The body might not be able to travel just quite yet, but for the past few seasons now, Maria Grazia Chiuri has made it a mission to provide escapism with her Dior destination shows—transporting the eye and mind to dreamy places and faraway times via fashion. For Cruise 2022, she landed in Ancient Greece—specifically Athens, the city named after Athena, the goddess of war and wisdom.
Inspired by a 1951 Christian Dior collection photographed by the Parthenon, the collection she presented at the Panathenaic Stadium married the romanticism of Ancient Greece and the dynamism of our modern age. Softly draped and pleated togas, tunics, and goddess dresses were worn with lace-up sneakers and athletic flat boots—emphasising their wonderful weightlessness. Some of those dresses were reinterpreted in sporty nylon as parachute dresses, accented with zips, drawstrings and belt straps.
Related article: Watch The Dior Cruise 2022 Show In Athens Here
The softness and ease extended to the tailoring as well, with the Bar jacket relaxed and paired with other modern separates. Those long, languid lines in creams and whites evoked the singular elegance of Marlene Dietrich in the Thirties. As the show progressed, the collection got sportier and brighter. There were motifs of intertwined wrestlers—lifted from the Ancient Greek vases collected by Alexander Iolas and reinterpreted by the artist, Pietro Ruffo—rendered in vivid Grecian blue and splashed onto bomber jackets, anoraks, drawstring shorts and tights.
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The interplay between the modern and the ancient continued. The harnesses cinched onto some of the looks spoke of both performance gear and paganism; similarly, some of the hooded silhouettes evoked both protective headwear and priestess robes. Towards the end, Chiuri ventured back into dreamier territory—sending out a series of diaphanous wet-look dresses before ending on a positively fantastical note. Her finale look alluded to the myth of Leda, the Spartan queen who was seduced by Zeus when he took the form of a swan.
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