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- [00:01]
Arden Fanning Andrews
This episode of the Run through is brought to you by ebay. I'm Arden Fanning Andrews, Vogue's beauty editor at large. Everyone's talking about tassels right now and that's the moment that I end up typing it into ebay. I found the perfect vintage triple chain belt with golden tassels and it just looks so elegant, timeless. And it's on the way in the mail to me, thanks to ebay.
- [00:28]
Nicole Phelps
This is the Run Through. I'm Nicole Phelps. Today I'm in the New York studio with my co worker and friend of the pod, Mark Holgate, Vogue's fashion news director.
- [00:37]
Mark Holgate
Hello.
- [00:38]
Nicole Phelps
Hello. And from our London studio, we're joined by our fabulous colleague and one of fashion's very best critics, Sarah Mower. Hi, Sarah.
- [00:45]
Sarah Mower
Hi.
- [00:45]
Mark Holgate
The best critic.
- [00:47]
Nicole Phelps
Welcome to you both. We are here today to talk about Maria Grazia Chiuri, who spent nine fantastic years at Dior. Sarah, I went back to one of the first pieces you wrote about her not long after her appointment, and you said, I, for one, am pleased they've managed to hire a very cool woman in the intervening years. You have spent a lot of time with her. And I want to know what your impressions of her are as a designer and as a person.
- [01:15]
Sarah Mower
Well, of course, I'm always totally pro a woman getting a job as a creative director. And I thought it was. It was a really great appointment because Maria Grazia came to it for, you know, after many years at Valentino and as a. I think she was 52. I think she was a mature designer and had a really long track record at Valentino and before that, Fendi. And I thought that her character was. That she just was just so keen and dedicated to learn and to explore and to expand what. What Dior is. And I think she really held strong to that to me. I think I kept on writing, I think, over my reviews, which I also looked at myself, about how she kind of de ladified Dior to a certain extent, made it. You could see that it was at the very beginning becoming much more focused on what a young woman would wear that you would see. She started off with this fencing look, do you remember that Ruth Bell wore, which is her opening look. And everything was flats and they were, I mean, very much kind of younger, younger attitude. And what she said to me was at that point, the message is really that there's not one kind of woman which I thought was really interesting. That's a really feminist kind of point of view, that she wasn't designing just for within a Stereotype. And I think she. Yeah, I think she relaxed Dior to a certain extent. It wasn't a lady lady.
- [02:51]
Nicole Phelps
It was such a strong opening salvo. When you think about that fencing look, Mark, do you remember your first impressions of that show?
- [02:59]
Mark Holgate
Yeah, I do. I was sitting there and thinking, goodness, it's a kind of radical departure. I mean, what I liked, I mean, to your point, Sarah, was that she took that most iconic piece of Dior clothing, the bar jacket, and she took all the stuffing and the tightness and the kind of constraints out of it. So you still had that beautiful kind of hourglass shape, but then it was with a crossbody bag and a combat boot. And even when she was going into the more, I guess, frippery things like the tulle kind of full skirts or the tarot sweaters or whatever, it was always grounded in this kind of reality and a kind of, to me, almost an idealizing of the kind of ageless reality of Dior, you know, that it worked whether you were her daughter Racheli's age or you could be three, four, five, six decades older and still look kind of cool in it and kind of relevant. And that was what really I think kind of struck was that it was just this absolute kind of concretized idea of a very different woman at the house. It wasn't Madame, it wasn't Frou Frou, it wasn't fussy, it was just. It kind of just had a kind of great stomping energy, which I really loved.
- [04:12]
Nicole Phelps
Yeah. And I think it didn't take long for me to notice people really wearing it. The accessories, yes, but also the tailoring. And you would talk to women in the industry and they really, really expressed how, how real it was and reliable it was for their. For their everyday. Which makes me think of something else you said in 2016, Sarah. You said, to really start inhabiting our lives and minds, design needs to be at something more than churning out a house style or rearranging its signatures. And you said Christian Dior is a house in need of that. And you thought she was up to the task. So are there other ways that she impressed you over this nine year Spanish?
