"' Great Light Rhyme 'is the name of my work, these oversized dresses also expand the space between the body and the clothing. I named this work 'The Great Light Charm' because it strikes me that there are huge differences in discretion that suddenly appear, as if we were suddenly looking at the various dresses of the Olympian gods, symbolic things that have substantial meaning, because we are stepping into a slightly mysterious space, a space that should not exist and is irrational."

On the first day of the Spring/Summer 2024 season, facing the outdoor rain, you will immediately feel the power of Isabella Ducrot's words as you walk into the scene of Dior's new haute couture presentation in the Musee Rodin.

With the help of Maria Grazia Chiuri, creative director of the brand's women's wear, the work, titled "Great Light Charm", has been shaped into a giant installation five meters high and surrounding the show through the efforts of the NGO Chanakya and its artisans. In fact, the artisans in the form of embroidery to integrate the precious textiles Ducrot collected in various countries over the years to form the 23 painterly works throughout the show wall.

In fact, Ducrot's work is not only part of the show's space installation, but also an important source of inspiration for Maria Grazia Chiuri's haute couture collection this season. The spread of the fabric, the size of the painting in stark contrast to the actual clothing, and Ducrot's stated intention to create the work are all making Chiuri rethink what haute couture means today.

Now 93 years old, Ducrot has lived in Rome for many years, creating a series of works that blend textile fabrics with art forms, as she says after decades of artistic exploration: "symbolic things have substantial meaning."

And that's exactly what Chiuri is aiming for, balancing haute couture's hallowed status in fashion with its relevance to The Times.

Perhaps we are used to Dior's creative directors paying tribute to Mr. Christian Dior's Bar Jacket design in the first look of every high-order show, but in Chiuri's high-order shows in recent seasons, we see her eager to deliver a more modern perspective.

At the beginning of this season, the camel cotton trench coat interpreted in various forms and proportions has subverted our inherent understanding of haute couture design. The most common daily fabric, trench belt design and elastic drawstring on the blazer are loyal to people's ordinary wearing habits, which are directly reflected in several long coats.

With these seemingly rustic fabrics, Chiuri is actually to explore the possibility of being "customized", such as the opening trench coat, the original regular neckline design has been upgraded to a cape style large lapel, adding a charming temperament to the shape, and another lantern sleeve design of the enveloping trench coat, which highlights the fashion house's excellent shaping ability.

At the same time, Chiuri took full advantage of the lightness of the fabric itself, experimenting with cotton to create a variety of pleated dresses, chest tops or one-shoulder rompers that fall between day and evening wear, with sculptural lines and textures.

If these down-to-earth, camel-colored cotton shapes highlighted Chiuri's modern perspective in couture, then the long gowns in dark black velvet that followed, and the contrasting beige and white Hellenistic goddess dresses and coats, seemed to bring to life what Ducrot calls "the various dresses of the Olympian gods." Especially when the two white diagonal suits shaped by feathers and the black embroidered see-through dress appeared in the big show, the pure and dramatic sense of conflict came to the face, Chiuri may hope to tell a story about the white swan and the black swan, but this is only the beginning, all the development of the plot, must be left to the women wearing them to decide.

For Chiuri, inheriting and developing the rich creative achievements of Mr. Christian Dior is one of the important tasks that need not be said much in each high-order show. It is clear that she has gradually found her own rhythm and mastered the scale of so-called "reinterpretation".

The Bar Jacket is always a timeless proposition, and Chiuri chose to tighten the waist of the jacket a little more this season and use glossy fabrics to outline the feminine body. Of course, she also tried to recombine the different cuts and materials of the suit in the archive, so that we can see a more relaxed and comfortable interpretation of the suit.

Another classic from Mr. Christian Dior's archives, the "La Cigale" dress first released in the Autumn/Winter 1952 haute couture collection, its architectural silhouette, soft lines, standing collar and elegant bow decoration design at the waist, which is a new look through Chiuri's innovative performance this season.

While continuing the elegant design concept, the hemline has been lengthened, multiple layers of fabric are stacked to create a playful dynamic, and the neckline and sleeve length design have become more practical, fully considering the need for modern women to wear the occasion.

In addition to the adjustment of silhouette and proportions, Chiuri uses a similar fabric choice to Mr. Dior, with a glossy corrugated fabric that reveals an understated luxury in a delicate texture.

It is worth noting that this process of creating the ripple effect is called Moire, which originated in the 18th century and was brought to Lyon by Moire manufacturers from England in 1753. The principle is to press the fabric to produce a granular texture, and the squeezed fibers appear ripple, mesh and hole patterns, and have a reflective effect. It became the ideal fabric for making chair covers and clothing at that time.

Different from the fabric file presented in the show preview, Chiuri did not decorate the fabric processed by Moire process with any complicated process elements, but directly let the charm of the fabric itself speak, and interpreted the charm of the luster itself with gold, white, gray, Burgundy and green tones. Give classic looks such as coats, strapless dresses, suits and suit trousers a modern twist.

In addition to the modern improvement of Mr. Dior's "La Cigale" dress, another set of "implicit shape" to pay tribute to the classic appeared in this high-order show, which is this tulle embroidery style halter dress.

Take a closer look at the embroidered textures that fly down the top of the dress like streams of stars, inspired by the "Mexique" evening gown in Dior's haute couture collection for Autumn/Winter 1951. Chiuri broke the original structure of the dress, the original bow element on the front into a long flowing velvet belt around the waist, removing the support of the dress, weakening the stiff silhouette of the whole dress, and replacing it with a more comfortable wearing feeling.

Echoing the craftsmanship of the work in the show space installation, embroidery is another core element explored in this season's Dior Couture collection. There is no doubt that this kind of time-measured and highly visual craftsmanship is the most talked about topic in almost every high-order series, but Chiuri's use of embroidery this time is not intended to emphasize the above visible skills, instead, she wants to prove that, Those craft aesthetics that were born at the same time as Mr. Christian Dior, even from the 18th century, can still express a modern aesthetic perspective at present.

The embroidery, which mimics the texture of a fabric print, trickles from the neckline and hemline; Silver sequins combine into a series of flowers, like a regular arrangement of plant prints in the fabric across the skirt; Or such as the most colorful yellow dress in the whole audience, full of rich flowers, and in a series of other works related to embroidery, we can also see the shadow of classical and modern blend, continue the traditional process, and use it in a more fashionable material, and finally create a haute couture work suitable for modern aesthetic.

Even in the final look near the end of the show, Chiuri did not give the dresses an exaggerated volume, and the simple fabrics in the form of crisscrosses, shrouds and capes kept the gravitas of the high order to a point.

The bulky gowns that had always been the finale were replaced by one-shouldered Moire dresses with polka dot prints all over. To be sure, we can already imagine these high-order dresses from Chiuri's modern perspective appearing on people's bodies, which is perhaps more realistic for a haute couture show than creating more "museum" pieces.

As she said in a conversation last year with Margaret Zhang, editorial director of Fashion and Beauty VOGUE, "We want to try to create new pieces using traditional crafts, which are more suitable for today's style and lifestyle." On one level, we want to retain the fascinating cultural heritage, but on the other hand, we want to use the existing knowledge to create something new.

That's what we talked about. Our ideas were ambitious, so we had to be creative." Even as she turns 40 early next month, Chiuri is keenly aware of The Times. "I think I started in one era and fashion is in another," she says. Chiuri is proving that she is the leader in bringing haute couture into the modern era.