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5 Things To Know About Dior's Cruise Collection

By Anders Christian Madsen

In a new age of sensitivity, there’s a fine line between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation - and it was a tension Maria Grazia Chiuri tackled head-on with her her Cruise 2020 collection for Christian Dior , presented in a ruined palace in Marrakech.

After a two-day adventure around the palaces of Marrakech, on Monday evening Maria Grazia Chiuri invited guests to the Palais El Badi for her Dior Cruise 2020 show. Surrounded by the terracotta colonnades of the 16th century fortress, models stalked the courtyard’s epic pool, set alight with hundreds of torches glistening above the surface, giant bonfires cutting through the Moroccan night. This was a collection close to the heart of Chiuri: a cultural exchange between the codes of Dior and the pan-African craftsmanship she has always admired. Working with traditional wax print fabric manufactured in the Ivory Coast, she fused the trademarks of Dior - toile de jouy, tarot card motifs and the New Look silhouette - with a fabric whose history is as cross-cultural as her clientele. “The real thing for me wasn’t just to speak about craftsmanship from around the world, but to go around the world and see the codes of Dior from different points of view,” Chiuri said, noting how wax fabric originated in Europe, then travelled to Asia and eventually found a home on the African continent.

The show notes opened with a quote by Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun: “Culture teaches us to live together, teaches us that we’re not alone in the world, that other people have different traditions and ways of living that are just as valid as our own.” In a new age of sensitivity, there’s a fine line between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation in fashion, and it was a tension Maria Grazia Chiuri tackled head-on. “In this moment, there’s a lot of focus on cultural appropriation, but I think we have to explain how craftsmanship travels around the world; why it’s often so difficult to find the ‘real’ reference,” she said, referring to the pan-African Wax print fabrics that characterised the collection. “Wax started in Europe and moved through Asia, then back to Africa. We want to move our heritage in a contemporary way and give it a different attitude, and this material does that.”

In educating herself on the wax fabrics of the African continent, Maria Grazia Chiuri joined forces with the French anthropologist Anne Grosfilley, who served as a guide throughout the creation of the collection. Grosfilley introduced Chiuri to Uniwax, an expert wax factory in the Ivory Coast, and the intricate hand-made print technique that forms the patterns. “It’s about celebrating the diversity of old African cultures. But it’s not an African collection. It’s about the connection between different cultures and promoting African savoir-faire,” Grosfilley said. “It’s different to what has been done before because usually designers like the idea of what ‘looks African’ while they don’t provide work and do something which is really African. Maria Grazia’s point of view was to promote one hundred per cent, African-made textile but not to make ‘an African style’. This collection can be worn by anyone because it’s about the connection between all the continents in the world.”

Describing her collection as “a world map”, Maria Grazia Chiuri invited a number of specialists to collaborate on her show. Focusing on wax fabric - “the fabric of a cultural melting pot” - she worked with Grosfilley and Uniwax on weaving the codes of Dior into toiles de jouy, landscapes and tarot motifs realised in new interpretations. Meanwhile British-Jamaican designer Grace Wales Bonner and African-American artist Mickalene Thomas reimagined Dior’s Classic Bar jacket and New Look skirt; the South African shirt-maker Pathé’O designed a chemise for the collection in tribute to Nelson Mandela; and Dior’s regular milliner Stephen Jones collaborated with fellow hatters Martine Henry and Daniella Osemadewa on turbans and pan-African headpieces. Finally, Chiuri collaborated with Moroccan craftswomen Sumano on the show’s scenography, where traditional local pottery and textiles made up the set decor.

In 1951, Christian Dior created the ‘Maroc’, a white tulle dress and coat with silver embroidery inspired by the cooling white colours of the city (which reached 36 degrees Celsius on Monday afternoon). Under the cross-cultural eye of John Galliano, who served at the house between 1997 and 2011, Moroccan influences continuously found their way into the house’s collections. But no designer is more synonymous with Marrakech than the Algerian-born Yves Saint Laurent, who became Dior’s assistant in 1955 and took the reins at the house when his mentor died two years later. On the afternoon of her show, Maria Grazia Chiuri took her guests to visit Saint Laurent’s Art Deco villa where the ivory ‘Marrakech’ coat he designed for Dior in 1960 was on display. Before the show, she described Marrakech as a cultural meeting point between the European and African continents: the perfect stage for the message she wanted to convey.

