đź’ Maria Grazia Chiuri in conversation with Alicia Keys for ODDA Magazine
This article first appeared in the ODDA Magazine 19th Issue “You, Me, and Everyone We Know”.
MARIA GRAZIA CHIURI IN CONVERSATION WITH ALICIA KEYS
Maria Grazia Chiuri, Christian Dior’s creative director, and singer Alicia Keys never
met before they connected for this conversation. But from the moment the two women began to chat, it was clear that they were kindred spirits in more ways than one. Not surprisingly, they are both big believers in finding ways to empower women, but they also bonded over their Italian heritage (Key’s mother is of Italian descent), the importance of keeping a journal, and how their work isn’t work, it’s a life’s calling.
JESSICA MICHAULT. As you both have never met before, I thought I would start things off by asking each of you how you first discovered the other’s work. So Alicia, how did you first become aware of Maria Grazia’s designs?
ALICIA KEYS. The coolest part is that a lot of times you admire people’s work and you don’t even know it’s them. I think that is what is so incredible when you see artists in all different realms and mediums and then you get to discover them. My favorite thing is to discover such a powerful woman behind such a powerful brand and essence. I prefer to call brands essences because it is an essence that you create, it is your essence that you bring to it. I love the part of discovering and finding very powerful, strong, creative, magnificent women behind greatness that you love. That
to me is the most fun thing.
J.M. What about you Maria? How did you discover Alicia’s music?
MARIA GRAZIA CHIURI. Alicia is so famous and I know her music very well. I am very impressed by her and she inspires me. I am always so interested in women artists who work in all sorts of different kinds of art. I think that it is really important that women express themselves through what they are passionate about. But it is not easy to do this. I hope that for the new generation of women, they will have more role models like Alicia, to look up to and be inspired by.
J.M. I feel like when you came to Dior you had a very clear vision of what you wanted to accomplish with your designs. But more than that, you wanted to make Dior a platform for bigger conversations about the role of women in the world. Can you talk to me a bit about that?
M.G.C. When I started at Dior, that was a very specific moment in my life because I was 52 years old and I had a certain maturity and understanding of who I am that I wanted to express myself in a particular way. At the time, people told me that Dior was a feminine brand. And I was fine with that, but I wanted to speak about femininity in a different way. That was the real starting point for me. I have a daughter that is at an age where I felt it was important to start the conversation
about how women, no matter what background they have, can still express themselves however they want and that they don’t have to fit into someone else’s perception of what femininity or even being a woman is.
J.M. Talking about female empowerment, I am curious when you, Alicia, felt like you really came into your own as a woman and accepted your power?
A.K. I think that because I started so young in the business, the first time that my first song and album came out, I was 18 years old; I was first signed when I was 14 years old. I had been spending a lot of time pretending that I was clear about what I wanted to do and trying to convince myself that I was strong enough to figure it out and get through it, in this very foreign world. I spent so much time pretending that I was strong and I could do it all, that finally, I convinced myself that I was strong and could do it all. And I was so young. I depended on a lot of people, a lot of older people that have a lot of experience. A lot of times I figured that they knew what was best.
Honestly, I would say that it has only been in the last four years that I actually, truly feel that I am in power and I actually understand what that means. I am clear about how to access it and I am confident enough to not be afraid of it. I am realizing that it is my daily prayer, how to be fearless, how to continue to know what my purpose is.
J.M. Maria Grazia, how do you continue to stay creative when you have so many collections you have to produce every year for Dior, and at such a fast pace? And then on the other side, Alicia, it has been about four years between your last albums and this new one. These creative processes are very different, and I am curious about how you two deal with them in terms of how time can create limits or be endless.
M.G.C. It’s true that fashion is a completely different way of working compared to making music. But honestly the speed isn’t the difficult part. I see every collection as a new project and each one of them is very exciting to me. I also have a team that I really like to work with. Sometimes the timing is very short, but I have to say Dior is a big company that is very well organized, which has helped me. I think it would be more difficult for a young designer that does not work for a company to keep up the same pace. The important thing for me is that what I create is exactly what I want. If you have a good company and brand, this is possible. I am very lucky to be in Dior.
