Dior fashion show in Seville

(Seville) Between embroideries, ample skirts, boleros and fans, the Dior house paid a vibrant tribute to Spain and Andalusian silhouettes, sounding like an air of flamenco, during its “cruise” parade Thursday evening in Seville.

Dior’s ambition was to “celebrate Andalusian culture in all its forms”. A successful bet on the grandiose Place d’Espagne, privatized for a parade at nightfall, due to the heat.

Apart from the annual Fashion Weeks, the major fashion houses present their “cruise” ready-to-wear collection in the spring, and often abroad.

And after Lecce in Italy and Athens in Greece, Dior has decided to head for Seville this year.

“Spain has inspired Monsieur (Christian) Dior and his successors, but this is the first time that Dior has expressed himself in such a grand and imposing way in this magnificent country”, explained to AFP Pietro Beccari, his CEO.

The models parade on the cobblestones of the square, covered with a cascade of bushes of red carnations.

The bolero jackets are ultra short, the skirts exaggeratedly long, the waist cinched by wide black leather belts and the shoulders wide or covered with a Manila shawl, an emblematic accessory in paintings by Goya or Velazquez.

Dior has relied on collaborations with local craftsmen (fans, goldsmithery, hats, leather, embroidery, etc.) and played the Spanish card down to the smallest detail: music by Alberto Iglesias, Pedro Almodovar’s favorite composer, to dancing with about forty women in long red flamenco dresses performing a choreography by Blanca Li, to the broadcast of several pieces by Rosalia.

“Independent Beauties”

Plastron waistcoats, whips, leather gaiters and wide-brimmed hats, or even black lace evoking a mantilla and running from the shoulders to the ankles, the parade evokes the codes of bullfighting or gypsy culture.

To design this collection showing looks that are sometimes androgynous and with obvious Hispanic references, the artistic director, Maria Grazia Chiuri, confides that she was inspired by various Spanish figures, starting with Carmen Amaya, a great name in flamenco in the 1950s “who ‘dressed like a man’.

But she was also fascinated by representations of the Virgin such as that of the Macarena, adored in Seville where she is one of the major figures in the processions of Holy Week, another image of the feminine.

Because the theme of femininity obsesses Maria Grazia Chiuri who says she admires the character of Spanish women.

They are “very strong, while wanting to be beauties and be independent”, says the artistic director who likes to see them in the films of Almodovar, “one of the directors who best describes female characters”.

Tourism benefits

With this “cruise” fashion show, Dior wanted to celebrate the “ties forged” in the past between Spain and Christian Dior, who in 1947 had designed a dress called “Ball in Seville”.

And underline the “strong relationship between haute couture and Spain”. “If you look at the flamenco dresses or the shawls, it’s still quite haute couture, quite artisanal, hand-embroidered, extraordinary things,” says Pietro Beccari.

After a gloomy period marked by COVID-19, this collection “comes out in stores in December, a very interesting month commercially: that means that the windows must convey a certain joie de vivre, a certain festive spirit and Spain. is particularly suitable,” he says.

The subject of particular attention in the world of fashion, the “cruise” collections are economically interesting for the cities that host them. Dior also assures that the other cities that have hosted these parades in recent years have experienced an increase in tourism.

“It’s good for Dior, but it’s going to be good for Spain too”, continues the CEO of the house, according to which around “200 million” people followed, throughout the world, the Sevillian parade broadcast live on social networks.