
Hello, Goodbye: Maria Grazia Chiuri's Next Chapter
The heavens opened throughout the show, which has become something of a feature of Chiuri's presentations when they're exposed to the elements. A cockeyed optimist might construe that as nature's equivalent of Tom Ford's emotion-drenched send-off at Yves Saint Laurent — still the benchmark for the long fashion goodbye — but, deluge aside, the cheers felt like a necessary acknowledgement of Chiuri's substantial near-decade achievement at Dior. As the only woman to carry Christian's mantle, she leaves her thumbprint on the brand, financially and creatively. Dior Cruise 2026. (Spotlight)
Mind you, when to go gently into that good night may well have ultimately been her choice. All week, Chiuri appeared upbeat and relaxed, especially as she previewed a next act for journalists. (I'm assuming it's not the next act, but it does involve a theatre, so the analogy seems appropriate). She was home, in Rome, the happy place of her birth where she would retreat from Paris every weekend, and where she has been realizing a rather wonderful personal project for the past few years.
Her renovation of the Teatro della Cometa, a bijou 233-seater in downtown Rome, is, in a way, an evolution of the commitment she always had at Dior to celebrating female creativity, from that very first show when a T-shirt quoted the title of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's essay 'We Should All Be Feminists.' For years, she has wrapped her presentations in the work of women who inspired her. This time, it was Anna Laetitia ('Mimi') Pecci-Blunt, the cultish art patron who was responsible for the construction of the Teatro in the annex of her family palazzo. Teatro della Cometa. (Laura Sciacovelli)
The inspiration felt particularly personal, perhaps because it was so embedded in Chiuri's own story. The Palazzo Pecci-Blunt had always been a dream house for her. Once she found out about the house's chatelaine, she transferred her obsession to Mimi, a woman whose wealth and privilege (her father was the nephew of Pope Leo XIII) effortlessly eased her passage through — and patronage of — the cultural ferment of the early-mid 20th century.
Mimi's salon in Paris counted Picasso, Cocteau, Dali, Man Ray and Stravinsky among its habitués. When she and her American banker husband Cecil Blumenthal (she made him abbreviate his name to Blunt), acquired their palazzo in Rome in 1929, it also became a hive of artistic activity. Driven into exile by the fascists, the family sat out WWII in New York. On their return, she had the Teatro della Cometa designed (by Tomaso Buzzi) and constructed so that she would have a proper venue for the musical recitals she might once have presented in her home. She was also able to put on plays, performances and dance recitals. 'She was really keen to share her passions with other people,' says Chiuri.
'I think for that time, Mimi was like Peggy Guggenheim,' Chiuri muses. 'She really wanted to create an environment with all these creative people from several disciplines working together. I like the idea she tried to connect all these artists. You see the picture of Mr. Dior in the café with Giacometti. He was a gallerist, she was a gallerist. That's the way I really like to work too, with other artists to make a project, especially in this moment where everybody wants to talk about differences. I like the artists who try to collaborate. I think that's a very important message.' Dior Cruise 2026 Look 6. (Courtesy Dior)
Chiuri translated the message into the collection she showed Tuesday night by getting both her studios — couture and ready-to-wear — to work with Studio Tirelli. Umberto Tirelli founded his workshop in the Sixties to work with the greatest movie directors of his day. From his archive of over 350,000 pieces of clothing, Chiuri picked 12 silhouettes to be worn by actors in the film that her frequent collaborator Matteo Garrone made for the livestream, as well as the performers who paraded ghost-like around the garden of the Villa Albani Torlonia in the lead-up to the show.