A.K. I truly am fascinated by the extreme fast pace that designers have to keep up with and to make each collection happen. To be an individual at that pace requires a real perspective that is unheard of honestly. I think about that a lot. That is the thing, how do you find your truth and honor your uniqueness when you don’t have time to think about it? You don’t have time. You have to get it done.
I think it is particularly different for me maybe because I create everything. I create the music, I create the arrangements, I create the lyrics and so it does take some time. But I know that is what makes me unique and that is what makes me special. I would say it takes at least eight months to create a body of work. Then you have to create the visuals that go along with it, or decide how you are going to market it and basically how you are going to bring it to the world. Although you have partners to work on it with, you still have to make sure it’s telling the story you want to tell. It is
definitely a long process for sure but I think that is how it needs to be to create that magic.
Portrait by Laura Sciacovelli
J.M. Let’s talk a bit about passion. Both of you have known that you wanted to pursue your respective careers since you were very young. Maria Grazia, you watched your mother work as a dressmaker and Alicia, you have said that by the age of 4 you knew you were going to be a singer. What is it about what you do that is so fulfilling?
M.G.C. For me, it has just always been a part of my life. When people ask me “at what moment did I first realize I wanted to be a designer,” that is always very difficult because I believe that fashion grew inside of me my whole life. I don’t feel that I ever have to work. It is just part of my life. This is how my life is. I was born and raised in fashion.
A.K. Anything you love, I wouldn’t call it easy because there is a level of work and dedication. Nothing is just easy. But you are definitely driven, and you love it. You are excited about the challenge or what you can bring to it. I definitely agree about the passion for it. What draws me to it is that I never know how it is going to come together. I never know how it is going to happen.
Every time, I am in shock and awe of it. So that element of the unknown, and being shocked by it too. There are songs that I have done that are just okay, but I respect it because it is part of my journey. When you actually land something that you realize is really good, you just never know when that is going to come. So I think that is the beauty of it; it isn’t just a given. That makes me want to keep coming back to it.
J.M. Both of you collaborate on multiple levels. How do you balance the all-important collaborative side of things with staying true to your vision?
M.G.C. For me, collaboration is first a conversation. I like to speak with other artists.
That is what interests me, to see other points of view. I think that this is a way to improve my work but also a way to reflect on what I do. I especially like having conversations with other women because my point of view on fashion is that it is something more than just clothes, it is also about your relationship with your body.
Clothes are the first home for our bodies so we have to think deeply about that
important connection.
A.K. First of all, I am so honored to be speaking with you Maria, and connect like this. Collaboration is such an interesting process because at first, I never collaborated; I had one person that I trusted very much and that was it. I never wanted to write a song with another person. I felt so shy and vulnerable because any creative space is precious and too many people’s opinions in that space can really change your direction even if you don’t realize it.
That way of doing things lasted for about six years over three albums. Then I started to become more open to a lot of things, and one of them became collaborations. I wanted to explore what it felt like to be in an uncomfortable space or to work with people that I did admire and see what could come from it. From that, I really started to enjoy it.
Recently, I have started to come back to this place of creating a personal space for myself, because it is really rewarding to listen to yourself and to have your own space and creation. Now I have a little balance to want to have space to create and be with just myself. It is really important to hone your own voice and skills. It is something you have to work on. You have to do that by yourself sometimes, and that has been a really good reminder for me.
J.M. Alicia, this has been a very busy year for you. At the start of it, you debuted an autobiography-esque book and now you have an album coming out. I am curious what it was like for you to write the book and how did that process affect your album?
A.K. They really belonged together; the book and the album. The book is about the process that I am describing of finding the way to yourself and not losing that, but first finding it. So many of us don’t find it. We spend so much time trying to please everybody. But when do you know what you actually think? How are you going to stand in it and hold true to it even when people don’t like it? The book took so long to write, but you can’t rush that stuff.