By Alice Newbold

By José Criales-Unzueta

By Daniel Rodgers

Dior collaborated with various African artists for the cruise 2020 collection

The house journeyed to Marakech for its latest inspiring show

Maria Grazia Chiuri this evening presented Dior's cruise 2020 collection in Marrakech, the theme of which was "common ground" – a celebration of different cultures coming together to co-create and find mutual understanding.

Rather than simply being inspired by the continent of Africa as a whole, the designer invited artists and artisans from different backgrounds and African cultures to work jointly with her to open a dialogue between them.

"Maria Grazia Chiuri has always had her heart set on establishing creative exchanges with African cultures," Dior explained in a press release. "With this collection, she sought to dialogue with the real and imagined landscape of Morocco, at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, Europe and Africa, as a dream destination for artists, poets, writers and eternal adventurers."

The show drew in the likes of Lupita Nyong'o, Jessica Alba and Karlie Kloss, who journeyed to the city's 16th century El Badi Palace to take in the new collection.

As well as nodding to Dior's rich history with the continent, including the house's former creative director Yves Saint Laurent's fascination with Morocco, the collection sees the direct work of multiple artists from the continent.

Chiuri asked Pathé Ouédraogo – aka Pathé’O, one of Africa's leading designers – to create a special shirt for the collection, which pays tribute to the late president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela.

She also collaborated with Grace Wales Bonner (a British-Jamaican designer whose work has explored African cultures) and Mickalene Thomas (an African-American artist), asking them to reinterpret through their combined creative vision an icon of the New Look, the Bar jacket and a skirt.

Chiuri also worked with many other African textile specialists and anthropologists on the collection and also highlighted the work of a textile manufacturer based in Africa called Uniwax, which perpetuates the extraordinary savoir-faire that makes wax a precious and culturally rich fabric.

The designer also teamed up with Sumano, an association that aims to revive the traditional women’s crafts of Moroccan tribes, including painting on pottery, the art of weaving and vegetal dyeing.

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What You Need to Know About Dior's Cruise 2020 Show

Scroll through Instagram at any given time and it seems like everybody is vacationing in—or at least planning to visit—Marrakech. The historic buildings, colorful souks, and local fashion is enough to propel the Moroccan city to the top of anyone's travel bucket lists, including Christian Dior. This week, the luxury house staged its Cruise 2020 show against the stunning backdrop of the city's El Badi Palace.

Eager to celebrate the intersection of Mediterranean, European and African culture, the brand worked with local artisans, Uniwax—a company in the Ivory Coast that worked with the design studio to reinterpret two of the House’s signature motifs: toile de Jouy and tarot cards—plus other black designers and artists including Grace Wales Bonner and Mickalene Thomas who, lent their own design touches to the iconic skirt and bar jacket silhouette.

With celebs like Lupita N'yong and Shailene Woodley on the ground, the two-day extravaganza kicked off with a special dinner and traditional music performance at the Palais Bahia. Jessica Alba, who recently celebrated her 38th birthday and is a Dior ambassador, also celebrated with the luxury house.

On the runway, dresses with intricate beading and African-inspired patterns in varying lengths and cuts—maxi, mini, long-sleeved and sleeveless—and the brand's signature cinched waist made a splash. Patterned head wraps, capes, and jackets added a finishing touch to the looks.

For the finale, Diana Ross surprised the crowd with a performance of Ain't No Mountain High Enough.

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Christian Dior Cruise Collection 2020: Inside the Marrakech Show

Hayley Kadrou   |   30-04-2019

Maria Grazia Chiuri headed to Marrakech to present her Cruise 2020 collection; a place that has a long had a place within Dior’s history and a place that is currently a crossroads for cultures across the world.

The Dior Cruise show for 2020 took place on April 29th in Marrakech

Setting up her runway in one of Morocco’s most famous cities in one of its historic landmarks – the 16th century El Badi Palace – Dior’s Creative Director’s collection reflected not only the two’s closely entwined history but also her own fascination with African cultures, art, designs and prints.

In fact, the French fashion house stated: “ With this collection, she sought to dialogue with the real and imagined landscape of Morocco, at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, Europe and Africa, as a dream destination for artists, poets, writers and eternal adventurers.”

• Dior Cruise 2020

As the models took to the runway, Chiuri’s vision materialised didn’t disappoint. Prints in muted earthy tones – from leafy greens to sandy browns and dusty pinks – dominated, and these were cut into everything from modest gowns, strapless sweetheart neckline dresses, two-piece suits and so on. Clashing and contrasting the designs only made for more striking, eye-catching looks from Dior.

