Ukrainian artist inspires Dior couture show that reinvents a “better future”

What is haute couture for? This is the question that the artistic director of Dior, the Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri, asked herself in these times of pandemic, war and threat of global recession.

Thus, the centerpiece of the Dior couture show this Monday n t was not the exquisitely pleated chiffon dresses or intricately embroidered cream wool coats, but rather the backdrop - the floor-to-ceiling works of art that lined the Rodin Museum in Paris, a series of joyful and innocent interpretations of the tree of life, laden with flowers, fruits and birds.

These works, representing "the woman, the continuation of life and a bright future,” according to the historic French fashion house, were made by Kyiv-based artist Olesia Trofymenko. Chiuri had discovered her this spring during an exhibition at the MAXXI, the national museum of 21st century art, in Rome, in a program dedicated to contemporary Ukrainian artists. For this couture collection, the first since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Chiuri gave Trofymenko carte blanche, and the result – these large-scale wall pieces – formed the starting point for her show.