Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri’s objective for the Dior Spring Summer 2025 Ready-to-Wear collection in Paris was to summarise the meaning of the garment. By returning to fashion’s origin and discovering the relationship connecting the body to what dresses it, Chiuri highlights the beauty of the female figure with unapologetic femininity. 

To bring this ideology to life, Chiuri assembled and reinterpreted cuts from the Dior archives, such as the Amazone dress, originally constructed by Christian Dior for Autumn Winter 1951-1952, and used vintage Dior sportswear silhouettes across the collection.

On the runway, white and black pieces are paired in contrast. White garments like shirts are styled with black skirts, pants, and dresses to bring forward duality. Colour is sparse and used as a counterpoint in bomber jackets with bright red accents. 

Butterfly or fringe embroidery offers a layer of volume, but it is done through metallics, which equally provides texture. Jersey accompanies lightweight evening dresses and sports shirts, some simple and some with shiny embellishments, to offer a collection that plays with athleisure silhouettes. 

But what made this show out of the ordinary was the live archery on the runway from SAGG Napoli, a multidisciplinary artist in performance, video sculpture, and installation. This show component, titled With My Heart in One Hand and a Bow in the Other, showcased the interplay of body, fashion, and sport through the integration of bow and arrows.

This element was championed thanks to the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics Games in Paris, from which Chiuri wanted to highlight themes of gender equality, inclusivity, respect, and acceptance. Like the Dior couture collection unveiled this summer, which supplied Olympic-adjacent looks, 2024 seems to be the brand’s year of exploring the world of women in sports. This time around, celebrities like Elizabeth Debicki, Brigitte Macron, and Natalie Portman enjoyed the adventure.  

Aside from the archery hitting the theme bullseyes, another show component involved text projected onto a 70-meter metal and glass structure. Intimate messages like “avoid to avoid, “calm, courageous, and consistent,” and “may the building of a strong mind and a strong body be the greatest work I have ever made” set the tone of the spectacle and fragment together a complex reality. 

For Napoli, the bow and art of archery have become integral to her life and work. One piece of archery that must be honoured is the degree of focus and patience required. “To have patience means to trust a process and set intentions and goals, to move towards each of them, slowly allowing the technical movements to sync with your muscles and your mind,” Napoli says. 

“When you miss the target, you have to understand why you missed. Often, it’s not only technical factors related to your equipment but also your body position and your mind. You have to learn to accept that things break, and you don’t always have to fix them,” Napoli says.