In keeping with this outdoorsy colour palettes was the wildlife prints, from jungle plants to fierce lions and giant winged creatures added an almost mystical feel.  Evening looks put a twist in the daytime styles by placing the same prints on top of darker topes, from forest greens to midnight blacks.

Looks were completed with sandals, animal motif jewellery, printed hair accessories and bags to match.

When designing the collection, Dior’s Creative Director teamed up with numerous influential figures. Chuiri worked with one of Africa’s leading designers,  Pathé Ouédraogo when created a tribute shirt to Nelson Mandela.

She collaborated with artists such as  Grace Wales Bonner and Mickalene Thomas, and took notes from anthropologist Anne Grosfilley, the world-renowned specialist in Wax, collaborated with the company Uniwax.

READ: Haute Couture SS19: Dior

READ: Dior Fine and High Jewellery: Discover the Collection that Blends Timeless Elegance with Modern Glamour

READ: Dior Explain Feminist Inspiration Behind ‘Sisterhood Is Global’ T-Shirt That Opened Its AW19 Show

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Cruise 2020 Show

Maria Grazia Chiuri has always had her heart set on establishing creative exchanges with African cultures. With this collection, she sought to dialogue with the real and imagined landscape of Morocco, at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, Europe and Africa, as a dream destination for artists, poets, writers and eternal adventurers.

SILHOUETTES

In the heart of Marrakesh, the sumptuous El Badi palace positively sparkled for the occasion of the 2020 Dior Cruise show by Maria Grazia Chiuri. A voyage outside of time, punctuated by rich  savoir-faire .

Photo credit - Raphael Dautigny

CELEBRITIES

Lupita Nyong’o, Jessica Alba, Karlie Kloss and Jeanne Damas were among the starry turnout for the 2020 Dior Cruise show on Monday in Marrakesh.

Enter the intimate world of the Cruise 2020 collection show, thought up and crafted by Maria Grazia Chiuri.

Photo credit - Ines Manaï

ACCESSORIES

The key accessories from the Cruise 2020 collection in pictures.

Photo credit - Morgan O'Donovan

A fabric that embodies a meeting of cultures, Wax provides the through line for the Cruise collection presented in Marrakesh. To highlight it, Maria Grazia Chiuri collaborated with the Uniwax studio in Ivory Coast, which reinterpreted Dior codes such as toile de Jouy and tarot cards. This " Christian Dior - Uniwax"  special edition is used for long and short bustier dresses, skirts, jumpsuits, jackets and trousers that appear like so many standard-bearers for freedom.

STREETSTYLE

Focus on the Dior looks of the guests present at the Dior Cruise 2020 show.

Photo Credit - Asia Typek

SAVOIR-FAIRE

The savoir-faire of Dior expressed through pieces from the Cruise 2020 collection.

Photo credit - Louis Philippe de Gagoue

For the occasion of the 2020 Dior Cruise show in Marrakesh, Peter Philips, Director of Creation and Image for Dior Makeup, dreamed up a bright and natural beauty look.

INTERVIEW WITH PETER PHILIPS

Peter Philips, Creative and Image Director of Dior makeup, shares his inspirations and discusses the beauty look he developed for this show. 

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Dior Cruise 2020: How the new look of iconic Bar jacket came to be

By Sam Rogers

Since taking over at Christian Dior in 2016, Maria Grazia Chiuri has sought to reframe the historic house—helmed by men until her appointment—as a feminist fashion brand. Up until now, she's done so through Insta-worthy slogan T-shirts and by teaming up with standout female creatives, from South Korean sculptor Lee Bul to Colombian textile artist Olga de Amaral.

For her Cruise 2020 collection —a collaboration with some of Africa's finest designers and makers—Chiuri also tapped African-American contemporary artist Mickalene Thomas and LVMH Prize-winning British fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner to reinterpret Christian Dior's iconic Bar jacket. Both women, representing two different generations (Thomas is in her late-forties, Wales Bonner in her late-twenties), are renowned for addressing issues of race , identity and gender.

“I wanted to continue the [Lady Dior Art] project with the New Look because it is the most iconic silhouette of Mr Dior, ” Chiuri tells Vogue ahead of the show, hosted at Marrakech's El Badi Palace. “I wanted Grace and Mickalene to add a different point of view to this silhouette, like I did when I first arrived at Dior.”

Here, Thomas and Wales Bonner tell Vogue how they feel about reinterpreting such an emblematic design.

