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Elle
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Elle
See Dior's Ghostly Tribute to the Roman Theater
An extravagant patroness, a hallowed theater, and a mysterious evening of 'living pictures': these are the spirits that Maria Grazia Chiuri sought to recapture in the Dior cruise 2026 collection and its accompanying short film, Les Fantômes du Cinéma. To understand these ghostly revivals, we must travel back to the living. The collection was heavily inspired by the life and luxuries of countess Anna Laetitia Pecci, more commonly known as Mimì Pecci-Blunt, who was a dedicated couture client and a lifelong patron of the arts until her death in 1971. Across her salon in Paris and mansion in Rome, Pecci-Blunt often played host to artists including Salvador Dalí, writer Alberto Moravia, composer Henri Sauguet, and more. In 1958, the countess purchased and guided the Teatro della Cometa in Rome for a single glorious season. While the theater changed hands through the years before falling into obscurity, Dior took it over in 2020, leaving its restoration in Chiuri's hands. Five years later, on the precipice of the venue's reopening, Chiuri took to the Villa Reale di Marlia to reignite Pecci-Blunt's vision through a multifaceted runway presentation. Both the collection and film directly reference one of the countess's glamorous evenings in Paris in 1930—the Bal Blanc, where guests dressed in white, as if transforming into alabaster sculptures, doubling as the venue's 'living pictures' entertainment (as demonstrated by the runway's all-white ensembles and glimmering Roman-inspired trompe l'oeil). The result is a scene of exceedingly fragile beauty. In ushering these fashionable ghosts into the present, a feeling of temporality remains. For Chiuri, this is by design. The creative director worked closely with the Italian costume house Tirelli to replicate exact pieces from the costumer's archive using period-accurate preserved lace, as seen on the powdered-faced actors flitting through the film. As Chiuri explained on Instagram, one snag on a manicured rose bush and the character's crinoline-laden gown could crumble. On the runway, the models were visions in white, black, and beige, gliding down the pebbled pathway in billowing sheer skirts, tuxedo jackets, and minimalist column dresses. The collection felt not only like a tribute to Pecci-Blunt's and Tirelli's legacies, but also a nostalgic culmination of nearly a decade's worth of Chiuri's delicate designs. An interesting through-line between womenswear and Dior Men also showed up. Many of the models sported lace masks, another direct reference to the dress code for Bal Blanc that undoubtedly added to the allure and warranted a warm standing ovation. However, it's impossible to not call back to the striking satin masks in Kim Jones's final collection for the brand during the fall 2025 runway season. Ultimately, Chiuri remains a passionate patron of the arts, dedicated to crafting a sartorial narrative down to the finest details of femininity. Much like Pecci-Blunt's Bal Blanc guests and Tirelli's creations on the silver screen, Chiuri is deft at bringing a character's vision to life.
Business of Fashion
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Business of Fashion
Hello, Goodbye: Maria Grazia Chiuri's Next Chapter
ROME — Human nature abhors a vacuum. Maria Grazia Chiuri's status at the house of Dior has been the object of furious speculation for months now, but in the absence of any confirmation from owner LVMH that the runway spectacle she staged in Rome on Tuesday night was her last hurrah at the brand, the audience made up its own mind. The designer was greeted with a rousing standing ovation when she walked out at the finale. The heavens opened throughout the show, which has become something of a feature of Chiuri's presentations when they're exposed to the elements. A cockeyed optimist might construe that as nature's equivalent of Tom Ford's emotion-drenched send-off at Yves Saint Laurent — still the benchmark for the long fashion goodbye — but, deluge aside, the cheers felt like a necessary acknowledgement of Chiuri's substantial near-decade achievement at Dior. As the only woman to carry Christian's mantle, she leaves her thumbprint on the brand, financially and creatively. Dior Cruise 2026. (Spotlight) Mind you, when to go gently into that good night may well have ultimately been her choice. All week, Chiuri appeared upbeat and relaxed, especially as she previewed a next act for journalists. (I'm assuming it's not the next act, but it does involve a theatre, so the analogy seems appropriate). She was home, in Rome, the happy place of her birth where she would retreat from Paris every weekend, and where she has been realizing a rather wonderful personal project for the past few years. Her renovation of the Teatro della Cometa, a bijou 233-seater in downtown Rome, is, in a way, an evolution of the commitment she always had at Dior to celebrating female creativity, from that very first show when a T-shirt quoted the title