She was thinking about the Bal Blanc that Mimi staged in 1930 at her Paris home with Man Ray as co-host. Everyone wore white. Man Ray's photos of 'the party of the season' are preserved at the Centre Pompidou. The tableaux vivants that Chiuri has been staging at the Teatro for the past few days recreate the event. And the dress code on Tuesday was women in white, men in black. If that hints at the essential theatricality of Chiuri's presentation, then my work here is done. The invitation proclaimed Rome as 'Theatrum Mundi,' theatre of the world. (Feel the mycelium fingers reaching out to Teatro della Cometa). Dior Cruise 2026 Look 43. (Courtesy Dior)
It's an obvious question: would Chiuri have liked to live in Mimi's moment? Her answer is an unequivocal yes. 'Now we have too much Zoom, too many pictures. I think it's so important to meet in person, to share ideas. This is exciting.' That's why she was so keen for her studios to work with Tirelli. 'For them, it was an experience that gave them a different perspective.'
Top of Chiuri's moodboard was the cover of a book by Francesco Piccolo, 'La Bella Confusione.' One 'beautiful confusion' was the collection's indistinguishable mix of cruise and couture (the show was officially labeled Cruise 2026, but tended more heavily towards couture, I'd say). The other is Rome itself, hectic, chaotic, enough to spark arguments between Chiuri and her husband Paolo when she defends the city's profound dysfunction. 'Paris is a beautiful city, but I'm Mediterranean and there is no sun in winter. You wake up in the dark and for someone who grew up in Rome, it is not simple not to have sun.' She counters that with praise for the fabulous, vital, cultural diversity of Paris. But still… sunshine. Dior Cruise 2026 Look 68. (Courtesy Dior)
But that professed umbilical connection to sensuality is why Chiuri's collections have always been a bit of a puzzler, because they don't often make that connection. They are pure and restrained and elegant and they embody an eerie kind of almost monastic luxury, but they aren't sunshine. And so it was with what we are acknowledging as her last collection for Dior. It was almost as though she was recreating her own favourite bits, with a strong emphasis on her Valentino era (read into that what you want).
The elongated formality, the sheerness and delicacy of lace dresses with trains dragging through the rain-soaked gravel, the romantic tatters of Miss Havisham crochet… all of this had a costume-y Cinecittà allure. A leather motocross over a crystalled gown, a draped sheath in dull gold charmeuse, a black velvet cutaway jacket that looked moulded to the dress beneath: now these told a more provocative tale. The first time I met Chiuri, she and Pierpaolo Piccioli had just been to a Depeche Mode concert in Rome. That's the kind of conversation you (or at least I) cling to in fashion, where you share something real. Dior Cruise 2026 Look 38. (Courtesy Dior)
And it fits with Chiuri's own notion of beautiful confusion: a relationship between fashion and theatre and film and music where the boundaries dissolve. 'You adapt the technique and the imagination when you work with different performers,' she says. 'It's exciting for the atelier because it's a different way to think. What is dance? What is theatre? What is fashion? I like this idea of 'la bella confusione.''
So I'm thinking that points forward for Chiuri in a very positive way. As far as she's concerned, the Teatro della Cometa is a family concern, something she will do with her husband and daughter Rachele. They've saved a little treasure from conversion to a supermarket or disco. 'We didn't want this incredible history to disappear,' Chiuri says. 'There are so many antiquities in Rome, so much that it's difficult for someone to make a stand for something so small.' But it is also a seductively quirky space. What other theatre stage can you think of that has six huge windows opening onto the street? 'A dialogue with the city,' Chiuri calls it. Maria Grazia Chiuri and daughter Rachele Regini at the Teatro della Cometa. (Laura Sciacovelli)
And then there's her commitment to Mimi, whose archive is crying out for reactivation. 'That's what I am, an activator,' Chiuri declares. 'Not because I want to think about my future now — this doesn't interest me — I think it's much more interesting to reactivate something, to recreate. This is really beautiful for me.'
