Judy Chicago’s collaboration with the fashion house, a
runway-installation called The Female Divine, includes a woven catwalk carpet
and 21 banners embroidered with questions including “What if Women Ruled the
World?”
Abbey Bender
Installation designed by Judy Chicago for Dior Haute Couture
Spring/Summer 2020 (©Kristen Pelou, all images courtesy of Dior)
The fashion industry has long occupied an odd place when it comes
to feminism, offering women a form of liberation through self-expression while
simultaneously setting seemingly impossible, often damaging aesthetic
standards. In recent years, with conversations around sexism at the forefront
of popular discourse, the industry has become more self-reflective. While
initiatives to diversify runways and make changes within the often exploitative
world of modeling are valuable, many of fashion’s gestures toward feminist
concerns, such as a “feminist protest”-themed 2014 Chanel show or fashion
publications changing from a focus on dieting to “wellness,” seem well-intentioned
on the surface but ultimately hollow. Fashion is a business, after all.
The latest feminist fashion experiment comes courtesy of Christian
Dior and artist Judy Chicago. Dior’s creative director, Maria Grazia Chiuri,
commissioned Chicago to create a set-cum-art installation for the iconic
couture house’s spring 2020 runway show at the Musée Rodin in Paris. The
installation, titled The Female Divine, features a huge inflatable sculpture
inspired by a goddess figure, a woven catwalk carpet, and 21 banners
embroidered in English and French with questions including “What if Women Ruled
the World?” It all makes for an immersive, aesthetically pleasing experience.
The political element, however, feels facile.
Chicago has a certified place in feminist history — her ’70s
installation The Dinner Party made waves for its subversive use of vaginal
imagery and its large-scale focus on female achievements, and is on permanent
exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. The question of whether her involvement with
Dior automatically confers some feminist authority upon the 73-year-old fashion
house is a thorny one. Chicago’s banners, woven by female students at a
nonprofit craft school in India, ask, while positing a world ruled by women,
“Would Buildings Resemble Wombs?”; “Would God Be Female?”; “Would There Be
Violence?”; and so on. While these hypotheticals may be worth considering, a
couture show doesn’t seem quite the right place to do it. The models on the
runway all fit the fashion industry’s long-held standards of youthfulness and
slenderness, and Dior’s couture creations are all firmly in the “price
available upon request” category.
Chicago’s installation is briefly open to the public through
January 26, but it’s undeniable that the world of a Dior couture show remains a
privileged one. The questions on Chicago’s embroideries posit a feminine utopia
— a lovely thought, but one that feels a bit too pat given how many women vote
against their own interests and how women’s rights stand in immediate danger
with a Republican majority. As is unfortunately so often the case with
politically-minded art, the people who most need to consider the implications
of Chicago’s questions are the least likely to seek them out. The clothes on
the runway, featuring glamorous yet subtle metallic tones and precisely
tailored, goddess-like draping, are undeniably beautiful, and it’s certain that
the combination of these designs with Chicago’s work makes for a striking
tableau. Whether the questions within it will make any difference outside of
potentially stirring up conversation in the rarefied fashion world remains to
be seen.
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