Dior Paris Fashion Week: A Kaleidoscope of Colour

Fashion house Dior‘s latest catwalk at Paris Fashion Week saw a large-scale, kaleidoscopic installation by artist Joana Vasconcelos suspended above the Autumn/Winter 2023 runway. This was beautifully decorated with fabrics from the collection. Joanna Vasconcelos, who created the stunning DIOR set-up, has also worked alongside Roche Bobois as a design star @Milano Fair…

Crafted with 20 of the label’s signature fabrics, the museum-worthy installation set the stage as a mythical landscape for Dior in Paris.

An impactful installation

The brand’s legendary creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri—who is known for ardently supporting women, the arts, and the diminishing craft of savoir faire—commissioned the Portuguese artist to fill the venue with one of her monumental installations.

Titled Valkyrie Miss Dior, the mass of organic forms was crafted with an assortment of Dior fabric, lace, and knitted crochet. Weighing some 20 tons, the otherworldly artwork resembled a bulbous nucleus. It was thus suspended from the ceiling with tentacle-like arms stretching out.

Paying homage

For the collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri wanted to pay homage to three powerful female characters of French history. These included Christian Dior’s sister Catherine Dior, singer Édith Piaf, and actress Juliette Gréco. Adding her artistic spin, Vasconcelos thus interpreted these women as Valkyries. In Norse mythology, they were heroines sent to the battlefield by Odin to choose those worthy of Valhalla.

“I developed this installation not only to integrate the fabrics but also to fill up the space, interacting with the models and the public,” the artist said in a statement. “Exploring a triple relationship between monumental sculpture, human bodies, and inhabited clothing, almost like a kind of sculptural dance. Between visual arts and fashion.”

Furthermore, Vasconcelos also noted her love of fashion. She explained: “Fashion is an important part of my life. For those, like me, who started showing their work at Lisbon’s Manobras in May 1994, this collaboration with Dior is a dream come true.” This project marks Vasconcelos’s second collaboration with Dior; in 2013, she created a giant bow using hundreds of Dior perfume bottles.

Images Detail of the Dior set by Adrien Dirand – courtesy of Dior. 

Visit Roche Bobois to see Joana’s work here.