The Dior Connection: Crafting Cross Cultural Couture

Riya Kumari

The Dior Connection: Crafting Cross Cultural Couture

Chanakya Ateliers’ global collaboration with Dior has brought forth the culturally rich craft of Indian artisans to global recognition and fame. Fusing fashion with empowerment, this collaboration is an outcome of the coming together of powerful women from different times and places — Dior’s creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri, African-American artist Mickalene Thomas, the accomplished mixed-race women who served as Thomas’s muses, and finally, the women at Chanakya Ateliers.

Chanakya for Dior. Illustrated by Riya Kumari, Visual Storyteller at ThisDay

Chanakya International, the atelier and export house, was launched in 1982 by Vinod Maganlal Shah. Taking a detour from the family’s iron and steel business, Vinod went on to explore the country’s craft clusters and brought with him master craftsmen from Kutch, Lucknow, Varanasi, and Kashmir. He started the export house, providing surface ornamentation in a detail- and quality-oriented work ethic. His children Swali and Nehal Shah went on to take over the operation of the atelier.

Chanakya’s non-profit school was founded in 2016, and has since then educated over 1000 women. They focus on social and environmental sustainability while preserving traditional craftsmanship techniques. The school’s one-year program consists of master artisans teaching over 300 techniques of hand embroidery. The women also learn business management and receive training in starting new ventures. It concludes with an internship that offers experience in global luxury craft-making.

Chanakya, with its fine craftsmanship and meticulously embroidered pieces, has set the mise-en-scène for the global audience to discern India’s vast repository of art and craft.

On the morning of 12 February 1947, Christian Dior presented his first-ever haute couture fashion show in Paris. For context, ‘haute couture’ is the French term for high fashion. These garments are handmade and created as one-of-a-kind pieces for a specific client. Dior’s post-World-War-II collection was famously known as ‘The New Look’, a term given by the then editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, Carmel Snow. Everything in the collection — from petite waists to the gentle shoulder and exaggerated hips — was in direct, striking contrast with the dull, utilitarian military garments people had become accustomed to.

Seven decades and six art directors later, the Dior legacy lives on. Currently, Dior is being helmed by Maria Grazia Chiuri, who is committed to using art and handicraft to bridge global communities. The scale at which she produces these works brings artisans who are otherwise considered the "back office” of a fashion label to the forefront. For her Haute Couture Spring Summer 2023 show, Chiuri worked with Mickalene Thomas, a contemporary African-American visual artist, to explore themes related to the journeys of path-breaking mixed-race women who became exemplary by making the choice to think differently. Thomas created collages based on thirteen such women using archival images and overlaid them on pixellated grids with a colour palette of the traditional CMYK printing process. The collage was then printed on textile at an enormous scale and ornamented with elaborate embroidery.

This is where Dior’s connection to India comes in — Chanakya Ateliers. Painstakingly embroidered with sequins by the artisans at this Mumbai-based nonprofit school and atelier, the tapestry came alive with minute details crafted to perfection. Displayed prominently as the backdrop of the ramp, the bespoke tapestry was a notable feature of the show, along with the sleek garments, ornamentation, artfully creased satins, and structured midi suits.

Chanakya Ateliers is a global export house based in Mumbai, with a non-profit school dedicated to craft, culture, and women’s empowerment. Known for their extraordinary hand-embroidered designs, Chanakya is on a journey to preserve and showcase this age-old tradition. Over the years, Chanakya has acquired multiple international clients, including Christian Dior, Fendi, Valentino, Versace, Moschino, and Yves Saint Laurent. For the Haute Couture SS 2023, Dior’s use of Chanakya Ateliers was another addition to their long-term collaboration with them. Artisans at Chanakya School of Craft had earlier created pieces for Dior for its ready-to-wear collections and worked on Dior’s couture show for the first time in Spring 2020. They went on to create mesmerising tapestries for the Fall 2021, Spring 2022, and Spring 2023 couture shows, and most recently for the much-hyped Pre-Fall 2023 show that took place at Gateway of India earlier this year.