So, after nine years of reactivation at Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri is maybe contemplating a brave new world of Mimi-driven cultural activism. Perhaps a gallery, definitely a theatre, which promises a programme of provocative programming helmed by her daughter Rachele. Would she have been friends with Mimi? She answers without hesitation: 'Absolutely.' All the Looks From Dior Cruise 2026 Dior Cruise 2026 look 1. Dior Cruise 2026 look 2. Dior Cruise 2026 look 3. Dior Cruise 2026 look 4. Dior Cruise 2026 look 5. Dior Cruise 2026 look 6. Dior Cruise 2026 look 7. Dior Cruise 2026 look 8. Dior Cruise 2026 look 9. Dior Cruise 2026 look 10. Dior Cruise 2026 look 11. Dior Cruise 2026 look 12. Dior Cruise 2026 look 13. Dior Cruise 2026 look 14. Dior Cruise 2026 look 15. Dior Cruise 2026 look 16. Dior Cruise 2026 look 17. Dior Cruise 2026 look 18. Dior Cruise 2026 look 19. Dior Cruise 2026 look 20. Dior Cruise 2026 look 21. Dior Cruise 2026 look 22. Dior Cruise 2026 look 23. Dior Cruise 2026 look 24. Dior Cruise 2026 look 25. Dior Cruise 2026 look 26. Dior Cruise 2026 look 27. Dior Cruise 2026 look 28. Dior Cruise 2026 look 29. Dior Cruise 2026 look 30. Dior Cruise 2026 look 31. Dior Cruise 2026 look 32. Dior Cruise 2026 look 33. Dior Cruise 2026 look 34. Dior Cruise 2026 look 35. Dior Cruise 2026 look 36. Dior Cruise 2026 look 37. Dior Cruise 2026 look 38. Dior Cruise 2026 look 39. Dior Cruise 2026 look 40. Dior Cruise 2026 look 41. Dior Cruise 2026 look 42. Dior Cruise 2026 look 43. Dior Cruise 2026 look 44. Dior Cruise 2026 look 45. Dior Cruise 2026 look 46. Dior Cruise 2026 look 47. Dior Cruise 2026 look 48. Dior Cruise 2026 look 49. Dior Cruise 2026 look 50. Dior Cruise 2026 look 51.
Disclosure: LVMH is part of a group of investors who, together, hold a minority interest in The Business of Fashion. All investors have signed shareholders' documentation guaranteeing BoF's complete editorial independence.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Buzz Feed
an hour ago
- Buzz Feed
21 Hit Songs You Never Knew Were Actually Covers
Many people prefer certain song covers to the original, which is perfectly fine. On the other hand, there are songs that people are clueless about, even if they are song covers in the first place! Which means I can now rock out to two versions of these classics! Here are 21 songs you didn't know were actually covers: "1985" by Bowling for Soup is a cover of the song by American pop-punk band SR-71, which was released just two months earlier in Japan before the manager believed it was a better fit for Bowling for Soup. Although probably more well-known, the emotional song "Hurt" by Johnny Cash is a cover of the song performed by the rock band Nine Inch Nails. "Respect" by Aretha Franklin is a cover of Otis Redding's 1965 song by the same name. Franklin really flipped the lyrics on their head to create an all-time classic. "Renegades of Funk" by Rage Against the Machine is a cover of the Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force song of the same name. The song "It's My Life" by No Doubt is a cover of the English band Talk Talk's original release in 1984. The iconic "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston is a cover of the 1974 song by Dolly Parton, which was featured on her famous album "Jolene." An absolute shocker to my '90s brain, but the 1997 hit song "Torn" by Australian singer Natalie Imbruglia is actually a cover originally sung by American rock band Ednaswap, which was released in 1995. The popular song "Don't Cha" by The Pussycat Dolls is a cover of the original song by Tori Alamaze. The popular '80s hit "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell is a cover of Gloria Jones's "Tainted Love," released in 1964. The song "Superman" by R.E.M. is a cover of "Superman" by The Clique. A B-Side track on the album "White Tornado," it's an R.E.M. gem. The mega summer hit from 1999 "Mambo No. 5" by Lou Bega is a sample of the original version by Cuban musician Dámaso Pérez Prado from 1950. The 1992 song "Achy Breaky Heart" by Billy Ray Cyrus is a cover of "Don't Tell My Heart," which was first recorded in 1991 by The Marcy Brothers. The song "If I Were A Boy" by Beyoncé was performed initially by BC Jean in 2008. The song "Black Magic Woman" by Santana is a cover of the song by Fleetwood Mac. Mind blown. In my defense, the Santana version has more views on YouTube than any other version by Fleetwood