Maria Grazia Chiuri has long used her platform as Dior’s creative director to spread messages about feminism throughout her designs, and now she has turned to artist Judy Chicago, also known for her feminist artwork, to design the set for her upcoming Dior AW20 Haute Couture show. 

Taking place at the Rodin Museum in Paris at the end of the month, the set will encompass a specially designed piece from the American artist. Creating an immersive space, which will feature oversized goddess figures, the artwork will extend into a specially woven catwalk, decorated with flowers. 

Entitled “Female Devine”, the installation will also include 21 banners made by needlework, positing questions such as, “What if women ruled the world?”. The banners have been made by female students in India, in an effort to support women internationally in a typically male-dominated industry. 

Writing in a statement, Dior said, “Judy Chicago invites us to reconsider the roles and power relationships that determine, through the lens of gender, the way we live together today.”

Chicago, now 80, is most renowned for her seminal artwork entitled “The Dinner Party”. Created throughout the late 70s, the piece sought to explore the role of women throughout history by creating a dinner table with 39 elaborate place settings all dedicated to influential women, fictional or otherwise, throughout history, including the likes of Virginia Woolf. 

This not the first time the Italian designer has looked to female artists to feature in her shows. For her AW19, Chiuri worked with surrealist artist Penny Slinger, who created a wearable gold dolls house for the show’s final closing look, and last year invited New York-based artist Mickalene Thomas to collaborate on the houses 2020 cruise show. Referencing the work of the feminist author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, art historian Linda Nochlin, and artist Niki de Saint Phalle, Chiuri has often incorporated feminist slogans t-shirts throughout her collections.

“Female Devine” will be open to the public from January 21 to 26, after the Dior show which will take place January 20. You can also see Judy Chicago at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead until 19 April 2020. Revisit Dior’s SS20 show below and its SS17 presentation above.