A wired woman walked out first at the Dior show, her bodysuit outlined in light-up-in-the-dark fluorescent green. The walls of the set featured images of women with two sets of eyes. The atmosphere radiated an equivalent of the double-consciousness of an audience looking at fashion while anxiously checking its phones for news of the war in Ukraine.

That tension was the unintended consequence of the toxic twist of timing. The images of protection and hinted-at derivatives of armor which immediately surfaced to the naked eye in the collection cannot have had anything directly to do with how Maria Grazia Chiuri had planned out the spirit and execution of her fall show months ago. But still: this collection was her most daring bid yet to engage Christian Dior—and its Bar jacket, corset and New Look swirly midi—with advancing modernity and technology. With a side-nod to Dune, and, of course, Chiuri’s underpinning framework of female empowerment, courtesy of her relationships with feminist artists.

Complete text at Vogue

All images courtesy of Christian Dior / imaxtree / vogue