Dior Talks

Latest Episodes:

[Female gaze] Fashion photographer Paola Vivas discusses the new power dynamic being established by young women creatives Aug 06, 2020

Show notes

Welcome to this ninth episode of the Dior Talks series ‘The Female Gaze’. With the term developed in response to the writings of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, this podcast series will explore how the work of the female photographers and creatives collaborating with Dior offers a radically new and progressive image of women.

In this episode, series host Charlotte Jansen, a British journalist and author, speaks with young fashion photographer Paola Vivas, who is making waves in the fashion world with her fresh, natural perspective on femininity and gender. She speaks about her unlikely move to London and the diversity of the city which she finds so inspiring and also reflects on her Mexican roots and their influence on her aesthetic. She also discusses her 2018 collaboration with Dior.

Paola Vivas was born and raised in Merida in southern Mexico, an area of great beauty with a very distinctive culture and way of life. She initially came to London for a holiday while she figured out her next move after studying fashion design in Mexico. That holiday became a permanent relocation when she signed up for a course in fashion photography at the University of the Arts, having fallen in love with the creativity and diversity of the city. Since then she has moved quickly, becoming part of a new wave of young female photographers changing the boundaries and language of the depiction of the female body and the portrayal of womanhood and gender in fashion imagery.

In this new episode, Paola Vivas tells Charlotte Jansen about her complex relationship with London and how it has changed and influenced her work over time. They talk about her experiences of lockdown as a creative and image-maker and how it has enriched her understanding of urban space and possibility. In 2018, Paola Vivas was one of a group of Mexican women photographers commissioned by Maria Grazia Chiuri to shoot the Dior Cruise 2019 collection and she chose the extraordinary location of Luis Barragán’s architectural masterpiece, Cuadra San Cristóbal, as the setting of her Dior Magazine story. She elaborates on her collaboration with Dior and the beautiful, moving homage to Mexican female artistry which resulted.

generation of young women photographers, and her collaboration with @MariaGraziaChiuri for Dior Magazine.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

[Feminist Art] The celebrated African American artist discusses representing the strength and beauty of black women Jul 30, 2020

Show notes

Welcome to this ninth episode of the Dior Talks podcast series ‘Feminist Art’. This podcast series will explore the connections between Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri and contemporary women artists and curators.

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, a London-based curator, writer and art-historian, speaks with Mickalene Thomas, the New York-based painter and multimedia artist, about her career as an observer and documenter of African American womanhood in all its variety, and her lifelong fascination with the black female experience, from her own family members to the world at large.

Mickalene Thomas was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1971 and was raised by a remarkable mother who introduced her to visual art as a young child and raised her as a Buddhist. Thomas studied pre-law and theater in Portland, Oregon, before completing her BA and MA in Fine Art at the Pratt Institute and Yale School of Art, respectively. Based in Brooklyn, she has exhibited her paintings, collages, photographs, films and videos around the world, including in major exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, ICA Boston, Aspen Art Museum and Baltimore Museum of Art. She has also completed many commissions, amongst others at MoMA PS1 in New York, the Norton Museum of Art, and a mosaic mural for the wall of the U.S. Embassy in Dakar, Senegal.

Thomas’s work and research processes involve multiple reference points, including the history of art, the representation of black femininity and black power and the seminal 1970s ‘Blaxploitation’ genre. She has painted many iconic African American women, including Eartha Kitt, Whitney Houston, Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama, and is renowned for her deft use of classical traditions of fine art in her penetrative portrayals of the black experience.

For the Dior Cruise 2020 collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri commissioned Thomas to reinterpret Christian Dior’s iconic ‘Bar’ jacket, a timely collaboration and an opportunity for the two creatives to combine their passions for the historical and the contemporary, along with their mutual dedication to feminism and female creativity. In 2018, Thomas was invited to create a new and striking take on the ‘Lady Dior’ handbag, as part of the limited-edition ‘Dior Lady Art’ series.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

[Feminist Art] Marinella Senatore talks about combining protest, rituals and mass events, and her recent collaboration with Dior Jul 23, 2020

Show notes

Welcome to the eighth episode of the new Dior Talks podcast series ‘Feminist Art’. This series will highlight some of the key practitioners in the pioneering and evolving field of feminist art, a source of endless inspiration for Maria Grazia Chiuri, Creative Director of Women’s collections.

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, a London-based curator, writer and art-historian, speaks with Marinella Senatore, the Rome-based multimedia artist, about her challenging and politically uncompromising approach to making her work.