Mac. "Blinded by the Light" by Manfred Mann's Earth Band might be the more popular version, but it was originally written and recorded by Bruce Springsteen. The popular Joan Jett & the Blackhearts song "I Love Rock 'n Roll" is a cover of the British glam band Arrow's song "I Love Rock 'n 'Roll." "Dancing in the Moonlight" by the English band Toploader is a cover of the song originally recorded by Sherman Kelly's band, Boffalongo, which first released it in 1970. Then, Kelly rereleased the song with his new band, King Harvest, in 1972. So, technically, Kelly covered his own song. "Black Betty" by Ram Jam is a cover of a song credited to songwriter Huddie Ledbetter. The oldest recorded version was performed by James "Iron Head" Baker and a group of Texas prisoners in the 1930s. "Take Me to the River" by American rock band Talking Heads is a cover of the 1974 soul song by Al Green. The 1995 hit "Gangster's Paradise" by Coolio (ft. L.V.) is actually a cover of Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise" from 1976. Lastly, and mainly for the youngins, Post Malone's cover of the alternative rock song "Only Wanna Be With You," originally released by Hootie & the Blowfish, is now a pop song featured in the Pokémon 25 soundtrack, which has 18M views on YouTube. Is there a song you were stunned to learn was a cover? Comment below (the song and artists)!
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Hulk Hogan was ‘being run into the ground' before he died with work schedule while dealing with 25 surgeries in 10 years
Hulk Hogan admitted he was struggling with his health in the year before his sudden death Thursday and some of those close to him thought he was taking it too far, The Independent has learned. But others close to him said it was just his way, and that he insisted on being on the road and showing up to meet fans because he was 'running the show'. Jimmy VanderLinden — who goes by "Jimmy Van" online and founded the professional wrestling publication Fightful — alleges he spoke with people close to Hogan who were upset at his heavy work schedule. "People close to Hulk Hogan had told me they weren't happy that his management team was 'running him into the ground,' promoting his beer brand over the last year," VanderLinden wrote in a social media post. The 71-year-old wrestler, whose real name was Terry Bollea, had been promoting Real American Beer, which used his likeness for its branding, in the last few months of his life. The company provided The Independent with the following statement: 'Hulk Hogan wasn't being 'run into the ground' — he was running the show. As the co-founder of Real American Beer, this brand was his vision from day one. He led by example, insisted on being on the road and showed up because he wanted to. Not for money. Not for press. For his fans. He built this for them — and no one was going to stop him from showing up and shaking every hand. That's what being a Real American meant to him.' A spokesperson for Empire Agency, which repped Hogan but had no involvement in Real American Beer or its marketing push, told The Independent they also thought he was pushing too hard before he fell ill. 'We also thought that he was going too far with his health, but we couldn't do anything, because of his deal with the promoter and some other representative dealing with this beer business,' the spokesperson said. Rumors swirled on social media in the weeks before his death that Hogan had health issues. Last month, Todd Clem — otherwise known as "Bubba the Love Sponge," a radio show host with a long and sordid history with Hogan — told his listeners that "allegedly Hogan is in the hospital and I've heard people say that he might not make it." Hogan's management and family denied the claims. The wrestler's wife, Sky Daily, said at the time that he'd only undergone neck surgery. His friend, former WWE personality and longtime in-character manager Jimmy Hart, insisted in a post that Hogan had recently been singing karaoke. The post has now been removed. A spokesperson for Hogan told The Independent last week that Hogan's surgery had "indeed been successful" and that there was "no reason to panic." "He just needs from time to time a medical check up," the spokesperson added. But by July, Clem hadn't changed his tune, warning listeners that "I don't know if we'll ever see Hogan again." On July 21, just days before the WWE icon's death, Clem wrote an update on X, citing people close