Dior Is Right on Target for SpringLAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT
Maria Grazia Chiuri had evidently been musing on antiquity and sport in advance of Dior’s spring show. First came her Olympics-influenced couture collection this summer. Then, the brand posted a video of the designer touring the Louvre’s Salle des Cariatides and admiring a statue of a toga-clad Artemis shouldering an arrow.
Though luxe athletic wear is often thought of as a recent invention, Dior’s history with sport is also worth noting: The house founder was inspired by his mother’s riding clothes to create his famous Equestrian (or Amazon) suit. In the ’40s, he was already designing bathing suits and skiwear, and by 1962, Dior Sport was founded, including pieces in its signature Elastiss fabric that allowed for a range of movement.
For someone like Chiuri, who has long been fascinated by fashion’s ability to free women, the proto-feminist Greek goddess turned out to be a potent muse. The show began with multidisciplinary artist and competitive archer SAGG Napoli, suited up in a sporty Artemis-like off-the-shoulder ensemble, aiming her bow at a painted target as Natalie Portman, Anya Taylor-Joy and Rosamund Pike looked on. The scene, designed by Napoli, doubled as a piece of performance and installation art.
The looks that followed incorporated the idea of sport in a way that pushed past clichés of luxury athleisure or performancewear. Models wore leotards with cutouts, shin guard-sneaker or -sandal hybrids, shoulder-slung bags, and sparkling bodysuits. Motocross influences could be felt in sharp jackets and checkered matching sets, while there were performance touches like ripstop pants and overalls.
As the lineup moved into daywear, the sportif mood remained: off-the-shoulder dresses, worn with gloves; experiments with shirting; and classic trenches. The palette of black, white, neutrals, and silver let the silhouettes shine, while texture was present in fringed overlays and sparkling wrap skirts. The ethereal Grecian gowns at the finale brought home the message: Sometimes there is nothing more modern than going back to the ancients.
Elderly and sick king revealed as powerless Cancer-struck King Charles looked an isolated monarch Sunday as he attended a pivotal veterans’ memorial event in London without his wife, Queen Camilla, who is fighting a chest infection, after a series of casual humiliations inflicted by his brother, Prince Prince Andrew, and his son, Prince William. William, in an intervention that would have been unthinkable before the king‘s cancer diagnosis, set out plans for a dramatic change of tone in his reig