For the unveiling of the Cruise 2021 collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri commissioned Senatore to collaborate with local artisans on a series of mammoth light sculptures – luminarie – for the audience-free show, streamed live from Lecce in Puglia, Italy. These works incorporate varied phrases which inspired Maria Grazia Chiuri during the creation of the collection, the spirit of which is summed up by the statement, “We rise by lifting others”.

Marinella Senatore was born in Italy in 1977 and studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli, the Conservatorio and the Scuola Nazionale di Cinema in Rome. This expansive education has influenced her impressively wide-ranging artistic practice ever since, as she works with video, action, photography, installation, sculpture and painting. Fascinated by ideas of participation, dialogue, history and social structures, she is highly prolific and has exhibited widely. She has shown at the Centre Pompidou, MAXXI, the Queens Museum, Kunsthaus Zürich and Castello di Rivoli amongst many others, and has participated in numerous group shows, screenings and residences.

Her all-encompassing approach to making art was a perfect contribution to Maria Grazia Chiuri’s concept for the staging of the 2021 Cruise show, and the unique set of cultural and social conditions present in the province of Puglia, which was also the collection’s primary inspiration. Senatore is constantly inspired by communities and the actions and creations achievable through a site-specific, in-person approach to examining concepts of physical and virtual space and the challenges posed by the technical limitations of photography and cinematography. With Katy Hessel she discusses the collaboration and the origins of the bond she and Maria Grazia Chiuri formed over their shared passion for Italian feminist art.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

[Female gaze] Pamela Hanson talks about her thirty-year career and the path she carved as a woman in a male-dominated industry Jul 16, 2020

Show notes

Welcome to this eighth episode of the new Dior Talks series ‘The Female Gaze’. With the term developed in response to the writings of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, this podcast series will explore how the work of the female photographers and creatives collaborating with Dior offers a radically new and progressive image of women.

In this episode, series host Charlotte Jansen, a British journalist and author, talks to Pamela Hanson, a major figure in the world of fashion photography. She has always formed a unique bond with her subjects and has turned her lens on the major figures of the fashion world, building a formidable body of work in the editorial, advertising and portraiture spheres.

Pamela Hanson was born in London and grew up in Geneva. She originally moved to the USA to study fine arts at the University of Colorado and has lived and worked in New York for three decades. Throughout her career she has broken through entrenched gender barriers, working with and photographing generations of key players in the industry. She has seen first-hand the changes and evolutions which have taken place and has worked across media, creating a formidable catalogue of photographic and moving-image work. She has worked with all international editions of Vogue, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle and GQ, among many others, and has photographed and filmed a multitude of campaigns. In 2001, she published Girls, a book featuring over 200 examples of her personal and professional work, following this with Boys in 2006.

In this week’s episode, Charlotte Jansen speaks with Hanson about the position of women in fashion, discussing her how she views the changes which have taken place and whether these changes will prove lasting and meaningful. Hanson set up her first darkroom at the age of 13 and, as such, has been examining her own observations of the world ever since. She discusses her initial interest in art history and her unlikely entrée into the world of fashion. Her long and varied experience provides the backdrop to her trademark personal, intimate relationship with her subjects.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

[Female gaze] Lean Lui, a brilliant young Hong Kong-based fashion and art photographer, discusses her burgeoning career Jul 09, 2020

Show notes

Welcome to this seventh episode of the new Dior Talks series ‘The Female Gaze’. With the term developed in response to the writings of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, this podcast series will explore how the work of the female photographers and creatives collaborating with Dior offers a radically new and progressive image of women.

In this episode, series host Charlotte Jansen, a British journalist and author, speaks with Lean Lui, a young photographer making major strides in the worlds of fashion and art imagery with her development of a dreamlike, metaphorical, emotional aesthetic. Self-taught, she only began taking pictures seriously two years ago when she was nineteen, the same age at which, incredibly, she also published her first book. She first picked up a camera when she was six years old and has been fascinated with image-making ever since. On the eve of her move to London to start an MA at Central Saint Martins, she is in great demand for fashion, editorial and gallery-based work.

Now twenty-one years old, Lean Lui was born and lives in Hong Kong. She credits her interest in the photography to her early fascination with its chemical processes and arbitrary, analogue roots. Her love of this vintage aesthetic combined with a childhood obsession with reality TV modeling shows, and she started taking pictures of her friends and cousins while other children were in the playground. As she grew older, she developed a passion for the Surrealists and ‘wabi-sabi’, the Japanese aesthetic of transience and imperfection. Her greatest influences have always been painters and thinkers rather than other photographers. In the last couple of years, she has shot for Vogue Italia, VICE Magazine and Figaro HK, as well as the recent ‘Secret Garden’ shoot for Dior Magazine.

