EXCLUSIVE: Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri Turns Her Passion for Scarves Into a Book
PARIS — Maria Grazia Chiuri’s fall 2024 collection for Dior all started with a scarf.
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The brushstroke-style Miss Dior logo that appeared on items including trenchcoats, skirts and handbags was borrowed from a scarf designed by the brand’s former creative director Marc Bohan, after a drawing by Alexandre Sache.
It’s one of 425 designs catalogued in a new book, “Dior Scarves. Fashion Stories,” that is an aficionado’s delight, with designs spanning from the time of founder Christian Dior to the present day in every style imaginable.
“I am thrilled to have fulfilled my dream of producing a book on Dior scarves. I have a personal relationship with scarves,” Chiuri said in a statement.
“I am part of a generation that was heavily influenced by the 1960s and 1970s; I wore scarves myself when I was young, and my mother would take me to pick them out. Even today, I still love them and always have one with me,” she added.
To tease the fall 2024 runway show, the designer posted on Instagram an image of the cover of the book alongside a family album photo of herself posing with her mother Maria Pia Petrelli in the ’70s — both wearing a scarf knotted at the nape of the neck.
Described as an atlas of foulards, the tome was edited by critic, curator and professor Maria Luisa Frisa, the force behind exhibitions including “Bellissima. L’Italia dell’alta moda 1945-1968,” a celebration of Italy’s haute couture and creativity in the Dolce Vita era.
The colorful designs are printed on fine paper and organized by theme — Paris, Optical Effects, Cosmogony, Grids, Codex, Flora, Bestiary, Colorama, Messages and Fashion.
Among them are the scarves Chiuri has developed with Italian illustrator Pietro Ruffo, with themes including the zodiac, stars, flora and fauna, maps and the brand’s signature toile de Jouy.
“People don’t tend to realize how complex it can be to produce an object like the foulard. It is a truly artistic process. It is like working on a painting, but being able to then transpose that onto silk is a very long process requiring an enormous technical skill,” she said.
“The end result is truly a work of art. This kind of complexity often remains invisible. So much time is needed to produce a beautiful scarf. We spend a year on each one, working as part of a much bigger team of people than one might think,” Chiuri added.
The book features photographic portfolios by Brigitte Niedermair and Pol Baril alongside essays by Chiuri; Frisa, who lectures at the University of Architecture in Venice (IUAV); Claire Allen-Johnstone, assistant curator of textiles, fashion and furniture at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London; Emilie Hammen, professor at the Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and the Institut Fran?ais de la Mode, and Elda Danese, a researcher specializing in textile history at the IUAV.
The 760-page book, edited by Thames & Hudson, is available in French and English. Priced at $100, it will launch worldwide on March 28, and in the U.S. on May 14.
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