Dior remodels concept of pyramid selling with fashion tribute to sky

Any notion luxury brands would pull back on lavish fashion shows at exotic locations post-pandemic was debunked on Saturday night when Dior staged a show at the pyramids of Giza in Egypt.

An otherworldly level: Fashion from Dior’s autumn 2023 menswear show, which graced the pyramids of Gizke, Egypt, on Saturday night. Picture: Stephane Cardinale-Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

Any notion that luxury brands would pull back on lavish fashion shows at exotic locations post-pandemic was well and truly debunked on Saturday night when Dior staged a show at the pyramids of Giza in Egypt.

The event, which was attended by celebrities including Lewis Hamilton, Robert Pattinson and Naomi Campbell, is the first fashion show to be held at the pyramids and a major coup for Dior.

Pre-pandemic brands such as Dior, Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Gucci attempted to outdo one another by staging collection shows away from their home turf of Paris and Milan.

Destination shows were scuttled during the Covid-19 pandemic, but they came roaring back mid this year when Chanel headed to Monaco, Dior to Seville for its women’s collection, Gucci showed in Puglia, and Louis Vuitton went to San Diego.

On Thursday, Chanel will show its Métiers d’art collection at Dakar in Senegal.

With its autumn 2023 men’s show at the pyramids in Egypt, however, Dior raised the stakes to an otherworldly level.

The Dior Fall 2023 Menswear collection was inspired more by the sky and astrology than Egypt itself. Picture: Stephane Cardinale-Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

Kim Jones, the British designer who is the artistic director of Dior Men, told The Australian before the show that the inspiration for the collection was focused on the sky more than Egypt itself.

“Christian Dior was obsessed with astrology and the [ancient] Egyptians were obsessed with ­astronomy, and I liked that association,” he said. “I looked at it as a sci-fi spacey thing rather than an Egyptian thing.”

Jones, who spent his teenage years in Africa as the child of a hydro­geologist and has lived in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Botswana, said he had visited Egypt several times for holidays, but it was actually Dior’s chief executive, Pietro Beccari, who suggested the country as a location for a fashion show.

The collection featured earthy tones and desert colours on clothes that had a distinct utilitarian aspect to them.

Contemporary techniques and textures, from high-frequency neoprene panelling and injection moulding to anodised metal finishes were combined with more traditional fabrications. Some bags in the collection were made by basket weavers in Egypt as were some blankets.

According to Jones, more than 1000 local people were employed on the collection.

Dior went with a “sci-fi spacey thing” with its Fall 2023 Menswear show. Picture: Stephane Cardinale-Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

“We wanted it to be something that benefits people and is not just us going in with all our people and then leaving,” he said.

Christian Dior started his fashion business in 1947 and this collection featured 75 looks for 75 years of Dior. It was not just big in scope, it was also a collection that was big by design necessitated by the show’s backdrop.

“You need big silhouettes in front of a pyramid,” said Jones.