of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's essay 'We Should All Be Feminists.' For years, she has wrapped her presentations in the work of women who inspired her. This time, it was Anna Laetitia ('Mimi') Pecci-Blunt, the cultish art patron who was responsible for the construction of the Teatro in the annex of her family palazzo. Teatro della Cometa. (Laura Sciacovelli) The inspiration felt particularly personal, perhaps because it was so embedded in Chiuri's own story. The Palazzo Pecci-Blunt had always been a dream house for her. Once she found out about the house's chatelaine, she transferred her obsession to Mimi, a woman whose wealth and privilege (her father was the nephew of Pope Leo XIII) effortlessly eased her passage through — and patronage of — the cultural ferment of the early-mid 20th century. Mimi's salon in Paris counted Picasso, Cocteau, Dali, Man Ray and Stravinsky among its habitués. When she and her American banker husband Cecil Blumenthal (she made him abbreviate his name to Blunt), acquired their palazzo in Rome in 1929, it also became a hive of artistic activity. Driven into exile by the fascists, the family sat out WWII in New York. On their return, she had the Teatro della Cometa designed (by Tomaso Buzzi) and constructed so that she would have a proper venue for the musical recitals she might once have presented in her home. She was also able to put on plays, performances and dance recitals. 'She was really keen to share her passions with other people,' says Chiuri. 'I think for that time, Mimi was like Peggy Guggenheim,' Chiuri muses. 'She really wanted to create an environment with all these creative people from several disciplines working together. I like the idea she tried to connect all these artists. You see the picture of Mr. Dior in the café with Giacometti. He was a gallerist, she was a gallerist. That's the way I really like to work too, with other artists to make a project, especially in this moment where everybody wants to talk about differences. I like the artists who try to collaborate. I think that's a very important message.' Dior Cruise 2026 Look 6. (Courtesy Dior) Chiuri translated the message into the collection she showed Tuesday night by getting both her studios — couture and ready-to-wear — to work with Studio Tirelli. Umberto Tirelli founded his workshop in the Sixties to work with the greatest movie directors of his day. From his archive of over 350,000 pieces of clothing, Chiuri picked 12 silhouettes to be worn by actors in the film that her frequent collaborator Matteo Garrone made for the livestream, as well as the performers who paraded ghost-like around the garden of the Villa Albani Torlonia in the lead-up to the show. She was thinking about the Bal Blanc that Mimi staged in 1930 at her Paris home with Man Ray as co-host. Everyone wore white. Man Ray's photos of 'the party of the season' are preserved at the Centre Pompidou. The tableaux vivants that Chiuri has been staging at the Teatro for the past few days recreate the event. And the dress code on Tuesday was women in white, men in black. If that hints at the essential theatricality of Chiuri's presentation, then my work here is done. The invitation proclaimed Rome as 'Theatrum Mundi,' theatre of the world. (Feel the mycelium fingers reaching out to Teatro della Cometa). Dior Cruise 2026 Look 43. (Courtesy Dior) It's an obvious question: would Chiuri have liked to live in Mimi's moment? Her answer is an unequivocal yes. 'Now we have too much Zoom, too many pictures. I think it's so important to meet in person, to share ideas. This is exciting.' That's why she was so keen for her studios to work with Tirelli. 'For them, it was an experience that gave them a different perspective.' Top of Chiuri's moodboard was the cover of a book by Francesco Piccolo, 'La Bella Confusione.' One 'beautiful confusion' was the collection's indistinguishable mix of cruise and couture (the show was officially labeled Cruise 2026, but tended more heavily towards couture, I'd say). The other is Rome itself, hectic, chaotic, enough to spark arguments between Chiuri and her husband Paolo when she defends the city's profound dysfunction. 'Paris is a beautiful city, but I'm Mediterranean and there is no sun in winter. You wake up in the dark and for someone who grew up in Rome, it is not simple not to have sun.' She counters that with praise for the fabulous, vital, cultural diversity of Paris. But still… sunshine. Dior Cruise 2026 Look 68. (Courtesy Dior) But that professed umbilical connection to sensuality is why Chiuri's collections have always been a bit of a puzzler, because they don't often make that connection. They are pure and restrained and elegant and they embody an eerie kind of almost monastic luxury, but they aren't sunshine. And so it was with what we are acknowledging as her last collection for Dior. It was almost as though she was recreating her own favourite bits, with a strong emphasis on her Valentino era (read into that what you want). The elongated formality, the sheerness and delicacy of lace dresses with trains dragging through the rain-soaked gravel, the romantic tatters of Miss Havisham crochet… all of this had a costume-y Cinecittà allure. A leather motocross over a crystalled gown, a draped sheath in dull gold charmeuse, a black velvet cutaway jacket that looked moulded to the dress beneath: now these told a more provocative tale. The first time I met Chiuri, she and Pierpaolo Piccioli had just been to a Depeche Mode concert in Rome. That's the kind of conversation you (or at least I) cling to in fashion, where you share something real. Dior Cruise 2026 Look 38. (Courtesy Dior) And it fits with Chiuri's own notion of beautiful confusion: a relationship between fashion and theatre and film and music where the boundaries dissolve. 