Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior’s Creative Director and the woman behind the hit We Should All Be Feminists t-shirt, has admitted that she did not find feminism until her forties.
‘I didn’t really discover feminism until I was about 48, largely thanks to my daughter Raquele,’ the 53-year-old told The TelegraphThe Telegraph. Chiuri attributes her late awakening to growing up in ‘a golden time in Italy.’
‘I was brought up to think a woman could do anything she wanted. That was pre Berlusconi. It was downhill for Italian women once he came into power. Total objectification. Honestly, I’m so happy my daughter is living in London. I just wish my son wasn’t living in Italy right now,’ Churi explained.
Having worked in the fashion industry throughout her career, specifically in predominately woman-led companies, Chiuri became what she described as ‘very complacent.’
‘For all those years I worked at Fendi, it never occurred to me to be vocal. It was such an amazing company - and entirely run by the five Fendi sisters. There didn’t seem any need to shout about feminism.'
However, by the time Chiuri came to head up design at Dior, fourth-wave feminism was in full swing and thanks to the influence of both her daughter and Chimamanda Ngochi Adichie’s book We Should All be Feminists, Chiuri felt it was time to address the issue sartorially.
She included Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists slogan on a t-shirt as part of her debut SS17 collection and for her SS18 collection she went on to use the title from art critic Linda Nochlin’s 1971 essay, Why Are There No Great Women Artists?.
While Dior have come under fire for commercializing the cause, Chiuri was quick to add that all money from the profits from the feminism t-shirts have gone to charity.
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