Mickalene Thomas

[#image: /photos/5ce3f04f4a30b3270b12a53e]||| ||| Image: Alastair Nicol

“This was a little out of my territory… I love fashion, but I had to rely solely on the direction of my partner, Racquel Chevremont, because she actually wears women's clothes. I was really thinking about what she would want to wear.

“I wanted my take on the Bar jacket to be very sophisticated, but I also wanted something fun—hence the flowing, iridescent skirt. I like having a patchwork version of Monet's landscape integrated into the body, allowing the jacket to be the silhouette of a body set against this beautiful landscape that's coming from the back and shoulders.

“My practice pulls from cultural history, French Impressionism specifically in this case, and I wanted to create a wearable performance costume. It is both art and fashion: there will be people who want it as a limited-edition piece, as an [art] object, which they don't wear it at all; and then you'll have someone who will wear it as fashion, perhaps with the Lady Dior bag I created. And that's the intent.

By Vogue Staff

By Tatiana Dias

By Vogue Staff , Vogue India

“[This project] is everything. It is very empowering and it gives me a sense of accountability and agency, allowing me to really set the precedent for what is possible.”

Grace Wales Bonner

[#image: /photos/5ce3f04f4a30b3ac0512a537]||| ||| Image: Alastair Nicol

[#image: /photos/5ce3f04f4a30b3d58012a541]||| ||| Image: Alastair Nicol

“I remember hearing about how radical the [Bar suit] silhouette was in school. It was one of the first things I learned about fashion, really. At first, I felt quite relaxed about [reinterpreting the Bar jacket], but I went to the Dior exhibition in London for a second time and quickly realised, historically, how important and what a great responsibility it really was… I also feel a responsibility for me, to reflect myself within that history as well.

“I got the chance to look at those early Bar jackets made by Christian Dior in the archive and that was very inspiring and magical, because they are so elegant and pure and quite simple, but they carry a lot of emotion and sexuality. I was really inspired by that spirit.

“For me, it was about creating a meeting point between two worlds for a new form of luxury; about exploring a point of hybridity, which is something I always try to do with my work, but [this time] through an emblem that represents European luxury. It's about using techniques—embroidery, raffia, crochet—that feel reminiscent of Caribbean craft traditions within the silhouette.

“I never get to see my own work on the runway, because I'm always backstage, so it will be interesting to experience it as part of the audience [at the Dior Cruise 2020 show].”

Watch the Dior cruise 2020 show live from Marrakech here

Why you need to know the story behind Princess Diana and this Dior bag

Deconstructing Dior's AW19 with Maria Grazia Chiuri

By Piya Dhiman

By Nupur Sarvaiya

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Dior 2020 Cruise Collection celebrates Africa

Fashion & leather goods.

· May 2, 2019

© Raphael Dautigny

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Dior 2020 cruise collection celebrates africa - lvmh.

Dior presented its 2020 Cruise collection in the magical setting of the El Badi Palace in Morocco.  Designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior Artistic Director for women’s collections, the collection proposed a dialogue between the Dior wardrobe and African fashion.

As the sun set on the vibrant city of Marrakesh, firelight illuminated the walls of the grandiose El Badi Palace as traditional Moroccan ceramics and fabrics set the stage for the Dior 2020 Cruise show. The venue was rich in meaning. Long a meeting place for imagined realms of Europe and Africa, Marrakech also evokes the first successor to Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent.

Like her predecessor, Maria Grazia Chiuri has long been inspired and fascinated with the richness of African cultures. She centered the collection around Wax, a fabric emblematic of the entire continent. A unifying symbol of multifaceted fashion, the prints came in a multitude of motifs and colors. For this Cruise collection a special edition of Wax integrated Dior codes into the weave of the fabric. New versions of the Maison’s celebrated toile de Jouy were revisited in Wax, tarot motifs were reinvented, and the iconic Bar suit underlined the power of a print as a universal fashion language.

To highlight the rich complexity and meticulous craft that go into the fabric, Maria Grazia Chiuri teamed with Uniwax – one of the few remaining manufacturers of the fabric using traditional methods, actively supporting African fashion. She collaborated as well with African designer Pathé Ouédraogo, known as Pathé’O, who contributed a shirt designed exclusively for the show in tribute to Nelson Mandela. Grace Wales Bonner, winner of the 2016 LVMH Prize, and African-American painter Mickalene Thomas also contributed their visions to the collection, a celebration of cultural plurality.

