Maria Grazia Chiuri

In July 2016 Chiuri was appointed the creative director of Dior. Vanessa Freidman of The New York Times reported "She will be the first woman to lead the creative side in the label’s 69-year history, and the role will be her first solo appointment after more than two decades of working with Pierpaolo Piccioli, who has been named creative director at Valentino." The Irish Times remarked "As artistic director of the storied Paris fashion house, Ms Chiuri will follow in the footsteps of designers like Yves Saint Laurent, Gianfranco Ferre and John Galliano."

In September 2016 Chiuri debuted her first collection for Christian Dior SE in Paris. The show featured many feminist references including a T-shirt bearing the title of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's essay We Should All Be Feminists.. Chiuri would continue this theme in subsequent shows including a reference to Linda Nochlin's essay Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? for SS18 as well as a collaboration with artist Judy Chicago and The Chanakya School of Craft for the set of her SS20 Haute Couture collection at Dior. . According to Chiuri “The new generation has raised big questions about gender, race, environment and cultures that we have to reflect in fashion,”.

Chiuri joined Fendi in 1989. While at Fendi she helped develop the famous Baguette bag and recruited the designer Pierpaolo Piccioli to join the department. In 1999 Valentino Garavani personally recruited Chiuri & Piccioli to Valentino where they established accessories including eyewear and handbags for the Italian fashion house; later in 2003 the pair also began to manage creative direction for the Red Valentino diffusion collection. Chiuri and Piccioli were named co-creative directors of Valentino in 2008 overseeing full artistic direction for the brand including Womenswear, Menswear & Haute Couture, and both were awarded the CFDA International Award for their work in 2015.

Maria Grazia Chiuri (Italian pronunciation: [maˈriːa ˈgrattsja ˈkjuːri] ; born February 1964) is an Italian fashion designer, and the current creative director at Dior.

Chiuri was born in 1964 in Rome, Italy. Her father was in the military and her mother was a dressmaker, she had five sisters. She has cited her grandmother, mother and sisters as an inspiration. She studied at IED, Istituto Europeo di Design in Rome.