Dior Cruise show 2024 collection: artistic inspiration from artist frida kahlo and a tribute to mexican culture

In Mexico, on the university campus where Frida Kahlo met Diego Rivera, Maria Grazia Chiuri paints a Dior painting that depicts the artist’s life.

Dior Cruise show 2024 collection: artistic inspiration from artist frida kahlo and a tribute to mexican culture

Fashion designers are choosing to return to honoring countries with cultural heritage that have been the inspiration for the brand for many years. And the show of the Dior Cruise 2024 collection by Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri, which took place in Mexico on May 20, was no exception.

Dior has a special relationship with this city. One of Christian Dior’s first dresses was named “Mexico”, followed by “Acapulco”, “Soirée à Mexico” and “Mexique”. At the show of the Dior Cruise 2024 collection, Dior Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri also selected the city to celebrate the late designer’s passion for interesting aspects of Mexican craftsmanship and heritage. art legacy left by painter Frida Kahlo.

A constellation that illuminates where emotions are aroused, the Dior Cruise 2024 collection is Mexico in the eyes of designer Maria Grazia Chiuri. A “place of the soul”, Mexico is dedicated to surrealist artists, from Leonora Carrington to Remedios Varo, and to photographer Tina Modotti, who has captured the landscape and its people through his photos.

The collection was created based on a vision from the work of artist Frida Kahlo, an icon for Mexican art. Known for her non-gender aesthetic, Frida’s work is not only about gender identity, a revolution of the time but also about the struggle of the body ravaged by polio. The role model Frida Kahlo has a strong connection to this culturally rich country. The iconography of the female artist is honored throughout the Dior Cruise 2024 collection. Costumes now become a declaration of being, affirming and negating oneself.

Creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri also chose a very special venue for this show: the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso school, where the Mexican artist studied and where she met her husband – the painter. Diego Rivera.

The moth emerges from its cocoon, shining on a sketch from the archives of Andrée Brossin de Méré. Maria Grazia Chiuri was inspired by Frida Kahlo’s photographs, through the way the artist bends the rules of gender boundaries. From the age of nineteen, Frida wore a men’s three-piece suit, overcoming femininity in search of her own independence. Frida’s enduring appeal comes from her ability to step across boundaries, realizing the beauty of fragility, masculinity, and femininity in one body. Therefore, the suits in the collection are also used to honor her style.

Meanwhile, the flowing dresses are coordinated with the traditional Mexican huipil. In particular, Maria Grazia Chiuri drew inspiration from Zapotec women’s Tehuana wear, reimagining dresses as an essential part of her collection. In the same way that the “saint of painting” did, Frida Kahlo not only transformed traditional clothing into a pride in female identity and her works but also harshly criticized patriarchy and sexism at that time.

After the Dior Fall 2023 collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri once again forged strong relationships with local artisans. Talented hands shine on their original, co-created, and hand-crafted embroideries, especially the embellishments on dresses and shirts.

A pink dress reminiscent of the design Frida Kahlo wore in her self-portrait. The seductive beauty of fragility is further enhanced by a variety of carefully selected cotton, hemp, and silk lace. Meticulous embroidery on the black velvet and jacquard collar accentuates the plain shirt design. Details such as butterflies, and illustrations of Mexican flora and fauna along with parrots, monkeys, and birds of the sky are also reminiscent of Frida Kahlo’s paintings.