In this week’s episode, Charlotte Jansen asks Lean Lui about her influences and ambitions for the future and her own particular approach to feminism and expanding notions of the female gaze. Lui describes herself as a solitary child, more interested in creating her own worlds and forming her own visual language than following the status quo. As she gets ready to embark on her MA at Central Saint Martins in London, she elaborates on her own 21st-century feminism and already considerable body of work, including her landmark series of images ‘Teenage Problems’ in which she captured a group of girls navigating their place in the world.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

[Female gaze] Photographer Sarah Waiswa speaks about her work documenting the varied social issues of the African continent Jul 02, 2020

Show notes

Welcome to this sixth episode of the new Dior Talks series ‘The Female Gaze’. With the term developed in response to the writings of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, this podcast series will explore how the work of the female photographers and creatives collaborating with Dior offers a radically new and progressive image of women.

In this episode, series host Charlotte Jansen, a British journalist and author, speaks with Sarah Waiswa about her life and career. Waiswa is a documentary and portrait photographer who has dedicated her practice to the study and portrayal of the people of her home continent, in all their extraordinary variety. She takes a very contemporary approach to examining social issues, avoiding trap of the clichés, and views herself as a visual poet and storyteller.

Sarah Waiswa was born in Uganda during the time of the brutal dictatorship of Idi Amin, with her family forced to flee shortly afterwards. She grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, where she lives and works to this day. A self-taught photographer, having originally studied psychology and sociology in the US, it was her fascination with social topics in Kenya and the wider region which led her to take up the camera. She has photographed many subjects in many countries, and in 2016 won the prestigious Rencontres d’Arles Discovery Award for her moving and incisive project on the persecution of albinos in sub-Saharan Africa. Waiswa documents what she calls a ‘new African identity’ and is much focused on how the continent and its inhabitants portray themselves and are portrayed by the rest of the world.

In this week’s episode, Jansen and Waiswa discuss the strains of lockdown, motherhood and her unlikely route to photography. They also discuss how the camera was a tool of colonialism almost as deadly as the gun, and how images have been used to both dominate and demean African nations and peoples. Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri was inspired by Waiswa’s journey as a female African photographer and invited her, along with five other women photographers from the continent, to collaborate on shooting the cruise 2020 collection.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

[Female gaze] Fashion photographer Brigitte Niedermair discusses the roots and inspirations for her extraordinary and distinctive aesthetic Jun 25, 2020

Show notes

Welcome to this fifth episode of the new Dior Talks series ‘The Female Gaze’. With the term developed in response to the writings of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, this podcast series will explore how the work of the female photographers and creatives collaborating with Dior offers a radically new and progressive image of women.

In this episode, series host Charlotte Jansen, a British journalist and author, chats with Brigitte Niedermair, a fashion photographer who, over twenty five years, has developed and honed a highly individual approach to creating the fashion image, upending stereotypes about the genre, and expanding the parameters through which we understand the portrayal of women, and also how we view the female gaze.

Brigitte Niedermair was born in the South Tyrol region of Italy in 1971. After dropping out of a photography course, she eventually ended up in the U.S. She worked as a casting director and photographer’s assistant, before taking up the camera herself. She spent ten years constantly on the road, shooting at the highest levels of the industry, using her self-belief and determination to push boundaries and succeed in a stultifyingly male-dominated world. She moved back to her home region in the 2000s, where she has since been based and has always considered her style and creative force to be deeply influenced by her origins. Her editorial work has been published widely and she has staged monographic exhibitions of her patiently composed images worldwide, including a major solo show at the Palazzo Mocenigo as part of the Venice Biennale in 2019. In 2017, she shot Maria Grazia Chiuri’s first collection for the House for Dior Magazine, returning to shoot the autumn-winter 2019 and spring-summer 2020 campaigns, as well as the new fall 2020 campaign, which she also art directed, starring Jennifer Lawrence.

