---art.it/2020/03/tomaso-binga-feminist-works-1970-1980-galleria-mascherino-roma/  Tomaso Binga: A Silenced Victory, Mimosa House, London (September- December 2019) https://mimosahouse.co.uk/tomaso-binga-2  Romana Loda, curator (-2010) http://dspace-unipr.cineca.it/bitstream/1889/3265/1/PERNA-mostre.pdf  Mirella Bentivoglio, poet and curator (1922-2017) https://nmwa.org/explore/artist-profiles/mirella-bentivoglio https://www.centrepompidou.fr/cpv/ressource.action?param.id=FR_R-86fcbd9ef0ef89d5cca5d787204b4d91&param.idSource=FR_P-86fcbd9ef0ef89d5cca5d787204b4d91  Verita Monselles, photographer (1929-2005) https://www.centrephotogeneve.ch/en/artist/verita-monselles/ https://archivioraam.org/en/artist/verita-monselles  Verita Monselles, Ecce Homo, 1976 https://www.artribune.com/attualita/2016/02/dialoghi-di-estetica-raffaella-perna/attachment/verita-monselles-ecce-homo-ii-serie-1976/   Tomaso Binga, Dior Autumn-Winter 2019-2020, February 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQNTDiPoN7g

Welcome to this fourth episode of Dior Talks. This podcast series will explore the connections between Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri and contemporary women artists and curators. 

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, the London-based writer, curator and art historian, talks to Tracey Emin, one of the pre-eminent figures of contemporary art in the UK. In 2017, Emin, whose practice has always been firmly yet uniquely framed within the history of feminist discourse, created a specially commissioned work, Should Love Last, for the Dior pop-up store at 44 Avenue Montaigne in Paris.

Tracey Emin CBE is one of the generations of Young British Artists (YBAs) who came to prominence in the early 1990s and whose work changed the landscape and language of contemporary art in the UK. Yet the immediacy and autobiographical narrative of her work has always set her slightly apart from her contemporaries. Working in painting, drawing, video and installation, and also photography, needlework and sculpture, she has always used her own life and childhood as her subject matter, to reassess the nature of “women’s work” and the position of women, and of femininity, within the frame of artistic expression. 

Emin was born in 1963 and grew up in Margate, a seaside town on the Kent Coast, and her childhood there, particularly her teenage years, form a powerful source of inspiration for her work.

In 1999 she was nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize in London and in 2007 she represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennial. She is a panelist and speaker and has lectured widely, including at the V&A Museum. In 2011, she was appointed professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy.

Discover a selection of works:

Tracey Emin, Should Love Last, 2016 (Dior store, 44 avenue Montaigne, Paris) https://www.dior.com/diormag/en_gb/article/interview-tracey-emin

Tracey Emin, The Mother, 2018 (The Museum Island, Oslo) https://www.themuseumisland.com/en/artist/tracey-emin/

Tracey Emin, Hate and Power Can be a Terrible Thing, 2004 https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/emin-hate-and-power-can-be-a-terrible-thing-t11891

https://www.jessicahemmings.com/tracey-emin-stitching-extreme/

Tracey Emin, A Fortnight of Tears, Exhibition at the White Cube gallery (February- April 2019, London) https://whitecube.com/exhibitions/exhibition/tracey_emin_bermondsey_2019

Louise Bourgeois with Tracey Emin, Do Not Abandon Me, 2009-2010 https://www.moma.org/collection/works/153422

Bow Down : Women in Art History, a podcast by Jennifer Higgie https://frieze.com/article/bow-down-podcast-women-art-history

This third episode of the ‘Feminist Art’ series focuses on Paola Ugolini, an independent curator and critic. She has curated the Dior-sponsored “Io dico Io - I say I” at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome, a major exhibition devoted to the work of Italian feminist artists, running from March 24 to June 21, 2020.

Born and based in Rome, Paola Ugolini experienced the turbulent decade of the 1970s in the Italian capital as a teenager. With demonstrations a seemingly daily occurrence, she was exposed to political and, more importantly, feminist activism at a formative moment, which shaped her view of art as a powerful means of expression. 

A close friend of Maria Grazia Chiuri, the tradition of feminist theory and art has been an integral part of her work. From her fascination with performance and body art to embroidery and video, the mediums embraced by women to self-represent and make their voices heard have gone from once being highly experimental to now being part of the mainstream. An important part of her role, as she sees it, is to bring such work, and the messages it contains, to a new generation of women, and men. 

In an absorbing and enlightening exchange, she chats with Katy Hessel, a writer, curator and art historian, at the Palais de Tokyo contemporary art museum in Paris. 

