Dior’s Couture Set Took 480,000 Hours to Hand Embroider
For her world mythology-inspired fall show, Maria Grazia Chiuri collaborated with Italian artist Marta Roberti and 360 Indian artisans
Maria Grazia Chiuri is opening up the rarified world of Paris couture. Over the past three years, the Dior creative director has embarked on an ambitious series of three-way collaborations with global contemporary artists and artisans at Mumbai’s Chanakya embroidery atelier to transform her couture catwalks into public art installations. Her couture Fall 2023 set comprising nine large fabric panels featuring goddess drawings by Italian artist Marta Roberti rendered in thread by Indian artisans, follows similar projects with Judy Chicago (Spring 2020), Madhvi and Manu Parekh (Spring 2022), Eva Jospin (Fall 2022), and Mickalene Thomas (Spring 2023). It will remain on view in the gardens of Musée Rodin through July 9.
Chiuri’s latest couture outing follows Dior’s landmark pre-fall show in Mumbai this past March, for which Chanakya artisans created a giant toran door hanging that filled the Gateway of India, and continues her ongoing mission to highlight the significance of Indian craftsmanship at a historic French luxury brand. While many European houses have quietly relied on specialized embroidery work by Indian artisans, Chiuri is unique in celebrating these longstanding partnerships at couture and beyond.
“The Gateway show for us was truly a momentous coming together of so many shared values,” says the Chankaya atelier’s director, Karishma Swali, who first met Chiuri when Chiuri was working as a designer at Fendi and Valentino. “It arose from a deep reverence for craft, something that I’ve shared with Maria Grazia for many, many years.”
In all, creating a Dior couture set takes about six months from ideation to house lights up. To complement Chiuri’s elegant fall silhouettes such as tunics, maxi dresses, and jackets structured by folds beneath the chest to evoke classical statuary, Roberti drew densely layered images combining female deities from ancient and modern cultures. They include the Mycenaean goddess Potnia Theron, the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, the Phrygian goddess Cybele, the Aztec goddess Coatlicue, and the Hindu goddess Durga, accompanied by leopards, bulls, snakes, and other animals.
Then, Swali’s team began the complex creative task of interpreting Roberti’s metallic and opaque pigments on rice paper as embroidery thread on cloth. “The process begins with really understanding the DNA of the artist and exploring ways to be able to translate their language from the paint brush to the needle,” Swali explains.
To preserve the feeling of transparency in Roberti’s works, the Chanakya artisans used a mix of fragile needlework techniques including honeycomb, stem, and feather stitches, and combined lurex and raw silk thread in regal shades of white, beige, silver, and pale gold. In all it took 360 artisans 480,000 hours to complete the nine finished panels, the largest of which measures 26 yards by 5 yards.
“It’s certainly an exercise that allows us to explore craft in new dimensions and amalgamate the energy of the artists with the artisans,” says Swali.