Maria Grazia Chiuri Tells A Tale Of Transformation At Dior Fall 2025

I haven’t crunched the numbers, but I would guess that Virginia Woolf’s Orlando is the most-referenced book among fashion designers. It’s been cited as the inspiration for collections from Christopher Bailey at Burberry, Kim Jones at Fendi, and, now, Maria Grazia Chiuri at Dior.

For Fall 2025, the Italian designer treated fashion as “a vector of transformation,” the brand wrote, with Orlando — the novel, its 1992 film adaptation, and its many theatrical stagings — as a starting point. The goal was to put Dior’s house codes in conversation with historical dress to showcase the possibilities that lie in clothing — how it can be adjusted, adapted, and styled in a way to affirm the wearer. (The titular Orlando is a male nobleman in the Elizabethan era, who wakes up one day in a woman’s body and lives on for centuries.)

The most overt references to the period in which the story is set are the statement collars seen throughout, either frilly or Elizabethan (all of which are removable, so as to not limit one’s idea of how a garment can be worn). There are more subtle callbacks — corset tops, cinched waists, structured skirts, pantaloons, and petticoats — which are refined and mostly stripped of ornamentation, so as to feel more modern (and to distance it from costume territory). These are interspersed among signatures of Grazia’s Dior: the short hems with high boots, the boy shorts underneath sheer dresses, the technical jackets with matching bottoms.

Much like Orlando travels through the centuries, this collection weaves the past and present together. Grazia revives certain design elements introduced by and often linked to creative directors’ past, such as Gianfranco Ferré’s shapes and John Galliano’s “J’adore Dior” T-shirts. She also puts feminine and masculine pieces in direct conversation with one another: Classic shirting is rendered in sheer fabrics to add a touch of sensuality, a structured peacoat is softened by a ruffled skirt peeking out from underneath, and a jacquard matching set reads tougher when styled over a graphic tee.

As one of the biggest pieces of LVMH’s fashion puzzle, you can always expect Dior to put on a good show. This season, inside a massive box built in the Jardin des Tuileries, the brand unveiled the autumnal collection on an evolving set in a multi-act production directed by theater legend Robert Wilson. It included a prehistoric bird flying across the runway, rocks being lowered from the ceiling, and icebergs coming up from the floor, all as models entered and exited throughout the space in front of an audience that included Blackpink’s Jisoo, Natalie Portman, The White Lotus’ Michelle Monaghan, Lily James, and Tems. Now let’s see if any of them call first dibs on the samples.

Ahead, highlights from the epic presentation.