PARIS — Maria Grazia Chiuri will receive the John B. Fairchild Honor at the WWD Apparel and Retail CEO Summit in New York on Oct. 24.
The event will be held at Cipriani South Street.
The John B. Fairchild Honor recognizes a career of influence and distinction in the fashion industry. Named after WWD’s legendary chairman and editorial director and chosen by its current editors, the honor was introduced in 2016 as part of WWD’s annual celebration of creative vision, performance and leadership in the fashion industry.
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Chiuri joins such distinguished industry leaders as Ralph Lauren, Karl Lagerfeld, Leonard Lauder, Giorgio Armani and Miuccia Prada in receiving the John B. Fairchild Honor for lifetime achievement. Tommy Hilfiger was last year’s recipient.
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“Receiving this award in such a prestigious and meaningful context is a great honor for me and heightens my awareness of my work and my responsibilities,” said Chiuri, artistic director of womenswear collections at Dior.
“I started working right out of school in very small jobs and unstable situations, subsequently progressing to major brands like Fendi and Valentino before landing at Dior, the brand that probably best represents the essence of fashion and which is now my home.
“In all these years I have understood how critical results are, but also the importance of the people you are lucky enough to meet, and of the processes and the knowledge of all those mechanisms of fashion that make it a unique system in its ability to interpret transformations as they happen.
“Receiving this award is a joy that comforts me as I look ahead and reflect on the questions raised by this summit. I sincerely hope that my story can be an example to many fashion school students, spurring them on and encouraging them never to give up,” the designer added.
James Fallon, editorial director of WWD, said, “Throughout her career, Maria Grazia Chiuri has helped develop some of fashion’s most iconic products, from the Baguette bag at Fendi to working with Pierpaolo Piccioli at Valentino and, for the last seven years, overseeing the house of Dior as the first female creative director in its history. She continues to carve an indelible signature at Dior and to take it to new heights, as seen this year alone with shows stretching from Mumbai to Mexico City. For all her outstanding work, it is WWD’s privilege to present this year’s John B. Fairchild Honor to Maria Grazia.”
The daughter of a dressmaker, Chiuri spent two decades working in tandem with Piccioli, first at Fendi and then at Valentino. Since going solo and moving to Dior in 2016, she has set about writing a new manifesto for the label known for its hourglass Bar jackets and quilted Lady Dior handbags — one that centers around women.
Her first collection featured a T-shirt emblazoned with “We Should All Be Feminists,” the title of an essay by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. “When I arrived here, the first sentence that everybody said to me is, ‘This is a feminine brand,’ and I’m really proud to start to speak about women in this company,” she told WWD in 2017.
Chiuri has consistently championed female creatives, from enlisting artists such as Judy Chicago and Joana Vasconcelos to design her show sets, to working with photographers including Brigitte Niedermair and Brigitte Lacombe.
She has also implemented a long-standing collaboration with the Chanakya embroidery workshop and school in Mumbai, helping women to master the traditionally male-dominated skill.
During her tenure at Dior, she has fueled a streak of explosive growth with a mix of wearable clothes and hit accessories, such as the Saddle bag, which she reintroduced in 2018 with a social media campaign featuring 100 influencers. She brought back logos with her J’Adior flap bags with hip-hop-style gold lettering, and her revival of the Oblique canvas.
Like the house’s founder, Chiuri is keenly aware of the importance of speaking to audiences in different territories. In the last 12 months, she has staged a pre-fall show in Mumbai; a cruise show in Mexico City, and a repeat showing of her fall 2023 show in Shenzhen.
“I think it’s important to go around the world to show the collection because it’s about a dialogue with the different countries. For me, some locations are really inspiring,” said Chiuri, who also collaborates with local craftspeople on the annual cruise collection.
Chiuri received the Legion of Honor, France’s highest civilian distinction, in 2019. Last year, she was presented with the 2022 Couture Council award for Artistry of Fashion by the Museum at FIT’s Couture Council. And in 2017, the British Fashion Council awarded her the Swarovski Award for Positive Change in recognition of her “contribution to female empowerment in the fashion industry.”
Additional WWD honors will be revealed at a later date.