- [04:55]
Sarah Mower
Well, I mean, I think also it was her exploration of feminist artists and writers. When I first met her, actually, it's really interesting because I met her at Valentino and remember when she and Pierpaolo Piccioli started there, but barely spoke any English. And so they both really studied very, very rapidly and I think wanted to expand their cultural references and meet people, they were Both very eager to research and study and to bring more to the world of fashion. And Maria Grazias settled on exploring feminism, which was very interesting because Rakele, her daughter was at that point at Goldsmiths, the university in London, was studying history of art. And I always got the impression they were kind of co studying. And then when she brought, you know, she brought in so many writers, you know, we should all be feminists. T shirts. T shirt for a start, in every single collection since then, but also kind of in this matrix where they would cross reference that with something from the really extensive Christine Dior archive. So everything became sort of a study. You always kind of did learn something. I learned a lot from that kind of cultural background that she was bringing to the forest.
- [06:14]
Nicole Phelps
We should talk about the Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie T shirt. That we should all be feminists. This was September, October 2016, which we can all remember what we were going through then. And it felt like a time where fashion was really engaging with social issues and political issues. It was a new thing to see something like that on the Runway, don't you think?
- [06:39]
Mark Holgate
I have to say yes, because we'd also seen that collection in What? October, September, October 2016. Then we had an election, a very bruising, brutal election cycle through with Trump and Hillary Clinton. And I think it was uppermost in our minds. I mean, the whole way that the narrative around women is that women in public office, but women generally, I think, had been very much to the fore of that election and continues to be at the forefront of, I think, so much of what we're thinking about and talking about. But to Sarah's point, I mean, what I thought was great was that to use what seems to be increasingly an old fashioned and somewhat out of favor term, I mean, Maria Grazia used her platform and kudos to her for doing it, because you're right, Sarah, I think she really shone a spotlight on people she loved, admired different generations, different backgrounds, different cultural practitioners. So I think Maria Grazia constantly just made us all kind of think and not just accept the way the system was and the way the world and I, you know, personally, I think that was a kind of wonderful thing that she did.
- [07:46]
Nicole Phelps
I was so charmed by a resort show she did in Los Angeles. And it was the collection, when she pulled the tarot card images from this 40 year old deck, it's called the Mother Peace deck, It was at the time, it came out in the late 70s, early 80s, really revolutionary because all of the figures in the deck were female, were Women. And it was a deck created by two women and so arcane. Except that I had used that tarot deck with my friends in college. So it was such a fun full circle moment.
- [08:19]
Mark Holgate
But what card did you pull, Nicole?
- [08:22]
Nicole Phelps
I have the deck. I should have brought it with us. We all could have.
- [08:25]
Mark Holgate
Maybe we should do some live tarot reading on the podcast. That would be great.
- [08:30]
Sarah Mower
But of course, that did tie back into Christian Dior's superstitiousness. And he used that during the. The war. I mean. Yeah. And she brought up Katerine Dior.
- [08:42]
Mark Holgate
Yes, sister.
- [08:44]
Sarah Mower
Sister. Which Ms. Dior had always sounded very, you know, light and frou frou and everything. But it turned out that she was not only a resistance fighter, she ended up in Ravensbruck concentration camp during the war. A woman's concentration camp. So shocking. And Christian Dior had been casting, whatever you call it, tarot cards. Reading tarot cards at that time to sort of praying, I suppose, that she would come back. Maria Gracia told when a woman is inspired by women, it's a different thing. It was always very deep and very kind of personal in her when she talked about what she felt about women, that she was researching women in the theater from the past. And there was always kind of some kind of contemporary resonance there as well.
- [09:30]
Nicole Phelps
I know, Sarah, that you were really impressed. You went to the show in India. Right. And Maria Grazia worked very closely with the.
- [09:40]
Arden Fanning Andrews
Right.
- [09:40]
Nicole Phelps
An atelier of local artisans there. And that was something that. Another practice that she repeated. She would. It wasn't these destination shows. It wasn't a surface thing. She really went deep, and it was impressive to see the work that came out of those collections.
