Faithful to her feminist mission, Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior’s Creative Director, focused this year’s Haute Couture collection on a new concept of surreal femininity, a diaphanous and impalpable beauty recalling the great masterpieces of Surrealist artists. In the beautiful palace hosting the Rodin Museum, a black–and–white setting and checkerboard runway recall the atmosphere of Luis Buñuel’s movies, while the ceiling is pure of Salvador Dalí’s style, giant white noses and mouths hanging over the floor.

The dresses are conceived as a material representation of Leonor Fini’s paintings, with games of evanescence and transparencies. The colour palette turns mainly around black and white, alternating and contrasting the two shades to obtain sinuous silhouettes and optical illusions, while some notes of brightness are added with shiny gold and antique pink dresses.

The décor is simple, based on the most famous perceptive effects of trompe – l’oeil and chromatic variation. The theme of the checkerboard reappears on the ample silk gowns, as structural bustiers fade into skirts with architectural designs. The textures also play a game of alternation, starting with the clearness and purity of silk and ending with the vanishing translucency of chiffon. All the models wore beautiful masks, evoking the imperceptible movements of insects’ wings, and body makeup with decorative quotes on their hands and shoulder blades.

The Surrealist atmosphere had a deep metaphoric value, a tribute to the feminist cause and the #TimesUp movement, with black being a predominant colour throughout. Furthermore,, small cages appear in the jewellery, accompanied by free birds, a symbol of women’s conquest of freedom and independence. The show was followed by an amazing Surrealist party, hosting masked figures, faceless dancers, and the incredible voice of Willow Smith.

Once again, Dior and Maria Grazia Chiuri were able to combine a sublime beauty to a socio – political cause, creating empowering clothes rich in symbolism, and expressing how fashion can be a medium of social revolt anda peaceful tool of rebellion with a loud and strong resonance