Maria Grazia Chiuri celebrates feminism and sisterhood in Paris

Paris: Designer Maria Grazia Chiuri once again celebrated feminism and sisterhood in her collection for Christian Dior at Paris Fashion Week, delving into the independent youth subculture styles of 1950s Britain.

Wearing a marl Dior dress, Jennifer Lawrence swept down the stone steps inside the Rodin Museum, the venue for Dior’s show Tuesday, to form her own sisterhood with English actress Gemma Arterton and model Karlie Kloss.

Lawrence remained an island of calm in the heaving mass of cameras that eventually caused security to reroute guests. She showed her engagement ring from New York art gallerist Cooke Maroney as photographers vied for shots in the sweltering room.

A gargantuan art installation covered the runway walls, spelling out words like “feminists” as Dior’s first female designer, Maria Grazia Chiuri, took the theme to the sassy styles of British “Teddy Girls,” a rebellious breed of British teens during the 1950s. It was a new territory.

Monochrome gingham, red check, full skirts, big black leather belts, pointy shoes and cutoff bobby socks all evoked the girls who formed part of a largely forgotten subculture that took its name from the Edwardian-style “Teddy” jacket donned by adherents.

The Teddy Girls rebelled against austerity after World War II and replaced it with messy exuberance in their clothes. It’s laudable that Chiuri sought inspiration in “the queens of a ravaged landscape” who were “impertinent characters,” according to the description in the program notes.

For fall-winter, slightly awkward bell hat-hybrids led the eye down to Edwardian coats, their exaggerated lapels touched on a trend seen in Milan. Pleated or buttoned-down, full skirts evoked the end of wartime rationing.