- [09:59]
Sarah Mower
Yeah. But one of the things which was very real about Maria Grazia, sort of going back a step back from that, is that she always kind of called herself a factory person. So she would always, I mean, go to every length to go to. To see things being made and talk to the people who are the craftspeople who are making them. And the other thing that the Indian, Amazing Indian trip kind of revealed was that the embroidery which happens in India is of the very, very highest level. And there's an attached school where they were drawing in women who couldn't work for themselves and couldn't have an income and was really, really seriously supporting that. And at the couture shows, always at the Musee Rodin, there was always a Dior box of Runway, which during the couture shows has always been, in her tenure, was always, you know, covered with these incredible massive mural Embroideries by these women and artisans made according to the theme that the artists that she was drawing on as well. So, I mean, and I heard from. She did that amazing show in Greece, do you remember? It was at the. The original Olympic stadium. And she had gone. I've got friends in Greece. And they said that she went to the. To far north of Greece, to a very remote area, to the. The silk weaving factory to work with the. Was the specialist weaver there to produce all of the kind of drapery that she showed there. And there was another one which I loved, which was the show in Seville where she'd been to, you know, the people who make sombreros and, you know, all kinds of embroideries and stuff. And it was always. She always went there. Personally, I don't know how she found time, but I think that's what she really, really enjoyed. I think being an Italian and coming from, you know, Valentino Couture, her appreciation and knowledge of how things are made and how they can be manipulated and so on, she brought that to the fore. And I think it was a time. I mean, if we look back 10 years, it actually is a time when craft, you know, craft used to be a sort of clunky, you know, made at home, sort of looked down upon kind of term. And she was part of that massive revaluation. As, you know, Jonathan Anderson was at Loewe. So I think you can kind of see that. You can see that going on. And it's not as if, you know, sometimes, you know, fashion can seem so remote and so seamless and so, you know, not crediting people who are behind the scenes and who actually make things. I think her respect for crops has been really impressive.
- [12:34]
Nicole Phelps
You saw some of that firsthand when you were in Scotland for the resort.
- [12:39]
Mark Holgate
Show I did in Scotland and then also Mexico City.
- [12:43]
Nicole Phelps
Oh, did you also go to the.
- [12:44]
Mark Holgate
Show in Morocco and the one in Morocco as well. But I think, you know, to Sarah's point, it's absolutely true. I think she. I think what I also admired about Maria Grazia was that she exalted the craft and she exalted the manufacturing of textiles locally or the artisanal work that would be done locally, be in Scotland or Mexico or Greece or wherever, and put it on a kind of pedestal at the same height as couture in France. It was this idea that, no, there's not some kind of pyramid thing where a couture house sits at the very pinnacle in the top. And I think she really kind of wanted to embrace the beauty of making and very often the beauty of making by communities of women around the world as part of her expression of Dior and her vision of Dior. And I also thought that was really commendable. And it was. To your point, Sarah? Yes, it was really like. I mean, she was like an anthropologist. I mean, she really went into the field and really studied and worked and conversed and spent time. And it wasn't a disconnected experience. It wasn't an experience in the. For the sake of branding or some kind of easily digestible little narrative you could spin around a collection. I think it really came from the kind of the heart and the mind of her. And she really kind of, I think, very authentically and genuinely engaged with it and got a lot out of it in some ways. For me, some of those shows where she would visit part of the world and work and present a collection were some of her best, I think.
- [14:17]
Sarah Mower
Yeah, I agree with that. And I think you kind of look at her personal style as well. I mean, it was always a pair of jeans and a black sweater and her cropped hair, which was sometimes, you know, bottle blonde in a kind of punk way, and always flats. She was not one for grandeur. You know, I think that very grounded worker like attitude was something very different from many, many what we're used to from many creative directors.
- [14:50]
Arden Fanning Andrews
The other day I like went on a real ebay spree. There's this huge push for like 80s opulence and 80s sort of glamour. And we're going to see that returning. And so I was already kind of tapped into that just from my gorgeous ebay watch list. And I found a really beautiful Chloe blazer from the 80s and a really Miu Miu killed these great Dior boots. And I'm combining them all together. Sometimes trend forecasting doesn't require something that's going to be like, produced in the future. Sometimes you can like tap into the past and tap into the archive as well. That's what makes ebay a fun place to actually discover things because you're not going in with something so specific in mind, but you have an idea of what you're interested in or what you're excited about or, you know, just truly trend forecasting. And so one thing that I would say people should be watching out for for is like very opulent 80s style.