'You adapt the technique and the imagination when you work with different performers,' she says. 'It's exciting for the atelier because it's a different way to think. What is dance? What is theatre? What is fashion? I like this idea of 'la bella confusione.'' So I'm thinking that points forward for Chiuri in a very positive way. As far as she's concerned, the Teatro della Cometa is a family concern, something she will do with her husband and daughter Rachele. They've saved a little treasure from conversion to a supermarket or disco. 'We didn't want this incredible history to disappear,' Chiuri says. 'There are so many antiquities in Rome, so much that it's difficult for someone to make a stand for something so small.' But it is also a seductively quirky space. What other theatre stage can you think of that has six huge windows opening onto the street? 'A dialogue with the city,' Chiuri calls it. Maria Grazia Chiuri and daughter Rachele Regini at the Teatro della Cometa. (Laura Sciacovelli) And then there's her commitment to Mimi, whose archive is crying out for reactivation. 'That's what I am, an activator,' Chiuri declares. 'Not because I want to think about my future now — this doesn't interest me — I think it's much more interesting to reactivate something, to recreate. This is really beautiful for me.' So, after nine years of reactivation at Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri is maybe contemplating a brave new world of Mimi-driven cultural activism. Perhaps a gallery, definitely a theatre, which promises a programme of provocative programming helmed by her daughter Rachele. Would she have been friends with Mimi? She answers without hesitation: 'Absolutely.' All the Looks From Dior Cruise 2026 Dior Cruise 2026 look 1. Dior Cruise 2026 look 2. 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Dior Cruise 2026 look 41. Dior Cruise 2026 look 42. Dior Cruise 2026 look 43. Dior Cruise 2026 look 44. Dior Cruise 2026 look 45. Dior Cruise 2026 look 46. Dior Cruise 2026 look 47. Dior Cruise 2026 look 48. Dior Cruise 2026 look 49. Dior Cruise 2026 look 50. Dior Cruise 2026 look 51. Disclosure: LVMH is part of a group of investors who, together, hold a minority interest in The Business of Fashion. All investors have signed shareholders' documentation guaranteeing BoF's complete editorial independence.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Maria Grazia Chiuri on Her Restored Theater and Rome's Special Locations
ROME – Rome has famously been described as a stage, given its fascinating and storied backdrops for events, its history of open-air performances in the city's landmarks from the Colosseum to the Pantheon, and its ancient theaters. Now, Maria Grazia Chiuri has her own stage in the Italian capital, thanks to a personal investment by the designer and her family to restore a gem, the Teatro della Cometa. 'This is such a small tale that risked getting lost in a city that needs so much restoration, but I'm happy to reopen this theater and show the results of five years of works,' said Chiuri, who inaugurated the theater ahead of the Dior cruise show here Tuesday. More from WWD Albert Watson Depicts Rome His Own Way in New Photography Exhibit Italian Fashion Associations Sign Protocol to Combat Worker Exploitation in Supply Chain LVMH Is Innovating With Its Viva Tech Stand The artistic director of Dior's women's haute couture, ready-to-wear and accessories collections was clearly influenced by Countess Anna Laetitia Pecci Blunt, known as Mimì, who commissioned the theater in 1958. 'Her life was dedicated to art, and she herself was an artistic talent and a photographer,' Chiuri told WWD. 'I wanted to celebrate how a woman of that generation was exceptional and inspiring,' explained the designer, who over the years has shined a light on several creatives, from Mickalene Thomas, Joana Vasconcelos and Judy Chicago to choreographer Sharon Eyal, among others. 'It's more difficult for creative women to emerge in art, and I like to give different points of view, but this does not exclude men,' she clarified. Chiuri stumbled on sketches of the theater by Tommaso Buzzi, the 20th century architect who designed the venue and, among other projects, the multi-faceted architectural complex and symbol of creative freedom La Scarzuola, and was immediately intrigued. 