The Dior designer discussing community, collaboration, and what happens when culture meets commerce.
Mickalene Thomas has been enlisted to reimagine the museum’s Beaux-Arts Court for the ball. She credits a 1994 exhibition of Weems’s The Kitchen Table Series, a cycle of photographs and text panels in which Weems plays the role of a woman whose life unfolds in a single domestic space, with influencing the trajectory of her own creative practice. The event is also sponsored by Dior.
The house’s creative director, Maria Grazia Chiuri, was an honoree last year. Since her arrival at Dior in 2016, Chiuri has consistently used the runway to highlight the artistic efforts of other women, from legends like Judy Chicago and Penny Slinger, who have each designed sets for Chiuri’s shows, to contemporary talent like Joana Vasconcelos, who created an enormous fabric installation covered in crochet, lace, fringe, and sequins for the Fall 2023 presentation.
