Paris Fashion Week: Dior embraces history for its women’s autumn-winter 2025 collection
Female empowerment drives Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Dior. But rather than power dressing or skin-baring silhouettes, the Italian designer believes that everyday comfort is key. This is why her collections favour a quotidian palette of beige, white and black; and why you’ll hardly see a pair of sky high stilettos in her repertoire. Practical sportswear elements have also taken centrestage in past collections. For autumn-winter 2025, however, Chiuri looked to Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando: A Biography (1928) to tell a tale about the transformative power of dress.
Set in Elizabethan England, the literary classic traces the life of a young nobleman who serendipitously becomes a woman. Adding onto this mysterious turn of events, the protagonist ends up living for three centuries without any obvious signs of ageing. Chiuri, taking inspiration from this narrative that was way ahead of its time, infused a focus on tailoring, eveningwear and utilitarian silhouettes with Elizabethan touches, gender-fluidity and a homage to the French house’s very own history.
Celebrities from across the globe such as Jisoo, Liu Yuxin as well as Thai dynamic duo Orm Kornnaphat and Lingling Kwong took their front-row seats to immerse themselves in this blend of past and present.
Tatler tells you what went down at the Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 show at Paris Fashion Week.
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Stars at the front row
Jisoo attends the Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 show (Photo: Dior)
Liu Yuxin attends the Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 show (Photo: Dior)
Orm Kornnaphat and Lingling Kwong attends the Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 show (Photo: Dior)
Mingyu attends the Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 show (Photo: Dior)
Heart Evangelista attends the Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 show (Photo: Dior)
Pia Wurtzbach attends the Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 show (Photo: Dior)
Celebrities from far and wide came together to witness Chiuri’s next chapter in Dior womenswear. Along with brand ambassadors Jisoo, Liu Yuxin, Mingyu, friends of the house Orm Kornnaphat, Lingling Kwong, Heart Evangelista and Pia Wurtzbach radiated in designs from the house’s prior spring-summer 2025 collection.
Embracing gender-fluidity
Dior autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
Dior autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
Dior autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
Dior autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
In a direct call to Woolf’s novel Orlando: A Biography (1928), Chiuri blended traditional menswear and womenswear silhouettes to offer her own take on the wave of gender-fluid designs in fashion.
Notably, mainstays of the classic men’s suit such as blazers and button-up blouses are juxtaposed by women’s corsets and skirts layered over trousers. Elizabethan doublet-style jackets with slits at the arms also added to the season’s heightened sense of masculinity.
Celebrating heritage techniques
Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
Dior’s autumn-winter 2025 collection also made calls to the distant past through its onus on heritage garment-making techniques.
Specifically, intricate cut-out and appliqué embroidery—a technique with roots in ancient Egypt that involves adding fabric to a base fabric to create decorative elements—decorates an array of jackets and eveningwear dresses. Needlepoint lace, a technique of hand-embroidering lace using a needle and thread from 16th century Europe, also took precedence on opulent gowns and ruffled button-up blouses. We also had our sights set on the collection’s feature of velvet jacquard. According to Dior, the patterned fabric was created on machines from the 1950s using 100 per cent silk.
Utilitarian silhouettes with baroque touches
Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
Chiuri’s penchant for infusing post-modernism and functionality into her womenswear designs at Dior was also evident in a series of utilitarian outerwear with opulent woven broque prints.
From trench coats and parkas to raincoats, the season embraced a glossy silk material with brocade details that are reminiscent of the Elizabethan era.
History told through the humble shirt
Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
Dior women’s autumn-winter 2025 collection (Photo: Dior)
Going back to the fundamentals of the everyday women’s wardrobe, Chiuri set her sights on the humble shirt to ground the collection. Notably, the Italian designer decided to pay homage to her predecessors Gianfranco Ferré and John Galliano.
While Galliano fans will immediately recognise references to his tongue-and-cheek J’adore Dior graphic shirt that was first introduced on the Dior spring-summer 2001 runway, Ferré’s tribute lies in the season's embrace of his signature white button-up shirts. Notably, the creator of the emblematic Lady Dior bag was known to radically deconstruct and reinterpret this wardrobe classic by experimenting with silhouette, material and technique. Chiuri’s editions in autumn-winter 2025 followed suit, playing on the archetypal Elizabethan ruff with dramatic cascades of ruffles. Other variations embraced chiffon and antique-style lace.
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