- [15:54]
Nicole Phelps
The story that feels like it's emerging is how like 360 her approach was. Because of course, while she was very attuned to craft and the detail at the fabric and the hand level. She also was beloved by celebrities who wore her sort of magical fairy dresses on the red carpet. Right. And then she turned Dior. I mean, the Dior has had phenomenal commercial success while she's been there.
- [16:24]
Mark Holgate
I will say. I remember talking to a very renowned skin doctor here in New York who said that every single woman that was coming into her for treatment was wearing Dior. Because I think she gave a uniform to women that was felt cool, effortless, understandable, quirky, clever, interesting. And it made sense to them. You know, it kind of boiled down to, like we were saying earlier, like the bar jacket or an embroidered sweater or a skirt or just something that in the flat, comfortable, practical boot, not a kind of 5 inch heel tottering about the streets of Manhattan. So I think that's probably why for celebrities walking the red carpet, it kind of made sense to them too, because it acknowledged them and it acknowledged who they were in the clothes as opposed to just being dolled up in some Frou Frou fantasy.
- [17:17]
Nicole Phelps
I mean, definitely Dior has plenty of hallmarks or signatures even before her arrival, but she, as she's leaving, I can think of a lot that were uniquely hers. Right. Like the tapestry bag that has the Dior logo on the side.
- [17:33]
Sarah Mower
Yes.
- [17:34]
Mark Holgate
The book back. Yeah.
- [17:34]
Nicole Phelps
I mean, that is. We see knockoffs of those on Canal street by the dozen.
- [17:39]
Mark Holgate
I mean, that's the ultimate accolade.
- [17:41]
Nicole Phelps
The ultimate accolade. And the slingback shoes with the grain ribbon that said Dior on it.
- [17:51]
Mark Holgate
She very quickly invented a language, I think, of clothing and made that clothing resonate with kind of meaning and purpose and relevance.
- [18:00]
Sarah Mower
Yeah. And it was called a book bag. We should be reading. We should all be feminists who are reading. Yes, yes.
- [18:07]
Nicole Phelps
Are there any other signatures of hers that stand out?
- [18:11]
Sarah Mower
I just think it was more the combination that you could imagine wearing a bar jacket with a pair of jeans. I mean, it was just a way of kind of deconstructing the suit. Although they were very good suits. I really liked it when she did collections where they were just. It was just really based on silhouette, almost a 50s silhouette, but quite severe but feminine. I thought they were really, really good, those moments. And also, you know, on the flip side, the kind of diaphanous tulle skirts which you could see through, that was very much a signature of hers. You know, possibly with a more casual jacket. I don't know, you could see that that is a very Maria Grazia kind of knack.
- [18:57]
Nicole Phelps
And the other thing that comes to mind now is how often she would Talk about the peplos. Right. Which is this ancient Greek garment, sort of like a toga, just really sort of wrapped around. And she was thinking about that garment, that easy to wear garment. Last year at couture time, when she was riffing on the Olympics, the Olympics were headed to Paris. And I loved that couture show because it was. It was couture, but in these, in jerseys, it felt like. And so deluxe and rich, but also really easy to wear. And I think that that's part of what she was good at. And what you were just saying, Sarah, that there is a sense of how women want to wear things in the real world.
- [19:46]
Mark Holgate
Yeah. Even with couture, it was never just going to be some kind of fairytale fantasy that if you were gonna work at that highest level, that therefore the clothes also had to function to some degree as well. It wasn't just a dress up box kind of situation. I have to say that was one of my favorite things, actually. You know, it was always a pleasure to go and have a preview with Maria Grazia because you really felt engaged. And she would kind of challenge me, us to think as well. I think a little broader and a little deeper about things, or maybe I should just speak for myself here. She challenged me to think a little broader and deeper. And I love my conversations with her. I love talking to Scotland about her. You know, I'm from Scotland. And I loved the way she kind of embraced the whole narrative and the kind of the myth and the reality of Scotland, maybe not the train spotting Scotland, but certainly the kind of historic idea of its kind of iconoclastic female figures. But it was also a chance just to see, as Sarah was saying, you were saying, Nicole, just how beautifully made, even a ready to wear collection was. I mean, those things were impeccably, impeccably, impeccably made and beautifully done. At a time when fashion, the speed of fashion sometimes feels like, just show me the image and don't worry too much about how something's made.
