The French fashion house Christian Dior presented this Saturday in Mexico a collection in collaboration with local artisans, amid complaints made by the country’s government against other fashion brands for cultural appropriation.
Dior exhibited the collection at the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, a colonial building located next to the Templo Mayor – a vestige of the Aztec empire – in the heart of Mexico City.
The firm’s chief designer, Maria Grazia Chiuri, presented women’s garments with embroidery and fabrics inspired by Mexican communities on the catwalk.
Under the chords of “You deserve a love” by the Mexican singer-songwriter Vivir Quintanaat different times the traditional flower embroideries shone in bright colors, but also in sober black and white tones.
In addition, they were presented dressed in the traditional Mexican pink color that refers to the garments used by communities in Oaxaca and Chiapas, in the south of the country, and Puebla (center).
Christian Dior’s Cruise 2024, collection was shown at the Colegio de San Ildefonso in Mexico City.
“It is a country that I love deeply and a culture that never ceases to inspire me. I was happy to return over the years to different projects and to meet different artists,” the designer said on Twitter when announcing the show on May 9.
The show closed with several white dresses with red details under the chords of “Canción sin miedo”, a theme also by Quintana that denounces the brutal violence against women that exists in Mexico.
Several of the models wore braided hairstyles similar to those worn by the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907-1954).
The venue where the collection was presented is a museum administered by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the Mexican government and the city’s mayor’s office.
The fashion house worked the garments with Mexican artisans. However, other fashion firms have been accused of cultural appropriation by the Mexican government and the communities themselves.
Mexico denounced the Chinese Shein, the Spanish Inditex and the American Anthropologie and Patowl in 2021 for using Mexican designs on their garments.
Due to improper cultural appropriation, the country also complained in 2020 of the French designer Isabel Marant, who later offered an apology to the government and to an indigenous community in Michoacán (west).
In 2019, the Ministry of Culture also denounced the firm of Carolina Herrera, a Venezuelan designer based in the United States, for having replicated colorful embroideries typical of the Tenango community (center).