Maria Grazia Chiuri

Maria Grazia Chiuri is an Italian designer whose career began in accessories at Fendi before she and Pierpaolo Piccioli moved to Valentino, where they later served as co-creative directors. Dior appointed her on 8 July 2016 to lead women’s haute couture, ready-to-wear and accessories, making her the first woman to direct the house’s women’s fashion programme.

Chiuri remained at Dior until May 2025. Her tenure combined wearable couture, feminist texts, artist-led scenography and international craft networks, from the Spring/Summer 2017 debut and Judy Chicago’s 2020 couture installation to the Chanakya collaboration in Mumbai in 2023. The Resort 2026 presentation in Rome was her final Dior collection, and the house confirmed her departure on 29 May 2025 before Jonathan Anderson assumed the women’s remit.

Chiuri prioritises movement, recognisable wardrobes and the social systems behind making. Tailoring, flat footwear, transparent dresses, embroidery and practical separates recur because mobility is treated as part of the design problem, while archival references are translated into use rather than reconstructed as costume.

Collaboration is structural to this method. Artists, writers, textile workshops and local artisans are credited as contributors, extending a collection beyond solitary authorship. At Dior, the approach placed feminist language and cultural commissioning inside a global luxury system; its significance rests both in the visibility it created and in the tension between advocacy, product and brand communication.