to Hogan, that the wrestler had been moved from a hospital "to his home in a hospital bed with private doctors." "Transfer was done in secrecy — unmarked ambulances, garage entry, middle of the night," Clem wrote. The Clearwater Police Department said during a brief press conference that Hogan was "experiencing a serious medical related issue" when they arrived. He died after he was transferred to a hospital. Hogan addressed his health when he last September appeared on an episode of fellow WWE star Logan Paul's "Impaulsive" podcast. Hogan noted at the top of the show that he'd been up until 3:30 am the night prior, and mentioned he'd only gotten two hours of sleep another night that week. When asked by Paul's co-host, Mike Majlak, if he needs sleep, Hogan says he does, and noted that when he doesn't get enough sleep, it hurts his back. 'Oh God yeah bro, if I don't man, my back and everything..." Hogan says, implying his back will hurt if he doesn't get enough sleep. He then told the men about all of the surgeries he's needed in the last decade. 'I've had like 25 surgeries in the last ten years. Ten of them were back surgeries,' Hogan told Paul. 'Nobody told me this gimmick stuff was fake. I've had 10 back surgeries, both knees and both hips replaced, shoulders — everything.' Hogan was active in professional wrestling across a number of companies from 1977 to 2012. Despite the staged outcomes, the slams and slaps and chair shots were real, and took a toll on his body. He recalled advice he received from the legendary Andre the Giant about protecting his body in his early career. 'Andre used to tell me, 'Boss, don't fall down. You won't get back up,'' Hogan said. 'It was like a 22-foot boxing ring that had lumps in it, boards sticking up—it was horrible.'


USA Today
4 hours ago
- USA Today
Beyoncé fans are paying close attention to her hair color as tour ends: Here's why
Beyoncé Knowles-Carter is about to wrap up her "Cowboy Carter" tour in Las Vegas, and fans are already searching for clues about what's next for the superstar. Their current focus is the hair color of some of Beyoncé's dancers. The Grammy-winning singer kicked off her first concert at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on July 25. The concert marked her first of two shows at the stadium on her Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo Chitlin' Circuit Tour. She is set to perform again July 26. As she took the stage, Beyoncé donned a floor-length American flag coat with a matching bodysuit and white cowboy hat. However, it was her blond hair color that immediately caught the attention of some fans. Prior to Friday's show, rumors began to swirl when fans noticed some of her dancers appearing to change their hair color to jet black. One account wrote on X, "Beyoncé's dancers are reportedly dyeing their hair black, sparking rumors that it's a visual clue for the third installment of her trilogy: act iii." As fans know, Beyoncé released her eighth studio album "Cowboy Carter" March 29. The country album has already made history on multiple fronts and put a spotlight on Black country artists. In July 2022 Beyoncé released her seventh studio album "Renaissance." The project earned her four Grammys in 2023 including best dance/electronic music album, making her the most decorated artist in the awards' history. She later announced the album was the first part of a three-act project, making "Cowboy Carter" Act 2. After releasing albums in the country and dance categories, there has been growing speculation that the last project in the trilogy could be a rock album. Beyoncé only fueled this idea after she posed as funk-rock diva Betty Davis for Halloween — and yes, she was wearing jet black hair. However, during the July 25 performance, not only was Beyoncé's hair not black, but many of her dancers' hair colors also varied from black to red and more. One fan wrote, "And the black hair theories are dismissed." However, others were reluctant to abandon the idea entirely, noting that there's still one more show to go. Some fans even went so far as to point out that last show date falls on Davis' birthday. There are always fan theories floating around, and fans can expect even more as Beyoncé closes out her tour and the Act 2 era leaving them to eagerly await Act 3. As always, only time will tell. Follow Caché McClay, the USA TODAY Network's Beyoncé Knowles-Carter reporter, on Instagram, TikTok and X as @cachemcclay.