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Dior Cruise 2020: Mickalene Thomas and Grace Wales Bonner on redesigning the iconic Bar jacket

Since taking over at Christian Dior in 2016, Maria Grazia Chiuri has sought to reframe the historic house – helmed by men until her appointment – as a feminist fashion brand. Up until now, she’s done so through Insta-worthy slogan T-shirts and by teaming up with standout female creatives, from South Korean sculptor Lee Bul to Colombian textile artist Olga de Amaral .

For her Cruise 2020 collection – a collaboration with some of Africa’s finest designers and makers – Chiuri also tapped African-American contemporary artist Mickalene Thomas and LVMH Prize -winning British fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner to reinterpret Christian Dior's iconic Bar jacket. Both women, representing two different generations ( Thomas is in her late-forties, Wales Bonner in her late-twenties), are renowned for addressing issues of race, identity and gender.

“I wanted to continue the [Lady Dior Art] project with the New Look because it is the most iconic silhouette of Mr Dior,” Chiuri tells Vogue ahead of the show, hosted at Marrakech’s El Badi Palace. “I wanted Grace and Mickalene to add a different point of view to this silhouette, like I did when I first arrived at Dior .”

Here, Thomas and Wales Bonner tell Vogue how they feel about reinterpreting such an emblematic design.

Mickalene Thomas

“This was a little out of my territory… I love fashion, but I had to rely solely on the direction of my partner, Racquel Chevremont , because she actually wears women’s clothes. I was really thinking about what she would want to wear.

“I wanted my take on the Bar jacket to be very sophisticated, but I also wanted something fun – hence the flowing, iridescent skirt. I like having a patchwork version of Monet ’s landscape integrated into the body, allowing the jacket to be the silhouette of a body set against this beautiful landscape that's coming from the back and shoulders.

Par Marie Courtois

Par Veronica Cristino

Par Marthe Mabille

“My practice pulls from cultural history, French Impressionism specifically in this case, and I wanted to create a wearable performance costume. It is both art and fashion: there will be people who want it as a limited-edition piece, as an [art] object, which they don't wear it at all; and then you’ll have someone who will wear it as fashion, perhaps with the Lady Dior bag I created. And that's the intent.

“[This project] is everything. It is very empowering and it gives me a sense of accountability and agency, allowing me to really set the precedent for what is possible.”

Grace Wales Bonner

“I remember hearing about how radical the [Bar suit] silhouette was in school. It was one of the first things I learned about fashion, really. At first, I felt quite relaxed about [reinterpreting the Bar jacket], but I went to the Dior exhibition in London for a second time and quickly realized, historically, how important and what a great responsibility it really was… I also feel a responsibility for me, to reflect myself within that history as well.

“I got the chance to look at those early Bar jackets made by Christian Dior in the archive and that was very inspiring and magical, because they are so elegant and pure and quite simple, but they carry a lot of emotion and sexuality. I was really inspired by that spirit.

“For me, it was about creating a meeting point between two worlds for a new form of luxury; about exploring a point of hybridity, which is something I always try to do with my work, but [this time] through an emblem that represents European luxury. It's about using techniques – embroidery, raffia, crochet – that feel reminiscent of Caribbean craft traditions within the silhouette.

“I never get to see my own work on the runway, because I'm always backstage, so it will be interesting to experience it as part of the audience [at the Dior Cruise 2020 show].”

Par Hannah Coates

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Critic’s notebook

Dior and the Line Between Cultural Appreciation and Cultural Appropriation

The French brand holds the first cruise extravaganza in Africa, and tries to start a new kind of conversation.

By Vanessa Friedman

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are not, as it turns out, the only royal Western brands attracted by the promise of Africa.

On Monday, Dior , French fashion aristocracy, brought its court to Marrakesh, Morocco. They landed in a Dior-branded plane and dined by a reflecting pool in the Bahia palace, off pottery made just for the occasion. Shailene Woodley was there. So was Lupita Nyong’o. So was Karlie Kloss.

DIOR to host Cruise 2020 catwalk in Marrakech #Dior #ChristianDior #DiorAirlines #DiorCruise @Dior pic.twitter.com/Uzpw34ELgP — CPP-LUXURY.COM (@cppluxury) April 28, 2019

And thus the cruise season begins. You’ve heard of destination weddings? These are destination shows.

Filler capsules once conceived to give customers something to wear on their winter vacations, the cruise collections have transmogrified into a sort of Frankenstein’s monster of a fashion moment that involves (at least for the super-brands: the names in the billion-plus cohort that can afford to transport models, clothes and coterie around the world) three-day-long marketing-meets-shopping-meets-content-creation extravaganzas in far-flung places not normally served by the ready-to-wear calendar.