The album that is coming out, “Alicia,” took about two years for it to all come together, and the book took about two years as well. The processes were kind of parallel in that way. I talked about the music in the book because a lot of it I was creating simultaneously and a lot of it was coming from experiences of finding more of myself. Even when I journal every morning, I find it clarifies so much. When you write things down, it matters.
M.G.C. I write a lot when I do collections. For each collection, I write in a book the
things I don’t want to forget. It helped me to maintain the point of the collection. I
bet that must help you with your music because through the writing you reflect on
what you did in your life and what you want to do in the future. You have a vision
about yourself when you write.
J.M. Maria Grazia, one of the things I appreciate about what you are doing at Dior is that there is a throughline between all of your collections. There are shapes and ideas that are revisited each season instead of something totally new every time so that you don’t get sartorial whiplash.
M.G.C. I have a very specific idea about my vision about the new generation for Dior.
I want to move this brand in the future. Also, even if I have to do different collections, the vision is one vision. My conversation is about the new generation of women. I think we should support women with our work so they can express themselves. I hope when women arrive in Dior, they can relate to the style. I think that many people in fashion made the mistake of trying to impose a certain way of dressing or looking. What I want to do is to not have a “model” woman. I want to
create different ways to use fashion to help women feel good about themselves and
express who they are, not who Dior is.
A.K. Maria, I think that is huge, because we are what we see. There is so much out there that is trying to dictate what is beautiful or current or what society leans towards. It is really beautiful to break that norm and be encouraging of women expressing who they truly are. That is why it is so important that more and more women are taking up leadership roles. Women think differently, they see the world differently. You as the designer of Dior remind me why women should be in creative places and in the places that really help shape the structure and philosophies of the
world.
J.M. In the midst of this pandemic and global social injustice issues that are finally being brought to the foreground of our collective consciousness, how do both of you feel about the future?
M.G.C. It is very difficult to answer this. When I started in Dior, after the first show everyone asked me if I was a political designer. My answer was, “everything is political.” For example, sustainability is a very complex issue because we have to think about the environment, but we also have to take into consideration the jobs of the people who we work with. We just have to make the best choices we can in an honest way. We have to find a good balance between the different aspects. There is
no singular solution because it is very complex.
I think education is very important. It’s only when you have an education that you can truly be free in life. What you learn, no one can ever take that away from you. It’s yours forever and that is a very powerful thing. And speaking about power, power means responsibility. Some people think having power means you can do whatever you want. But power really means responsibility for the other. I think women, we have a different relationship with power. Women can help people understand what true power means, to take care of the other.
A.K. We are in a very transformative time. It is like a boiling pot that has reached the highest point and it is overflowing. There is no stopping it and you can’t turn off the fire because the fire has been oppressed for so long, that there are no more options left anymore. It is a time that is challenging us to be awake. We have been really sleepy and cozy in bed. It is time to get up, get out of bed and ask ourselves some hard questions. How are we holding ourselves accountable? How are we actually
starting these dialogues and conversations that create the awareness and understanding that have been missing for so long, deeply rooted issues at the core of America and the world?
To me, it is time to even the scales and it has been long enough with this deep imbalance of racist ideals that have run rampant. There are so many good people and so much desire to shift that and we do that step by step from a personal standpoint. We have to be conscious enough of what we are doing. It is an awakening and there is a ton of stuff that has to be addressed. We are not allowed to be asleep anymore. It is time to wake up.
All by DIOR, FALL/WINTER 2020-21COLLECTION
This interview and images are part of ODDA 19 “You, Me, And Everyone We Know” published by September 2020.
Photographer MALICK BODIAN
Fashion Editor MARIAELENA MORELLI
Model JOURDAN DUNN
Make-up Artist ALEX BABSKY @premier using DIOR BEAUTY
Hair Stylist ISSAC POLEON @futurerep
Nail Artist KATE WILLIAMSON
Production APRIL PRODUCTION
Digital Operator MATT REAY
Conversation curated by JESSICA MICHAULT
Photographer Assistant JOSH PAYNE
Fashion Assistant SOFI CHETRAR
Hair Stylist Assistant MURIEL COLÉ
Retouching CHARLY CALDERĂ“N and DIGI ART
