With international travel still off the cards, we're always looking for new ways to get our fill of white sands and blue waters. While we sit and wait, longing for a European summer, Dior has a plan to help transport us there.
On Thursday 17 June at 9.30pm local time Athens time - or 4.30am Sydney time on Friday 18 June - Dior presented its 2022 Cruise collection in a spectacular, Grecian showcase. Held in the iconic Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, the birth place of modern sports, we saw a cruise show that celebrated movement.
Maria Grazia Chiuri tweaks House codes and informs design with history, ideas and poetry - from the works of Giorgio De Chirico to vases decorated with wrestling matches by Alexandre Iolas. The collection is a marriage of heritage and modernity, a manifesto of for liberty and movement without constraint.
We saw goddess-like dresses breeze by alongside sharp white trouser suits calling back to icons like Marlene Dietrich. Moments of houndstooth and pleating meet with looks that are decidedly lean into streetwear. See it for yourself below. Watch a recap of the show or scroll through the key looks from Dior Criuse 2022
Dior has chose Athens as host for its latest creations for a reason. Athens is an ancient site, the epicentre of the birth of modern humanity as we know it. A place for thinkers, philosophers, politicians and artists, we are who we are today thanks to the creativity and innovation that came from this hub of ideas.
It is allegoric of the story behind the latest Cruise collection from the Maison, one which came together through innovation and free thinking. It also calls back to one of Dior's earliest fashion collections from 1951. This collection from 70 years ago was shot and photographed around the Athenian Acropolis. To this day, it is one of Dior's most iconic collection and cherished collections.
Dior Cruise shows always seem to set a new standard. Last year's Cruise 2021 show was held in the Italian dreamland of Lecce, a small town in the Apulia region. It was a full scale event held in the town square around the Duomo di Lecce - which was illuminated by 60 tons of coloured LED bulbs. So many in fact that it took 12 full days to assemble the luminaire for the set. The grandiose setting took models 2.25 minutes to walk in entirety. And in Dior's new modus operandi, the show was live streamed for all to see. It was a true delight to witness, while much of the world was stuck in COVID lock down.
Just because we can't be there physically, doesn't mean we can't travel in our minds.