Discover a selection of works:

Feminism in Italian Contemporary Art, exhibition at Richard Saltoun Gallery, October-November 2019 (London) https://www.richardsaltoun.com/exhibitions/78-feminism-in-italian-contemporary-art-silvia-giambrone-and-marinella-senatore/overview/

The Body as Language: Women and Performance, exhibition at Richard Saltoun Gallery, October-November 2015 (London) https://www.richardsaltoun.com/exhibitions/44-the-body-as-language-women-and-performance/overview/

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground), 1989 https://www.thebroad.org/art/barbara-kruger/untitled-your-body-battleground

Carol Rama (1918-2015) :

https://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/carol-rama-antibodies  

http://www.mam.paris.fr/fr/expositions/exposition-la-passion-selon-carol-rama

Hannah Wilke, S.O.S.- Starfication Object Series, 1974-82 https://www.moma.org/collection/works/102432

Helen Chadwick (1953-1996) https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/helen-chadwick-2253

Ketty La Rocca (1938-1976) https://www.moma.org/artists/65088?locale=en#works

Corpo a corpo, Body to Body, exhibition at Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, June-September 2017 (Rome) https://lagallerianazionale.com/en/mostra/corpo-a-corpo-body-to-body/

Carolee Schneemann, Interior Scroll, 1975 https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/schneemann-interior-scroll-p13282

This episode was recorded at Palais Tokyo (Paris): https://www.palaisdetokyo.com/en

Welcome to this episode of Dior Talks. This podcast series will explore the connections between Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri and contemporary women artists and curators. 

In this episode, Katy Hessel, a writer, curator and art historian, speaks with Judy Chicago, the American first-generation feminist artist, educator and writer. Her collaboration with Maria Grazia Chiuri on the Dior Spring-Summer 2020 haute couture show resulted in both the realization of a large-scale work planned since the 1970s and the creation of new work in the process.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1939, to a mother who fostered a love of art in her children, a young Judy (she would choose the surname Chicago in 1970) took classes at the Art Institute of Chicago before attending UCLA. 

One of only a small number of women to gain a level of recognition in the 1960s L.A. art scene, her work would evolve from resembling that of her contemporaries to acting as a uniquely powerful mirror of her feminist beliefs. To further this, she founded the first feminist art program in the US, encouraging her students to find their identity as women artists. 

Her work embraces techniques ranging from fiberglass sculpture and pyrotechnics to embroidery and the use of auto spray painting, from wall pieces to huge installations.

Having overcome what amounted to a decades-long stream of institutional misogyny from the male-dominated art world – most noticeably following the creation of her landmark and rightfully iconic feminist artwork ‘The Dinner Party’, now on permanent display at the Brooklyn Museum – she has seen her extensive catalogue of work rediscovered and reappraised in recent years, as the world has finally caught up with its pioneering importance. 

Discover a selection of works:

The Dinner Party, 1974-1979

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/dinner_party

Fireworks, 1968-1974

https://www.judychicago.com/gallery/atmospheresfireworks/artwork/

Flesh Garden series, 1971

https://blogs.getty.edu/pacificstandardtime/explore-the-era/worksofart/big-blue-pink-from-the-flesh-gardens-series/

Pasadena Life Savers, 1970

https://nmwa.org/works/pasadena-lifesavers-red-5

Welcome to this first episode of Dior Talks. This podcast series will explore the connections between Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri and contemporary women artists and curators. 

This opening episode is devoted to Maria Grazia Chiuri herself. She is recorded on a leisurely stroll through the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris and later in her Dior office, in conversation with writer, curator, art historian – and series host – Katy Hessel. 

Maria Grazia Chiuri was born in Rome, Italy, in 1964, into a progressive family that instilled in her the understanding that she could accomplish anything to which she set her mind. Her mother ran a dressmaking atelier, so from an early age she was exposed to fashion and the entrepreneurial spirit of women. This would be amplified through the encouragement of the five Fendi sisters, for whom she worked as a designer for nine years. 17 years at Valentino followed, the last few spent as joint creative director, before she joined Christian Dior in 2016 as Creative Director of the Women’s collections. 

Having grown up in an era of widespread feminist activism in Italy, at Dior she has given free rein to her passion for feminist theory, especially in its overlap with art. Regarding t-shirts as incomparable communication platforms, from the first look of her first show they have broadcast messages that have disrupted the fashion system and introduced a new generation to a broad range of feminist thinkers and doers. 

Her collections have been inspired by female artists such as Niki de Saint Phalle and Georgia O’Keeffe, and she has collaborated directly with others, such as Penny Slinger, Tomaso Binga and Judy Chicago. In a touching and intimate tribute, she cites her own daughter as her feminist hero. 

Discover a selection of works:

Dior Autumn-Winter 2020-2021 show scenography, by Claire Fontaine: https://www.dior.com/en_int/womens-fashion/ready-to-wear-shows/autumn-winter-2020-2021-ready-to-wear-show 

Dior Spring-Summer 2020 Haute Couture show scenography, by Judy Chicago: https://www.dior.com/en_int/womens-fashion/haute-couture-shows/spring-summer-2020-haute-couture-show 

Dior Autumn-Winter 2019-2020 show scenography, by Tomaso Binga: https://www.dior.com/diormag/en_int/article/30399 

Giardino dei Tarocchi: http://www.giardinodeitarocchi.it 

Le Cyclop by Jean Tinguely: https://www.lecyclop.com