Quite often going to visit an exhibition helps designers getting inspired for their collections. In Maria Grazia Chiuri's case it was the exhibition "It's Just a Beginning", that opened last October and closed in January at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, that did the trick.
The event focused on 1968 and Chiuri decided to explore in Dior's A/W 18 collection, showcased during Paris Fashion Week, youth cultures and revolutions through her designs.
For a lucky coincidence the Beaux Arts in Paris is also anticipating the 50th anniversary of the May Paris student uprisings with an exhibition focused on the political posters of the French far left from 1968 to 1974.
The 1968 events also inspired the set design: the venue on the grounds of the Musée Rodin was indeed covered with collages of protest headlines.
In previous collections Chiuri was inspired by quotes by Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and art theorist Linda Nochlin, but for her A/W 18 collection for Dior, the designer mostly left behind all the slogans, aside from the opening jumper with the knitted "C'est Non, Non, Non et Non!" and a sweater with the peace symbol.
The themes seemed to perfectly summarise the anti-Trump feelings, the general mood after the Harvey Weinstein scandal, the courage of the #MeeToo campaign, the protests of young students in the States after the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, and the will to revolt at the mere thought of a Berlusconi comeback at this weekend's Italian elections.
The fashion inspiration for this collection came from Dior's archives and in particular from a 1966 black and white photograph of a protest staged by a group of young women outside the Dior store with signs reading "Mini Skirts Forever", that eventually prompted Marc Bohan, then-creative director, to launch Miss Dior.
Given the main themes of the collection, Chiuri naturally put emphasis on daywear and the collection featured classic mid-to-late '60s tropes including crocheted dresses, flower power embroideries in a luxury-meets-craft key, black leather jackets à la Monica Vitti in Miklós Jancsó's La pacifista (The Pacifist, 1970), patchworks, colourful friendship bracelets (soon to be a trend, so rediscover how to make them...) and rather cute beaded bags in different shapes including the saddle (that may pose a few questions, though, when it comes to appropriating traditional beaded techniques...).
A classic technique used between 1969 and 1970 by Yves Saint Laurent who employed it being fascinated by folkloric traditions, patchwork represents freedom and in this case it also pointed at the fashion house history. The textiles employed for the patchwork pieces were indeed reproduced from archival Dior prints.
Variations on colourful patchwork motifs employed for dresses, jackets, skirts, trousers and bags, came via mosaics of denim fabrics that gave to this humble and ordinary textile a luxury twist or via techniques that called to mind American penny rugs.
Tulle kilts were another leitmotif of the collection, though among the best pieces there were the military coats and the organza dresses, all covered in intricately lavish floral embroideries, matched with heavy biker boots.
The art of embroidery was a strong inspiration for Chiuri: though it was a personal ode to craftsmanship and to her grandmother, it was also filtered through feminist writer Rozsika Parker's 1988 book "The Subversive Stitch" (on Chiuri's moodboard), and through artists who used fabrics in their practice such as Louise Bourgeois.
While this collection was maybe miles away from the Surrealist fantasy of Chiuri's S/S18 Dior couture show, there were arty elements in it.
Patchwork is indeed a trend in art as well and, if you want to discover more about it, you should definitely head this weekend at the Collezione Maramotti for Sally Ross' first European exhibition of her works - "Painting Piece-By-Piece" (4 March – 29 July 2018).
The event includes five large works from 2013 to 2015, recently acquired by the Collezione Maramotti (Maramotti Collection, Via Fratelli Cervi 66, Reggio Emilia, Italy).
Ross' paintings are actually non-paintings as the designer stitches together perfectly cut pieces of fabric creating collages of textiles.
The artist usually starts her creations moving from the studio floor, on which she places the various pieces that compose her maps. The results, once the pieces are sewn together, is a sort of cubist tapestry with some geographical connections.
An aerial view of Ross's works gives indeed the idea we may be flying over a landscape that integrates some very personal elments: some materials incorporated into her works are indeed cut from Ross' own garments that she brings into the compositions to symbolically inject in them her own DNA.
For years the artist used as her fave studio garment a green flannel shirt that she had found in the trash in 1997 and that bore the tag "Old Friend". The piece gradually became a sort of talisman, a work shirt she grew attached to.
When many years later the artist accidentally put it in the dryer and it shrank beyond hope, she integrated bits and pieces of the garment in the largest painting that will be displayed at the Maramotti Collection - "Goodbye Old Friend".
Ross freely intermingles painting, printing, collage, sculpture, and drawing: some parts of her paintings are comprised of patterns created and printed by the artist herself, such as fish scales and wood grain, or appropriated from existing materials, the stripes in bedding and in the webbing from a lawn chair, for example.
Anni Albers, Lee Bontecou, Alberto Burri, Franz Kline, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly and Alan Shields come to mind while analysing Ross's works, but she also indirectly follows the tradition of arte povera.
Rather than using paint to create her artworks, Ross "constructs" her paintings, the physical act of actually painting with fabric conveying something very personal.
Chiuri's adopting patchwork to hint at crafts and at female empowerment and Ross using this technique for her artworks may prove that the needle can be mightier than the sword.
Image credits for this post
Photographs of Sally Ross's works in this post by Carlo Vannini
12. Sally Ross, "Painting Piece-By-Piece", Collezione Maramotti 4th March - 29th July 2018
13. Sally Ross, Betsy's Gift, 2013
oil and gesso on canvas pieces, nylon thread
203,2 x 355,6 cm
14. Sally Ross, Betsy's Gift, 2013
oil and gesso on canvas pieces, nylon thread
203,2 x 355,6 cm
detail
15. Sally Ross, Big Pink, 2015
gesso, matt medium and enamel on canvas pieces, nylon thread, fiberglass arm splint on modified stretcher
190,5 x 190,5 x 28 cm
16. Sally Ross, Big Pink, 2015
gesso, matt medium and enamel on canvas pieces, nylon thread, fiberglass arm splint on modified stretcher
190,5 x 190,5 x 28 cm
detail
17. Sally Ross, Goodbye Old Friend, 2014
oil, enamel, acrylic, colored pencil and gesso on canvas pieces, wool shirt, nylon thread
198 x 498 cm
18. Sally Ross, Goodbye Old Friend, 2014
oil, enamel, acrylic, colored pencil and gesso on canvas pieces, wool shirt, nylon thread
198 x 498 cm
detail
19. Sally Ross, Holy Roller, 2013
enamel, oil, gesso and matt medium on canvas pieces, nylon thread
190,5 x 160 cm
detail
20. Sally Ross, Queequeg, 2014
enamel, matt medium and gesso on canvas pieces, nylon thread
160 x 259 cm
21. Sally Ross, Queequeg, 2014
enamel, matt medium and gesso on canvas pieces, nylon thread
160 x 259 cm
detail
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