Dior Fall/Winter 2025/2026: The house kicks off Paris Fashion Week with a spectacular look back at fashion history that includes slashed breeches and ruff chokers

At the Jardin des Tuileries, the past has become a spectacle. Under the creative direction of Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior has taken its Fashion History exam with flying colours: in its proposal for the autumn-winter 2025-2026 season, entitled Once upon a time, ruffle collars have been transformed into rigid peach-coloured chokers, the bustier has been combined with sunglasses, doublets have inspired velvet coats, an ermine cape has been paired with a T-shirt and breeches, a type of slashed baggy trousers that originated in Toledo in the 16th century, have been brought back to life, studded with studs. On the feet, the traces of the Italian designer: high-top lace-up boots, sensible heels and flat shoes. In its chromatic palette, that of the Flemish masters: black and white, like ruffs or flounces cascading down the neckline and sleeves, transported to the start of Paris fashion week chiaroscuros that could have sprung from the brush of Rembrandt. Between berets, mini-skirted crinolines and jacquard waistcoats, the memory flashed with references to John Galliano's Dior. At the close of the show - led by the voice of a narrator who, inspired by Virginia Woolf's Orlando, addressed "a boy, a girl"; marked by the duality of the interventions of incandescent monoliths and smoking icebergs - the models, in pairs, posed on a monumental pedestrian crossing that took the imagination to the Shibuya crossing. Maria Grazia Chiuri's wife, always firm, knows where she comes from and where she is going