Gateway to Style: Dior’s Fall 2023 Collection Pays Homage to Indian Embroidery

Unveiled under the monumental arch of the Gateway to India in Mumbai, Dior Fall 2023 collection represents a ravishing and respectful tribute to Indian embroidery talents.

Dior & The Craft of Embroidery: Dior Fall 2023 celebrates new creative dialogues between France and India.

Unveiled under the monumental arch of the Gateway to India in Mumbai, Dior Fall 2023 collection represents a ravishing and respectful tribute to the subcontinent’s crafts and colors. This new Dior collection unfolds like a multidimensional landscape defined by the meeting of French and Indian heritages and cultures.

Maria Grazia Chiuri, Artistic Director for Dior Women’s collections, presented a fall 2023 collection in Mumbai in tribute to Indian culture. Her creations express the feelings and emotions able to connect people with a country and its culture. Conceived in collaboration with the Chanakya ateliers and the Chanakya School of Craft headed by Karishma Swali, the collection celebrates the savoir-faire and emancipation of women.

Maria Grazia Chiuri centered this conversation between France and India around the craft of embroidery. Over 700 women take part in an embroidery program at the Chanakya ateliers as a vehicle to reinterpret the multiple landscapes of India. This expertise is applied in a wardrobe inspired by a diversity of heritages and cultures, from sophisticated evening coats and sari-inspired straight skirts to traditional Indian cuts, as well as pants, boleros, jackets and tops. The color palette also celebrates shared influences. A color block sequence dedicated to silks features shades of green, yellow, pink and purple in homage to Marc Bohan.

With colors evocative of India including rani pink and jamuni purple as well as others specially developed, the pieces feature exquisite embroideries and surface embellishments, the majority realized by the Chanakya ateliers’ master artisans, along with timeless Dior codes such as Cannage, and a revived 60s archival motif popping on clothing and bags alike.

For the Dior Fall 23 presented in Mumbai, Peter Philips created a makeup focusing on intense, rich smoky eyes brightened by a wet-look effect that adds mystery and depth.

Held in tandem with the unveiling of the Fall 2023 collection in Mumbai on.dior.com/fall-2023, Chanakya is exhibiting some of the stunning designs by Maria Grazia Chiuri that it has embellished with a diverse range of exceptional techniques of adornment since her arrival at the House. Along with displays of pieces held in the company’s vast research archives, master artisans are on hand realizing striking examples of savoir-faire in person.

In an additional collaboration between the House, Maria Grazia Chiuri, Karishma Swali of Chanakya, and the artists Madhvi and Manu Parekh, the cultural center of the Chanakya School of Craft in Mumbai is playing host to the exhibition ‘Cosmic Garden’.

Curated by Maria Alicata and Paola Ugolini, it juxtaposes works by the Indian artists from the 1970s to now with needlework interpretations by the school’s female students, who also contributed to the scenography of the Dior Fall 2023 show in the city.