(Paris) From cabaret feathers to sleek suits and bathrobes, Dior celebrated Josephine Baker and the freedom of the Roaring Twenties in a collection presented Monday in Paris, on the first day of haute couture week.
Singer, dancer, member of the French Resistance and human rights activist, “Josephine Baker is a great artist and the only woman of color to enter the Pantheon who, through her clothes, determined her position and she- same,” said Dior womenswear stylist Maria Grazia Chiuri.
The parade took place in an installation created by African-American artist Mickalene Thomas, with portraits of Josephine Baker, Nina Simone and eleven other black or mixed-race women, pioneers in their fields after breaking down racial barriers, in front of a audience of celebrities including actresses Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Adjani, Rosamund Pike, Elisabeth Debicki, Bianca Jagger and K-pop star Jisoo.
A client of the Dior house, Joséphine Baker embodies with her muscular body and short hair a different femininity than that of a “flower” woman of Dior’s iconic New Look with soft shoulders and a slim waist highlighted by the bar jacket and the skirt-corolla.
Glamor without constraints
PHOTO ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Velvet coats evoke pieces that an artist puts on in her dressing room after the show.
In 1925, she left the United States for Paris to perform in the Revue Nègre, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, where she reincarnated racial stereotypes.
But a few months after the success of her first show with strong colonial imagery, she changed her dressing room and representation: first as an Art Deco icon, then in suits or resistant “uniforms”.
Fascinated by the role of clothing in this metamorphosis, Maria Grazia Chiuri pays homage to each of these stages in the collection: the music hall with metallic materials, fringes, feathers, sets with mini-shorts or a bodysuit, then long, flowing dresses from the 1920s and 30s, then straight suits.
Velvet coats evoke pieces that an artist puts on in her dressing room after the show, this moment between the stage and real life, a metaphor for the identities that are being built behind the scenes.
“Immediately after her success, she made very precise haute couture choices: daytime suits, but also pleated skirts… The images of her in uniform are extraordinary. She had an incredible awareness of what she could do with her notoriety, how to put it to the benefit of other women, ”underlines Maria Grazia Chiuri.
Joséphine Baker or Marlene Dietrich, friend of Christian Dior and another muse of the house and of this collection, “represent young women far ahead of their time. It’s a collection for a woman who wants to choose her own way of being,” she adds.
The collection refers more generally to the Roaring Twenties, “a particular historical moment, especially in Paris where women had a great deal of freedom. Silhouettes have become simpler, corsets have disappeared. Their way of dressing was comfortable while remaining feminine and very glamorous”.
“Total” celebration
The hairstyles are very elaborate, between the Art Deco style African braids and the heart-catching locks, the eye is smoky and the velvet shoes adorned with embroidery are wedges and heels, something extremely rare at Maria Grazia Chiuri.
A “total experience” between decor and looks, enthuses Mickalene Thomas.
“I am proud and grateful to Dior who wanted to collaborate with me,” the artist, who works on the visibility of women of color, told AFP by revisiting the classics of the history of Western art by inserting black women’s bodies.
“Maria Grazia has always been a feminist but, for me, with this show, she took it to the next level,” she stressed, adding that the contribution of black women to societal progress was always underestimated, while they “encounter racial problems everywhere”.
The portraits on a printed textile base were embroidered by the workshops of the Chanakya School in Bombay, which trains embroiderers, whereas in India it is a male profession, illustrating a new collaboration between Dior and these workshops that contribute to the emancipation of women.