Dior Spring 2025: Amazons in Athleisure
For Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri, the Paris Olympics were more of a marathon than a sprint. “We worked on it for one year,” she said of the protracted and secretive process of crafting outfits for performers including Lady Gaga and Celine Dion ahead of the opening ceremony.
Little wonder she had no energy left to watch the actual competitions. No matter: Chiuri’s interest in sport does not start and end with the Games. The designer has been weaving athletic references into her collections ever since her fencing-inspired debut for Dior in 2016.
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This season, she took a closer look at the Amazons, the female warriors and hunters who inspired a 1951 design by founder Christian Dior, in name, and this season’s featured artist, Sagg Napoli, in spirit.
Napoli, whose real name is Sofia Ginevra Giannì, delivered an early viral moment for Paris Fashion Week by shooting real arrows inside a 230-foot-long glass-and-steel installation that ran the length of the runway.
“She represents a contemporary Amazon,” Chiuri said of the feminist artist, who is also a competitive archer.
The same could be said of the three models who opened the show, dressed in bodysuits and knee-high gaiters, soft bags slung across their backs like quivers.
It was the starting shot of a collection that melded the asymmetric design of Dior’s original “Amazone” look with monochromatic sportswear featuring graphic checkerboard patterns and go-faster stripes.
Adidas can rest easy: Dior’s seven-stripe motif, which appeared on track pants, shorts, mesh dresses and biker jackets, was inspired by an Op Art-style logo from the early ‘70s. It was even woven into dressier looks like a gray wool pantsuit, or a double-faced wool cape.
It’s one of many references Chiuri has lifted from the era of creative director Marc Bohan, who was the first to meld sportswear with couture. On her mood board this season was a 1964 illustration by Kenneth Paul Block for WWD of a parka from the Dior Sport line.
“Starting in the ‘60s and ‘70s, sports transformed the way that men and women dressed. Bohan immediately understood that,” she noted.
Like her predecessor, she fused couture elegance with athleisure ease. Dresses and jackets with off-kilter necklines were effortlessly chic, while baggy track pants lent the brand’s signature Bar jacket an urban edge. Jersey even crept into the eveningwear section, with stretchy versions of her signature goddess gowns.
Dior, whose parent company LVMH Mo?t Hennessy Louis Vuitton was a premium partner of the Paris Games, is clearly betting on a surge in demand for style-conscious sportswear.
As the first Olympic Games to achieve full gender parity on the field, the event gave female athletes unprecedented exposure, from the high-profile gender row around Algerian boxer Imane Khelif to the mom athletes who were breastfeeding while competing.
Chiuri said she likes how women are breaking free from sports uniforms and bringing more personality to their competition looks. “The sports world is also seeing a revolution in the way that they wear their makeup and their hair,” she said.
Perhaps that was why the show left you craving for a bit more diversity in the casting and styling. How cool would it be if Chiuri, who has yet to jump on the body positivity train when it comes to her models, highlighted strong female bodies of all shapes and sizes?
For more Paris spring 2025 reviews, click here.
Launch Gallery: Dior Spring 2025 Ready-to-Wear Collection
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