Covered with giant protest headlines, mostly in English, Dior’s show structure, erected on the grounds of the Musée Rodin, telegraphed another political concept from Maria Grazia Chiuri. The texts were from the Sixties, particularly 1968, a worldwide seminal moment for youth culture and grassroots mobilization in an era of major social volatility.
A half-century later, Chiuri finds that year fascinating — and who doesn’t? An exhibit of political posters of the French far left from 1968 to 1974 is running at the Beaux Arts, part of a series of events marking the 50th anniversary in May of the Paris student uprisings.
Yet it’s one thing to recall 1968 with a show of political posters. It’s another to address it in a fashion context. While some elements — student protests — can be romanced, others, including the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, cannot.
Chiuri thus sidestepped those horrors, instead celebrating the positive aspects of the revolutionary moment, including an eruption of creativity in fashion. Three years earlier, Diana Vreeland had penned a piece in Vogue titled “Youth Quake,” a handle and concept that resonates deeply with Chiuri, who, throughout her still-young tenure at Dior, has struggled to seamlessly address a
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