In this week’s episode, Charlotte meets with Niedermair virtually at her mountain home and they talk about her experience of lockdown, her thoughts on her own journey as a woman photographer, both in Italy and the wider world, and the profound and varied ideas behind her starkly elegant work. Originally fascinated by painting, Niedermair was eventually drawn to the sense of reality required by photography and its relative newness as a means of image creation. She reflects on this combination of the concrete, the modern and the immediate, which has long drawn her to the camera.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

[Female gaze] Brigitte Lacombe discusses her extraordinary career capturing the inner lives of her internationally celebrated subjects Jun 11, 2020

Show notes

Welcome to this fourth episode of the new Dior Talks series ‘The Female Gaze’. With the term developed in response to the writings of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, this podcast series will explore how the work of the female photographers and creatives collaborating with Dior offers a radically new and progressive image of women.

In this episode, series host Charlotte Jansen, a British journalist and author, speaks with Brigitte Lacombe, the French-born New Yorker who has made an esteemed career photographing major figures in Hollywood and the world of theater from a unique point of view. Her ‘behind-the-scenes’ images of iconic figures have brought a specialist and specific angle to the concept of the ‘female gaze’.

Brigitte Lacombe was raised in the Gard region of southern France and began her career working in the black and white photography lab of Elle magazine in Paris. Her first break came when she traveled to the 1975 Festival de Cannes where she met actors Dustin Hoffman and Donald Sutherland. From this point she started to shoot on film sets, documenting the making of the movies of Martin Scorsese, Sam Mendes, David Mamet and others. Over the years she has developed a strikingly intimate, private aesthetic, subverting the traditional posturing associated with fame and moving beyond the classic idea of celluloid celebrity.

Here, Lacombe discusses her approach to image-making over more than four decades and how her vision has evolved during her time working in a movie industry which has undergone immense political and social changes. She examines the development of her style, of which Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri is a great admirer, which led to her inviting Lacombe to shoot several campaigns, including two featuring actress and muse Jennifer Lawrence.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

[Female gaze] Janette Beckman discusses her long career and how she brought her backstage aesthetic to the world of Dior May 28, 2020

Show notes

Welcome to this third episode of the new Dior Talks series ‘The Female Gaze’. With the term developed in response to the writings of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, this podcast series will explore how the work of the female photographers and creatives collaborating with Dior offers a radically new and progressive image of women.

In this episode, series host Charlotte Jansen, a British journalist and author, speaks with Janette Beckman, the London-born, New York-based documentary photographer who shot the autumn-winter 2019 campaign. Beckman’s remarkable career spans more than four decades, during which time she has photographed the rock and punk legends of the UK and USA, the emerging hip-hop generation in the early ’80s and numerous iconic album covers.

Janette Beckman was raised in North London and attended St. Martins School of Art before studying photography at the London College of Communication. She was already working for legendary music magazines Sounds, Melody Maker and The Face in the late ’70s and early ’80s and her first assignment was for the group Siouxsie and the Banshees. On moving to New York in 1982, her gritty aesthetic ruffled feathers in the context of the air-brushed style of most album covers of the time. Her response was to focus on the new and revolutionary hip-hop scene, photographing Public Enemy, The Beastie Boys and LL Cool J amongst many others.

In this week’s episode, Beckman discusses her experiences of being a young woman and a foreigner in the New York music and photography scenes at a seminal yet very different time. She ruminates on the notion of the outsider and issues of appropriation, and how her origins in London’s punk culture contributed to the curiosity that spurred her entrée into the rap scene rising in New York’s outer boroughs. She also discusses her own ‘female gaze’ and how she captured, with her direct and irreverent eye, the intimate and typically unseen moments in the creation of the spring-summer 2017 collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri’s debut at the House.

Discover a selection of works:

The Women Behind the Lens x Janette Beckman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AYU2mjfIPA

Janette Beckman, Dior Backstage, Spring-Summer 2017 https://www.dior.com/diormag/fr_be/article/les-photos-de-janette-beckman

Janette Beckman, Dior Fall-Winter 2019 https://janettebeckman.com/new-work/dior-1/

Janette Beckman, Mods Streatham, 1976 https://janettebeckman.com/uk-youth/#2

Janette Beckman, LL Cool J, 1985 https://janettebeckman.com/hip-hop/#5

Janette Beckman, Salt ‘N Pepa, 1987 https://janettebeckman.com/hip-hop/sp/

Martha Cooper http://www.stevenkasher.com/artists/martha-cooper

‘Girl On Girl’, Charlotte Jansen https://smarturl.it/girlongirl

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

[Female gaze] Maripol discusses her long and fascinating career in New York and her photographic collaborations with Dior May 21, 2020

Show notes

Welcome to this second episode of the new Dior Talks series ‘The Female Gaze’. With the term developed in response to the writings of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, this podcast series which explore how the work of the female photographers and creatives collaborating with Dior offers a radically new and progressive image of women.

