Hometown Glory: Maria Grazia Chiuri's Final Show

As rain poured on the models as they finally appeared on the runway before the audience, Dior’s Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri’s departure from Dior was meaningful and memorable.

The world-renowned Maria Grazia Chiuri then graduated from the Istituto Europeo di Design in that city, pursuing fashion design studies. Her career achievements may not have begun at Dior but at its Italian rival houses, Fendi and Valentino. The former appointed Chiuri as the head designer of handbags from 1989 to 1999, while the latter recruited her from 1999 to 2016 as accessories designer and co-creative director with Pierpaolo Piccioli. In 2016, she landed her role as the first female creative director at Dior.

Chiuri wrapped up her decade-long tenure at Dior with a long-awaited hometown runway show in Rome on May 27th for the brand’s Cruise 2026 collection. With inspiration derived from modern Roman culture, cinema, and the city’s traditional craftsmanship, it was Rome’s call to decide whether her last Dior act deserved it as the runway backdrop.

Many theorized that the Roman-born creative director was waiting until the end of her contract at the French maison to host a fashion show in her birth city. Such wasn’t the case. This event was the second time she hosted an event in Rome. The first time, she co-hosted a haute couture show in the Italian capital a decade ago for Altaroma Fashion Week as Valentino’s co-creative director, alongside Pierpaolo Piccioli.

Noticeably dominated by whites and creams, models donned dresses, caped jumpsuits, and suits, all of which carried feathers and floral appliques that were also accessorized with black lace blindfolds and floral headpieces. But also equally glamorous were the sheer blacks, ruffles, and waistcoats. Despite this collection being catered to prêt-à-porter, Chiuri played with haute couture techniques through intricate detailing and lightness within the fabrics, an assumption an astute fashion critic would make.

Chiuri recruited costume house Tirelli to “show that the construction behind a film costume is very close to haute couture,” mentioned Dior’s creative director in Women’s Wear Daily. She took a step to show cinema’s role in Rome’s modern history by harnessing the mason’s haute couture team with Tirelli to revive the costumes from classical movies such as “The Leopard” and “The Age of Innocence.”

And if the fashion show wasn’t enough for the guests, Maria Grazia Chiuri also hosted a preceding gala celebrating her renovation of the monumental Teatro Della Cometa, translated into The Comet Theater, where there was a gender-specific dress code: white for women and black for men. The five-year-long project was completed with her daughter, Rachele, and celebrated the theater’s founder and Chiuri’s art heroine, Mimì Pecci Blunt. During that time, she and Christian Dior expressed a shared hope for a better future by hosting art exhibitions, concerts, etc. Expanding the brand to this extent was no easy feat for Chiuri.

With Chiuri as the French maison’s first-ever female creative director, it was natural to witness her grand accomplishments embodying those of strength and feminism. One can recall her runway collection themes conveying sisterhood and women’s empowerment messages, such as “sisterhood is powerful” and “women’s love is unpaid labor.”

Aside from her feminist achievements, she even received a ceremonial award during Paris Haute Couture Week Fall/Winter 2019, which happened to be the Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honor, presented by the French Secretary of State for Gender Equality, Marlène Schiappa.

Next came Chiuri’s iconic Roman fashion show that not only wrapped up her tenure at the House of Dior but also presented an ode to her heritage on an evening in Rome. After all, it was a nighttime fashion show.