Dior stuns Paris fashion with its divine feminism

PARIS: Dior staged arguably the most startling show in haute couture history Monday inside a temple to “The Female Divine”, with stars including Uma Thurman and Sigourney Weaver filing into the belly of an enormous reclining mother goddess through her stylised vulva. The 75-metre long (250-foot) installation was created by the veteran American feminist artist Judy Chicago, who told AFP: “We walk in the way we came out. Its womb-like interior was hung with embroidered banners asking what life would be like “if women ruled the world”. “Would men and women be equal? Would there be violence? Would old women be revered?” asked the pennants, which were sewn at a women’s embroidery school in India, where the art is a male preserve. Dior’s designer Maria Grazia Chiuri — the first woman ever to lead the fabled French fashion house — has made female empowerment a pillar of the brand, launching her reign in 2016 with a T-shirt reading “We should all be feminists. “Women’s power is not just reproduction, but the power to create,” the Italian told AFP as she sent out a breathtaking pantheon of Greek goddesses in shimmering draped diaphanous gold and ivory creations.