On the same day that honorary Scot JK Rowling leapt to the defence of Kemi Badenoch after the latter was accused of being spiteful and toxic on social media, Dior’s Scotland show presented jackets and corsets embroidered with the words “Bossy”, “Fierce”, “Difficult”, “Feisty”…
Coincidence? Of course. These embroideries have taken weeks and were inspired by Mary, Queen of Scots’s own accomplished needlepoint, which often contained (not so secretive) political messages and covert digs at her biggest frenemy, Elizabeth I of England.
But what a timely moment to reclaim the words “bossy” and “difficult”. “How often are male politicians called ‘spiteful’?” Rowling tweeted. “And what’s the issue with her [Badenoch’s] manner, Ian? Did she fail in womanly sweetness, kindness and deference?”
Mary, Queen of Scots sure did. She also sometimes dressed as a man so that she could roam the streets unrecognised and escape the suffocating confines of her various castles and disastrous husbands.
Scotland’s tumultuous history, stunning scenery and rugged fabrics and knits are catnip to designers. Karl Lagerfeld presented a Chanel show in Linlithgow Palace over a decade ago. Now it’s the turn of Dior’s head of womenswear, Maria Grazia Chiuri. And boy did she throw herself into the challenge, spending months researching its history and crafts, visiting its remote corners, including the Outer Hebrides, where she initiated a collaboration between Dior’s Paris atelier and the islands’ Harris tweed industry. A similar entente cordiale was brokered with Johnstons of Elgin and Le Kilt, a small label which works with manufacturers across the UK to update traditional emblems of Scottish dress.
The results made for one of Chiuri’s most stunning collections. Johnstons recoloured tartans to her specifications, which were inspired by the gorse and rhododendrons running rampant in the formal Italianate gardens of Drummond Castle, the show’s venue, and the surrounding hills: enter hazy mauves, yellow and green, as well as a crisp red and navy tartan used for slim, punk-ish trousers and corsets as well as a “relaxed” bar jacket and matching slouchy kilt.
Harris tweeds were given the maxi- or mini-kilt treatment (possibly the chicest kilts ever) and paired with knits or zippered biker jackets. The outerwear was suitably impressive too – quilted capes, fake fur chubbies and chic, swash-buckling, monogrammed canvas-lined gabardine trench coats that Burberry should be doing, but isn’t quite. Mary, Queen of Scots was present not just in the embroideries or the square necklines, puff-shouldered narrow sleeves, and flowing long dresses – some in velvet, some in a deluxe, light(er) weight chainmail – but in puff-ball minis and corsets which clearly riffed on the doublet and hose she’d have worn on her cross-dressing excursions. Jewellery was delicate, sculpted into thorns or studded with pearls and threaded through ears and hair.
Dior has form in Scotland. Christian Dior was fascinated by the country and in awe of its fabrics. A maxi kilt and Shetland knit in this 2025 collection featured screen prints of photographs taken of the audience, models and Dior himself, taken at the 1955 show he staged at Gleneagles Hotel.
It’s impossible in the space here to do justice to the depth of Chiuri’s commitment to forging lasting working relationships with the artisans in whichever country Dior’s annual cruise shows land. “I visited Scotland many years ago, before I worked in fashion, and I found it so beautiful,” she said. “I came back with the specific idea to make a show here, it’s a very cinematic place.”
In her broad sweep of cultural references – she also acknowledged a debt to Alexander McQueen in some of the sculpted leather motorbike jackets, fluted “bondage” corset dresses, as well as to the ball gowns and checked skirt suits that Dior himself showed at Gleneagles – she proved to be a designer at the top of her game, someone who can weave powerful narratives into desirable, wearable individual pieces. And in yet more startling news, for the first time this cruise show season, the sun shone throughout.
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