Maria Grazia Chiuri Says 'Au Revoir' to Dior | AOC Shares a Breadcrumb from Jonathan Anderson
/Note about AOC Collage above: Pierre-Yves Roussel, then chairman and chief executive of LVMH Fashion Group, said about bringing Jonathan Anderson onboard in 2013: "When Delphine Arnault [ LVMH executive and daughter of Bernard Arnault, LVMH's multi-billionaire founder] and I first met Jonathan, we immediately felt that we could help him express the full potential of his innovative, fast-emerging and already influential brand." Pierre-Yves Rousel is now CEO of Tory Burch LLC and also married to the designer.
When artistic director Jonathan Anderson departed LOEWE in March, 2025 heading for Dior Men’s initially, we all understood the business dynamic in play, as it impacted Dior Women’s Artistic Director Maria Churia Grazia.
You know how Taylor Swift is always leaving breadcrumbs in her music, little gifts about her state of mind and creative self-expression in the moment? Or the lyrics of her next song?
For the purposes of today’s conversation, LVMH has officially announced Maria Grazia’s departure for Rome after her breathtaking and spectacular Cruise show in The Eternal City on Tuesday night.
I want to speak a moment about what I interpreted as a Grade A***** breadcrumb to Chiuri’s fans from the new Dior Men’s Artistic Director, also ‘waiting in the wings for the next big announcement’ regarding Dior Women.
For those of us for whom Chiuri is an absolute goddess on every level, Anderson’s quiet gesture might have been a coincidence. But I come from the school of people who believe there is no such thing as a coincidence at the highest levels of LVMH. Not like this one.
Jonathan Anderson’s Breadcrumbs
LVMH’s Jonathan Anderson Gets an AOC Deep Dive Into His Creative Mind AOC Living
I felt unrestrained in writing lavishly about almost every Maria Grazia Chiuri collection and its ties to women’s lives in an earlier moment — the 1960s, for example. Sometimes it was the ancient world that inspired us — MGC and me. With other collections, it was only 75 years ago that joggled our love of history and not 2700 years.
Chiuri dropped an entire loaf of breadcrumbs every season, but it was Jonathan Anderson’s ad campaign and film for his LOEWE Spring Summer 2025 Pre-Collection campaign that was a breadcrumb ‘diamond in the rough’ message.
As noted in his image collage, Lilith got a big call-out in the film. Be patient, as it comes at the end. I will always believe that Anderson wanted to communicate that Chiuri’s posse is in good hands, in terms of women’s history.
And Anderson’s support of elephant conservation have always given him a soft spot in my heart. In the image below, we marry the campaign with Doutzen Kroes’s Knot on My Planet project, where Loewe bought in early in an ongoing commitment.
Anne, Who Is Lilith?
In mythological traditions, Lilith represents a complex and multifaceted figure, often depicted as a powerful yet rebellious female entity. Her origins can be traced back to early Mesopotamian mythology, where she appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh as a demon or wind spirit. She is often associated with storms and desolation, symbolizing chaos and untamed nature.
The figure of Lilith evolves more prominently in Jewish folklore, particularly within post-Biblical texts such as the Alphabet of Ben-Sira. Here, she is presented as the first wife of Adam, created from the same earth and designed to be his equal. Her assertion of independence and refusal to submit to Adam's authority led to her departure from the Garden of Eden.
This rebellion positioned her as a symbol of female autonomy and defiance against patriarchal constraints, but also garnered her a reputation as a malevolent force, associated with seduction, night terrors, and infant mortality.
What is relevant for feminists about the mythology of Lilith is that every year brings new archaeological discoveries of women and men having a much more shared list of roles and responsibilities in early life?
Did Women Really Make Tools, Anne? And They Butchered Meat? Are You Sure?
No one is arguing the case that women actually created the first tools or also important, early modifications of existing tools — although we might have. There are significant reasons why women were well-positioned to have made the tools. AOC will drill down further on each of the examples that are cited about women’s early lives. We did run an updated research check on all the alleged facts in this article, with no fallout and significant new information.
For Maria Grazia Chiuri, women’s early history as butchers and tookmakers — to say nothing of our hands on cave paintings — does not mean we’re not feminine. “No George, they were not the hands of small or young men exclusively. In fact, a study by archaeologist Dean Snow concluded that over 75% of the handprints in a sample of 32 ancient handprints were made by women. This contradicts the long-held assumption that cave paintings were primarily created by men. You name it — men did it . . . or so they assured us.
Snow worked with probability models after measuring the hands and finger digits in the cave paintings and applying them to two different, well-researched hand constructions for men and women.
Today, even Google AI — not AOC’s Oxford University Level AI — agrees that women were early toolmakers and our entire understanding of gender relations in early societies was scientific analysis clouded by the assumptions and prejudices of men.
These so-called ‘scientists’ either ignored important archaeological evidence that offered another research conclusion. Or their own deep-seeded assumptions about female capabilities were so entrenched in their minds that they couldn’t imagine the possibility that women were routinely hunters and butchers.
Chiuri Proved That Feminists Can Love Crush Hyper-Feminine Elegance, Leaving Men Totally Confused
So many stories and wrong conclusions about feminists. So few facts. We feminists never painted ourselves as anti-marriage or anti-children. And we aren’t.
The reason Chiuri is so important is that she’s a one-woman museum of women’s history. Poor Jonathan Anderson. He can’t possibly make feminism his only calling. He has his own vision for Dior.
But I do hope that our dearest Maria Grazia Chiuri is headed to Fendi, so that her scholarship on women’s lives can continue. And it that’s not happening, then AOC is calling for a small foundation in her honor be funded by LVMH, so that her work can continue.
In America, every effort is being made to kill these stories and research, because Project 2025 and US President Donald Trump want women out of the workplace, home schooling their kids in their more tradwife lifestyles.
If you haven’t see the Dior Cruise 2026 film, created to support the live show in Rome Tuesday evening, you must watch it. Outdoor runway shows are typically shot from a distance and only communicate the vibe and atmosphere. This film helps us see the clothes close up, while feeling the magic of the moment with the music.
Note that Dior has not yet loaded the film at YouTube. We will switch it out because this film has one ad. You can also watch the film on this Dior website link — set for America. But you can change it for your geographic region.