In this episode, series host Charlotte Jansen, a British journalist and author, speaks with Maripol, an icon of 1980s culture in New York and an influential artist, filmmaker, designer and stylist. Maripol discusses her extraordinary career and her passions and influences from her childhood in France to the heady days and multidisciplinary inspirations of Manhattan, and her photographic collaborations with Maria Grazia Chiuri, Creative Director of Women’s collections.

Having moved to New York City in 1976 at the age of 20 with her then-boyfriend Edo Bertoglio, the Swiss photographer and director with whom she would have a highly fruitful artistic collaboration, Maripol became art director of Fiorucci by the early ‘80s, before opening her own boutique, Maripolitan, in the mid-80s. She was Madonna’s stylist for her first two iconic albums, creating the famous look for Like a Virgin, and also made numerous documentary films. She directed The Message, about the life of Keith Haring, and also produced Downtown 81, starring Jean-Michel Basquiat and Blondie. She is noted for her pioneering use of the Polaroid camera – her first SX-70 was a gift from Bertoglio – particularly for fashion photography and portraiture, and in 2014 published a book of her work, MARIPOLARAMA.

Always outspoken and audacious, she divulges her unique take on life, culture and feminism in this episode. She has always collaborated with remarkable individuals and has always been fascinated with fashion. She brought to it her broad education in the arts and her rebellious, punk sensibility, and as soon as she landed in New York, people noticed her for her unique style and self-made accessories. She fully embraced the collaborative spirit of the city at that time and has been creating and working with like-minded pioneers ever since, most recently with her Polaroid shoots of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s collections.

Discover a selection of works:

- "The Women Behind the Lens: Maripol, Dior Mag, 20th March 2016 https://www.dior.com/diormag/en_hk/article/the-photos-of-maripol

- "The Photos of Maripol", Dior Mag, 20th March 2016 https://www.dior.com/diormag/en_hk/article/the-photos-of-maripol

- Backstage Dior Spring-Summer ready-to-wear 2017 by Maripol https://vimeo.com/306933860

Grace Jones by Maripol at Studio 54, 1979https://www.phillips.com/detail/maripol/NY000309/289

- Hanra, "Maripol: Did I discover Madonna? She discovered me!", The Guardian, 2015https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/mar/20/maripol-madonna-photographer-stylist-polaroids-exhibition

- Debbie Harry by Maripol, 1980https://www.absolutart.com/us/artist/maripol/artwork/deborah-harry-1980/

- "Keith Haring: The Message" directed by Maripol, 2013https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xzb9ki

- "Downtown 81" directed by Edo Bertoglio produced by Maripol, 2001 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6GoKk-iMOs

- Geller "Jewelry designer Maripol on Fiorucci, Grace Jones and Madonna", Interview Magazine, 2018 https://www.interviewmagazine.com/fashion/maripol-lynn-geller-interview

- Grace Jones modelling Maripol's rubber bracelets for Fiorucci, 1980s https://www.vfiles.com/vfiles/53612

- Museum of Sex,"Punk Lust: Raw Provocation 1971–1985", New York, November 29, 2018 – November 19, 2019 https://www.museumofsex.com/portfolio_page/punk/

- A whip belt and brace necklace by Maripol in Bettridge "A new exhibition of punk-era lust reminds us how gentrified sex has become", Interview Magazine, 2018 https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/maripol-and-the-museum-of-sex-exhibit-reminds-us-how-gentrified-sex-is

- "Andy Warhol with Polaroid" by Anton Perish, 1977 in Sirisuk "Un photographe s'est immiscé dans les clubs new-yorkais les plus cools des années 1970", I-D Magazine, 2018 https://i-d.vice.com/fr/article/d35e5y/un-photographe-sest-immisce-dans-les-clubs-new-yorkais-les-plus-cools-des-annees-1970

- Interview Magazine, December 1985 https://www.interviewmagazine.com/tag/new-again-december-1985

- Maripol, "Little Red Riding Hood", 2010 https://maripol.com/books/

- Lisa Lyon by Robert Mapplethorpe, 1982 https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/90662/lisa-lyon

- "Robert Mapplethorpe's Sensual Flowers", AnOther Magazine, 2016 https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/8524/robert-mapplethorpes-sensual-flowers

- “Girl On Girl”, Charlotte Jansen https://smarturl.it/girlongirl