A successor has yet to be announced. This comes after Dior appointed Jonathan Anderson as its artistic director of men’s collection in April, succeeding Kim Jones, who exited in January.
The Italian designer began her career at Fendi in 1989 as a handbag designer and moved to Valentino in 1999 as an accessories designer before being promoted to co-creative director alongside Pierpaolo Piccioli in 2008. She was appointed at Dior in 2016, becoming its first female designer since the house was founded in 1947 — she succeeded Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano and Raf Simons.
Her debut collection for Spring/Summer 2017, inspired by fencing, featured slogan tees, which read “We should all be feminists”. That set the tone for her tenure, which consistently referenced women’s empowerment. “The message, really, is that there is not one type of woman,” she told Vogue Runway at the show. Over the years, Chiuri has collaborated with several female artists for show sets, including Judy Chicago, Faith Ringgold, Eva Jospin and Mickalene Thomas. In the Dior SS25 show, Italian artist and competitive archer Sagg Napoli shot arrows at a target as the models did their circuit.
Chiuri also consistently drew on the archives beyond Christian Dior’s era. “Monsieur Dior only [lived] 10 years. It can’t only be about him!” she told Vogue Runway at her debut show. “In some ways, I see myself as a curator of the house.” For example, in 2018, together with CEO Pietro Beccari, who was appointed in 2017, she relaunched the Saddle Bag, one of the house’s iconic bags from the Galliano era. For AW24, she paid homage to Marc Bohan’s invention of the Miss Dior line, and notably the opening of a (now defunct) Miss Dior boutique in 1967, as a way to offer ready-to-wear to couture clients. “I’m very fascinated by this collection and this moment of Mr. Bohan’s history,” she told Vogue Runway. The Dior AW25 show had “Dior-isms”, including nods to Galliano’s Saddle bag and J’Adore Dior T-shirts and to Gianfranco Ferré’s white shirts, according to Vogue Runway.