Nominally focused on a runway, which features clothes that will actually be available in stores for longer than any other collection, the events also involve dinners and other extra-special local “experiences,” and are attended by celebrities, V.I.C.s (very important customers) and influencers, most of whom are “guests of the house” and chronicle the whole thing on social media.

Dior being a case in point. “My whole Instagram feed is about Morocco,” a colleague announced Monday at lunch, the day after most guests had arrived in Marrakesh, unpacked and begun wining, dining and posting.

But it is always dangerous for a European luxury brand to parachute into a continent with a colonial history, especially these days when the discussion around cultural appropriation and fashion’s malapropisms is loud, and there are watchdogs waiting in exactly the same digital space to pounce on any misstep. Especially when the brand is doing so with a star-spangled display of power and money. It was hard not to wonder, sitting back at home and watching the spectacle unfurl, from the Bahia Palace to the El Badi (The New York Times does not accept press trips, so I saw the whole thing, like most people, via vicarious Instagram shots and livestream), whether the house could pull it off?

The answer is yes — ish.

Not because Dior has a history with Morocco: Christian Dior himself made a silhouette called the Marco in 1951, and his heir, Yves Saint Laurent, famously adored Marrakesh. Or because it has two stores in the country. That’s a kind of tenuous justification, though that was trotted out.

But because Maria Grazia Chiuri, the designer, sensitized to the risks (Dior itself got into some trouble last year for an ad campaign that featured Jennifer Lawrence in a collection inspired by Mexico’s female escaramuza riders), bent herself practically double to integrate African artisanship into her work and give the credit it deserves, so the majority of the collection was a series of dialogues.

First, between two traditions of handwork: couture and wax print, as realized by Uniwax, a studio/atelier from the Ivory Coast whose custom-made reinterpretations of 15 classic Dior prints (toile de Jouy, Tarot) were used on cotton grown, spun, woven and printed in Africa as well as reinterpreted in silk jacquards. And second, between the tropes of Dior (Bar jackets, the New Look) and the way they could be interpreted not just by Ms. Chiuri but also by her collaborators — the African-American painter Mickalene Thomas, the Jamaican-British designer Grace Wales Bonner and the Ivory Coast-based designer Pathé Ouedraogo, famous for the shirts he made for Nelson Mandela, all of whom also contributed their own looks.

“I felt it was important to give another point of view on Dior,” Ms. Chiuri said in a phone call before the show. Or really, many points of view.

And because the end result of all those points of view, even through the grainy screen of a computer, looked genuinely fresh and unforced: the familiar Dior silhouettes given a cooler edge in allover wax prints; strapless empire-waist dresses tied with a delicately fringed twist at the bust; trousers cropped at the ankle under molded jackets motile with color and movement in the cloth. There were camouflage intarsia ponchos and flowing silk gowns with keyhole necklines, lacy white dresses and Murano-glass-sprinkled embroidery, and it all appeared on a significantly more diverse runway than in seasons past.

Ms. Chiuri said before the show that part of her goal was to highlight the fact that “couture” should no longer refer simply to the work of an atelier in France, but was really about culture: about know-how and history, human labor and the touch of the human hand, all of which applied to African wax prints as well as any woven jacquards.

She’s right, and you could see it on her runway — though whether that message will translate past the moment is now the question. Predictably, some eyebrows were still raised: The day after the show, I began to get emails questioning whether this was simply a new kind of colonialism, and who really gets the bulk of the profits. And the list of celebs was notably lacking in local names.

Beyond that, however, is the issue of what happens when these clothes go into stores, and from there into closets, separated from all motivation and multidimensional layering? Will they continue to, as Anne Grosfilley, the anthropologist who first connected Ms. Chiuri to Uniwax, said, “put in the light the talent of Africa?”

To be fair, every wax print piece will bear the Uniwax name on the selvage; the labels in the collaborations will say “Mickalene Thomas for Dior” and so on. But whether that will meaningfully resonate with buyers — whether they will take the time to read the labels and consider the antecedents and implications — is unclear. How many of us really contemplate labels?

And maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe the sheer act of reaching out across so many borders in one collection to create something beautiful from two traditions is enough. But maybe next time, they could skip the plane.

Vanessa Friedman is The Times's fashion director and chief fashion critic. She was previously the fashion editor of the Financial Times. More about Vanessa Friedman

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