We started working on this collection during the lockdown. Therefore we knew we couldn’t do a real show. It was clear that we had to guide my teams and I create in a new way to think.
The idea at the base of it all was to try and create a real collection but as a scale model. So, we created mannequins that were 40 cm tall. This here is a cape The ruffles are created in tiers. We made the small one first a bit of tulle and it stands up on its own.
However, when we have to do the same thing for the big one, it’s a whole other story. We did a lot of trials with godets and pleating. Looking at the profile, when it gives ‘z’ effect it’s due to raised pleating. When it makes ‘z’ forms, its flat pleating.
In reality, we can call them miniatures, which required an attention to detail that was almost obsessive, and where everything from the skirts, jackets, and lining were all like real haute couture garments. This is the famous ‘Bar’ suit, draped To drape this jacket, we begin at the center-front with the straight grain. and we first start by drapping the waist. The waist is fixed in place, so that the peplum can spread out naturally, that’s the most important.
The basic inspiration is a fan from the 1920s that, when she saw it, gave Maria Grazia the idea of a pleated skirt. This gown began from an embroidered bodice inspired by an imaginary forest. It’s composed of an embroidery of micro beads in a multiple of green shades. All the details, all appropriately proportioned.
We used two layers of chiffon inset with the motif. if I show it to you like this, it looks like a blossoming flower. we put the bias strips, we sew them up, and turn then inside out. And once turned inside out it becomes this.
We stretch them out using an iron. and then embroider them directly onto the embroidery lines. The dress is in a verdigris lamé, and the little bias rouleaux are in the same fabric in micro spaghetti cords. You need to have fairy fingers before you attempt to make spaghetti cords.
There are two techniques on this dress, Here it’s flat sun-ray pleating, and the top is draped, but in a sun-ray style, and like that they work together. Of course, when it comes to the draping, as in the big version. it has to maintain the same proportions and have pretty much the same number of drapes as the big one. So it’s sculpted, not craped in a natural manner.
This is a ball gown. There’s the suggestion of a single thread pulled at the wait, which gives this feeling of a very defined waist. From the beginning, she wanted us to do the pleating by hand here. There is three layers of construction, and you get the impression of a dress that stands up on its own.
And this is typical Monsieur Dior but revisited by Maria Grazia. The small format is a third the size of the regular format. It’s quiet like playing a sort of game. Every millimeter counts because you have to multiply it by three.
We will have twice that, twice nice meters The armholes are much smaller. With a miniature you need to be really precise Anything that isn’t right will immediately stand out.