'I was fascinated by how he had imagined this place, conceived as an intimate theater inspired by those of ancient courts. It's small, but it has everything it needs, including a revolving stage and windows that look onto the stage and on the street, creating a connection with the city, which becomes almost a set for the theater,' said Chiuri. Described by architect and art historian Antonio Muñoz as 'a jewel at the foot of the Capitoline Hill,' since 1958 the Teatro della Cometa has hosted performances by Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Arthur Kopit, and concerts by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Milly, and Charles Trenet, until its closure in 1968 due to a fire. It later reopened and then closed again during COVID-19 and Chiuri said the restoration with a new visual identity designed by Studio Sonnoli was 'complex,' as she wanted to 'maintain the original spirit, keep all the main elements such as the chandeliers in the shape of stars and comets, brass doors, stage machinery and the structure, but still modernize it for efficiency.' A selection of archival material dedicated to the history and conception of the theater, curated by Maria Alicata with original drawings by Buzzi; period photographs of Pecci Blunt with friends including Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dalí, and Alberto Moravia; posters; letters; manuscripts; invitation; flyers, and publications are displayed throughout. 'Pecci Blunt lived between Rome, Paris, Tuscany and New York and she was in contact with the same creative entourage of Monsieur Dior,' said Chiuri, citing a photo where the countess is seen wearing Dior with Cecil Beaton. 'She was internationally recognized for her commitment to the promotion of culture and the arts.' In fact, in 1935 she founded the Galleria della Cometa, named after the heraldic emblem of the Pecci family, and in 1937 The Cometa Art Gallery opened in New York. As a sign of continuity with the theater's strong multidisciplinary vocation, Chiuri sees the location as 'a hub for avant-garde cultural innovation, from theatrical drama, to dance, music, performance, artist residencies, workshops and international showcases and festivals, and high-quality international proposals, promoting exchange and the fusion of cultures, becoming a reference point for a dynamic, and inclusive cultural system.' After, all, she added, Christian Dior 'had also worked with the theater and ballets' over the years. Chiuri's daughter Rachele Regini has been involved in the project and is the theater's head of the scientific committee, working with the curators and creating the calendar of activities and events. 'We want to approach theater as interdisciplinary. Teatro della Cometa is small, seating 230 guests, but the advantage is that you can experiment, it's not necessarily as complex as a bigger theater with 2,000 seats,' said Chiuri. Ahead of the Dior fashion show, the theater presented reenactments of the tableaux vivants imagined by Pecci Blunt for her soirées, along with others inspired by the famous photographs taken by Man Ray during the Bal Blanc she organized in 1930. On the stage, amid the sets designed by Chiuri's longtime collaborator and artist Pietro Ruffo, the performers wore reinterpretations of period costumes curated by Maria Luisa Frisa and created in Rome's legendary costumer house Atelier Tirelli by Chiuri. All in white, the performers portrayed Pierrot, the Joker and the Duke of Orleans, among others. Chiuri enthused about working with Tirelli, a first for the designer, and the quality and the craft of its costumers. 'It's the Oscars' atelier,' she said, pointing to how it has contributed to 17 Academy Award wins for best costume design, from 'The English Patient' to 'Titanic.' Among the 15,000 archival costumes are, for example, the dress worn by Maria Callas in Pier Paolo Pasolini's 'Medea' and Winona Ryder's and Michelle Pfeiffer's gowns worn in Martin Scorsese's 'The Age of Innocence.' As part of the experience in Rome, in addition to the theater, Dior organized private visits to Tirelli, to Ruffo's studio, where he showed several of his works created for the luxury brand with Chiuri, and the stunning Domus Aurea, the archeological complex originally built by Emperor Nero. Asked how this tour of meaningful locations in Rome differed from the 10 venues Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli chose in 2015 when they were co-creative directors of Valentino for the Mirabilia Romae exhibition marking their fall couture show back then, the designer paused for thought. 'A new project in Rome was on my wish list, but it was also a challenge and not so easy because Mirabilia was magic, very successful and at the time it was very innovative. Now I wanted to offer a different view of Rome, more connected to cinema and theater. The movies have been a big promoter of the city, through neo-realism, for example. I felt it was important to tell a story that was not only personal but also through the city.' Best of WWD Bottega Veneta Through the Years Chanel's Ambassadors Over The Years Ranking Fashion's Longest-serving Creative Directors
