M
aria Grazia Chiuri, who became the first female creative director of the house of Dior in 2016, wears her feminism on her sleeve—and, in the case of her debut collection, famously splashes it on T-shirts, with stirring messages sampled from the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It’s a stance that extends to collaborations with pioneering artists such as Judy Chicago, Bianca Pucciarelli Menna, and Mickalene Thomas, and clothing collections inspired by the likes of Jacqueline Lamba and Leonora Carrington. It is also palpable in Her Dior: Maria Grazia Chiuri’s New Voice (Rizzoli; $95), an anthology featuring 33 women photographers whom she has worked with over the years, including a pantheon of greats (Sarah Moon, Nan Goldin, Brigitte Lacombe) and relative newcomers such as Coco Capitán, Zoë Ghertner, and Harley Weir—previewed here in Avenue. An homage to female creativity, diversity, and the enduring codes of the venerable house, this collection of portraits and interior shots, many of them previously shot for the label’s namesake magazine, offers a window into the complex theatre of female personae and reclaims the female gaze.
CLOSE COMFORT In images by Nan Goldin, this page, and Zoë Ghertner, opposite, Chiuri proposes a photographic intimacy that is never cloying.
JULY—AUGUST 2021 | AVENUE MAGAZINE
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