- [21:13]
Arden Fanning Andrews
I like ebay for one of a kind items. Things that feel limited edition or collections that can't be found in stores. And with the ebay authenticity guarantee, I know that when it arrives, it's real. It is a piece that is coming from the designer's collection, the designer's archive. One of the biggest conversation points for some of the parties that I'll go to during fashion week are the pieces that I'm getting off of ebay. Everyone's a little bit intrigued and excited whenever they hear that you Were able to find something on this digital treasure hunt.
- [21:53]
Nicole Phelps
Do you have any reflections about the most recent show? We saw in late February, early March, we were in Paris, and remember the. The very dramatic set with the. With the bird flying across the ceiling, Sarah. And you said that it was wearable, wantable and practical, everyday, out in the street things, and that it was also the least Dior collection that she'd done.
- [22:21]
Sarah Mower
Yes. Well, I mean, going back to what you just said, Mark, seeing things in a preview at the Dior headquarters, when she, you know, we'll pull a model towards you and show you how, in the case of that collection, there were ruffles which could be pinned on, buttoned on in different ways, and there were, you know, kind of raincoats, and I think I remember a beautiful tail coat. All of those things were just amazing in the moment. And there were some of my colleagues, journalists, who were sitting there, and we were all going, wow. Yeah, this is. This is really, really something kind of romantic, but very practical as well. And I didn't really see any bar jacket there or any of the references we've seen, we'd been seeing all along the way. I mean, maybe it was. Her mind was sort of flying off somewhere else, but it was a great collection. But, you know, sometimes when things get into sets and there are producers and there are lightings and lighting's kind of difficult, it's hard to see that, you know, from an audience point of view in the round or the square as it was.
- [23:24]
Nicole Phelps
Yeah. Sometimes we are very lucky to get that backstage access and see things up close or in the re. See afterwards is a way to appreciate clothes that sometimes the Runway doesn't convey.
- [23:37]
Mark Holgate
I sadly didn't see that show. But it's funny, I was thinking how we started talking about that very first show, and the one thing I do remember, that very first show of Maria Grazia's was also how she acknowledged so many of the previous, albeit male, creators of. And it was a kind of generosity of spirit that, frankly, I think if a guy had been taking over the house, might not have done. But I love the way that she referenced Dior. She referenced Saint Laurent. She referenced Marc Bohan, who'd been at the house after Saint Laurent. She referenced Gianfranco Ferrer, Gianfranco Ferre, you know, who's kind of somewhat forgotten from the history of Dior. And I think she'd also referenced Teddy Slim, I think, with the Bee from the menswear. So I just thought that is an inclusive, thoughtful, generous debut at our House, you know, to acknowledge the history and then say, but I'm gonna put my own spin in it, and this is the way things are gonna be from now on. And that kind of decisiveness and the deliberateness of that debut, to me is. It lives on in my mind.
- [24:39]
Sarah Mower
Yeah. You also have to think that the sheer numbers of collections and shows that she did, the relentlessness of that. I mean, she has incredible stamina. It was never like she was blase or exhausted or. She was always very enthusiastic to talk about all of these discoveries and make us, you know, get a sense of the reality of the people making things and how it had all come together. And I think she just really enjoyed studying, you know, the discovery in so many dimensions that was, you know, was partly, as you say, the kind of expansion, exploration of the Dior archive. I mean, the Dior archive is something. I think it's only been quite recently constructed within Dior, but it is like a museum. There is a museum attached to it at the side of the Maison, which is incredibly popular. And I just think that, you know, within the house, there was this kind of sense of bringing the past alive. I think all those dimensions were, you know, have been really interesting. And I think she's, you know, she's grown as a person. I love her, you know, that attitude of being curious and really professional, really relentless. And also being a family woman, I mean, you know, her daughter Rakele was always around. And I think there were some quotes of hers at the beginning where, you know, she said it was, you know, a very big decision to leave Italy and to live in Paris. And she said in the point where she began, she was leaving her husband alone at home with her. I guess the son was more of a, you know, a school kid at that point. I like the fact she was very frank about that because, you know, there's such pressure on women to cover up. To cover up being a mother, to work out how, you know, what sort of sacrifices you're going to make or how you're just going to organize it. And she did talk about those things, you know, at the beginning.
