Dior took inspiration from period dressing for a stunning show in the gardens of Drummond Castle in Perthshire, Scotland, as celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence and Anya Taylor-Joy watched on.
With an imposing backdrop of the castle and its perfectly manicured gardens, Dior creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri needed to present something special for the Cruise 2025 collection.
Cruise collections are shown in between regular scheduling, and the major fashion brands often use them as an opportunity to present their collections in a different location – last year, Dior flew to Mexico City and paid homage to Mexican artist Frida Kahlo in her demands.
Stars descended on Drummond Castle for the show, with brand ambassador Jennifer Lawrence setting a trend for leopard print on the front row, which featured in Dior’s autumn/winter 2024 show at Paris Fashion Week in February.
She wore a belted printed coat over a white top and flared jeans, leaning into the more casual aesthetic that Chiuri experimented with in her last collection.
Game Of Thrones star Maisie Williams, who played Christian Dior’s sister, Catherine, in the recent Apple TV+ show The New Look, also wore leopard print from the last collection.
She styled the look similarly to the runway, wearing the belted leopard print two-piece with mini shorts over a black long-sleeve turtleneck.
Fresh off a fashionable press tour for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, actor Anya Taylor-Joy also tapped into the trend for short shorts, wearing hers with stirrup leggings, a black turtleneck and a grey blazer slung over the top.
Emily In Paris star Lily Collins also got the all-black memo for the front row, wearing a turtleneck paired with a utility jacket and matching skirt.
The Wheel Of Time actor Rosamund Pike chose a more timeless look, donning a slouchy belted trench coat over a black turtleneck and white wide-legged trousers.
Meanwhile, former Spice Girl Geri Horner was elegant in all white, wearing a boxy jacket with an embellished neckline over a turtleneck and a long A-line skirt.
As always, Chiuri was inspired by her location for the Cruise 2025 location, opening the show with plenty of tartan looks.
But models were not wearing classic kilts – there was a punk sensibility imbued throughout.
Think jagged hems, flashes of skin, bedazzling, tartan hotpants and heavy black boots which proved handy for models, as part of the lengthy runway through the gardens required them to walk on a gentle grassed slope.
Chiuri often collaborates with female creatives on her shows, and for this collection she enlisted the help of Samantha McCoach, Scottish designer of brand Le Kilt.
McCoach weaved her own thread to create a few of the kilts on show, with Chiuri telling Vogue of McCoach: “Her goal was to move this tradition for a new generation, and I think she did it very well – it’s cute and young, fresh and very elegant too.”
Chiuri took her historical inspirations one step further for this collection.
Before the show, Dior’s Instagram listed a series of late-medieval tapestries known as La Dame A la Licorne and needlework by Mary, Queen of Scots as key jumping off points for the clothes.
This manifested itself as hints of period dressing throughout the collection, perhaps in more literal ways than we have seen Chiuri do before.
Models wore flouncy white shirts with stiff, tight corsets over the top, reminiscent of the Bridgerton-inspired Regency dressing that has become so popular thanks to the Netflix show, as well a selection of outfits featuring heavy medieval-inspired chainmail in various forms.
While this was a collection heavily inspired by its Scottish location, there were still plenty of Dior signatures.
There were tartan interpretations of the New Look, a two-piece featuring a blazer with a cinched waist paired with a full skirt, first shown by Christian Dior in 1947.
Feminist messages often permeate Dior’s shows, and this was no different, some of the outfits were emblazoned with words like “fierce”, “nag”, “emotional” and “bossy”, likely referring to names that women are often negatively pigeonholed with.
There were also plenty of impeccably tailored trench coats (which is fast becoming a Dior calling card), as well as ethereal gowns that celebrities will no doubt be eyeing up for their next red carpet.
The show ended with a procession of bagpipe players lining the runway, as the stream of model gave showgoers one last look at their outfits.
This was not the first time Dior had touched down in Scotland.
Back in 1955, Christian Dior held two fashion shows in the country: one at the Gleneagles hotel in Perthshire, and the other at the Central Hotel in Glasgow.
And it is not like fashion fans will have to wait long for another show: the next opportunity to see Dior in action will come on June 24, when the French fashion house will present its latest couture collection.
