Maria Grazia Chiuri came across archive pictures of Josephine Baker performing in Dior couture in New York in 1951 in New York. The shining American-born French Black star and civil rights activist came to perform in Paris in 1925, becoming a leading light of the Jazz Age cabaret and a French citizen. In World War II, she joined the French Resistance, and in 2021 was finally honored as one of the greats of the French nation when her name was inscribed at a solemn ceremony at the Pantheon in Paris.
What an inspiration for the creative director to relate to—especially after the discovery that Baker had been a client of the house. “She was really an incredible, empowered woman,” Chiuri said in a preview at Dior headquarters. She dedicated the spring haute couture to her, and surrounded the show with a gallery of portraits commissioned from Mickalene Thomas featuring a new pantheon of similarly ground-breaking Black and biracial Hollywood actors and models of the 20th century, with Josephine Baker at its center.