- [26:34]
Nicole Phelps
Right. There's this idea that, yes, you're managing it all, but you don't have to discuss it. It. It's impolite or to discuss it or something. So on that topic, sort of. I'm wondering if you think that there is an appetite for creative directors moving forward. We have. We're about to experience a very big shift, not just at Dior, but at many houses across Milan and Paris. Do you Think there's an appetite for creative directors to take on social issues and face them head on?
- [27:07]
Mark Holgate
I hope so. I'd like to think so. Personally. I mean, I think it's. You got to be rooted in the world and all the challenges and also the beauty of the world. But if it's just, I mean, sometimes great fashion is great fashion. Of course it takes you somewhere else, you know, the quote unquote dream or whatever else. But I personally, I'm always really engaged by designers who are not gonna shy away from just really addressing the realities of the world and where we are today and adding kind of, I don't know, a sense of that into their work and the way that they present the work.
- [27:42]
Sarah Mower
Well, that remains to be seen, doesn't it? Because it's a time when artists of all kinds, of all stripes, all disciplines, are more and more afraid to be frank.
- [27:52]
Mark Holgate
That is very true, Sarah.
- [27:53]
Sarah Mower
And academics as well, university students, everybody being cautioned, policed, and.
- [28:00]
Mark Holgate
Yeah, no, it's true.
- [28:00]
Sarah Mower
So we'll see what's interesting, if you look at the sort of landscape now you have Mathieu Blase at Chanel, who's a young man who's very, very creative, avant garde even. And you've got Jonathan Anderson taking over at, as we know so far, Dior and Demna being moved to Gucci. There's three, three big guns facing each other and the competition that, you know, the field that they've always been competing on is a creative one. It's a high, high level creative. It's not. They're not people who, who anybody wants to follow a straight and narrow. You want, you want those people to, to tell us something. So, I mean, that's my hope.
- [28:49]
Nicole Phelps
What do you think is next for Maria Grazia? If you were, you know, what's the word called dream boarding with her.
- [29:00]
Mark Holgate
What.
- [29:00]
Nicole Phelps
Could you imagine her doing next?
- [29:01]
Mark Holgate
Pull a tarot card and perhaps find out. I mean, well, I hope she keeps working. I hope, you know, that she continues to create and to be engaged. I mean, that's a very kind of prosaic way of putting it. But I think her presence at Dior was so important and her presence in fashion has been so important that fashion world's more interesting with her around. So I hope she sticks around and someone continues to, you know, give her the platform to do what she wants.
- [29:32]
Sarah Mower
To do and needs to do for Maria Grazia. I don't know. Yes, I want to see a strong woman continuing to be strong in the field of fashion. We haven't got enough. We need more appointments of women. All women bring different things to the table and there aren't enough at the moment. So, yeah, more power to Maria Grazia. Let's hope she does that somewhere where she'll be really happy and not have to work every single day of her life.
- [30:02]
Nicole Phelps
Hear, hear. Thank you both so much for joining me on the Run Through.
- [30:07]
Mark Holgate
Thank you.
- [30:08]
Sarah Mower
Oh, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Pleasure.
- [30:16]
Nicole Phelps
That's it for the Run Through. See you Thursday. The Run through is produced by Chelsea Daniel, Alex DePalma and Joanna Solotarov. It's engineered by Jake Loomis, Luke Moseley and James Yost. It is mixed by Mike Kutchman. Stephanie Kariuki is our executive producer and Chris Bannon is Conde Nast's head of Global audio.
- [30:46]
Arden Fanning Andrews
The other day, I, like, went on a real ebay spree. There's this huge push for, like, 80s opulence and 80s sort of glamour, and we're going to see that returning. And so I was already kind of tapped into that just from my gorgeous ebay watch list. And I found a really beautiful Chloe blazer from the 80s and a really great Miu Miu kilt, Bee's great Dior boots. And I'm combining them all together. Sometimes trend forecasting doesn't require something that's gonna be, like, produced in the future. Sometimes you can, like, tap into the past and tap into the archive as well. That's what makes ebay a fun place to actually discover things, because you're not going in with something so specific in mind, but you have an idea of what you're interested in or what you're excited about or, you know, just truly trend forecasting. And so one thing that I would say people should be watching out for is, like, very opulent 80s style.
- [31:45]
Sarah Mower
From PRX.