Dior's SS 2021 Campaign Lensed by Elina Kechicheva Channels Carvaggio + Plautilla Nelli

Dior Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri explores the artistic minds of Old Masters painters in her Spring Summer 2021 campaign. The campaign channels artistic imagery from renaissance and baroque, especially the Italian painter Carvaggio.

Just last night an October 2019 article about the complete restoration of Florentine nun Plautilla Nelli’s monumental ‘Last Supper’ was trending on Smithsonian Smart News. Did someone beat me to having a similar response to Dior’s Spring 2021 campaign and Nelli’s painting?

Nun Plautilla Nelli's 'The Last Supper' featuring life-size depictions of Jesus and the 12 Apostles has been restored and art critics’ jaws are dropping. via

We know that Chiuri is devoted to advancing women artists and our long, tortured history seeking recognition from men for our talents. And her Spring 2021 fashion show was a religious experience in AOC’s opinion.

It takes a lot of nerve for men to prevent women from entering art academies in Europe and then ask 400 years later why there are no great women artists. Since its inception in 2009, Advancing Women Artists (AWA) has identified 2,000+ works by women artists tucked away in Italy’s museums, churches and beyond. NPR tells the story.

Women could not enter art academies in Italy, the cradle of Renaissance masters, no matter how talented. The names of the few female artists of that time and some from the centuries that followed have often been lost in the mists of history. But as NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports, there's an effort to bring their names and their work into the light.

So the new Spring 2021 ad campaign lensed by Bulgarian photographer Elina Kechicheva [IG] is not unexpected. Her photographic techniques of light effects and texture capture both the mood, physical arrangement and superb coloration of the Old Masters painters.

“Celebrating excellence in savoir-faire and creation in all its forms — from Virginia Woolf’s feminist essays to militant collages by Lucia Marcucci that enhanced the staging of the show — the collection is captured in a campaign brimming with the unique power of painting,” Dior said in a statement.

Models in the Dior Spring Summer 2021 Campaign include fresh faces Holly Fischer, Judith Frament, Levi Achthoven, Maryel Uchida and Sculy Mejia. Fabien Baron is in charge of art direction, with styling from Elin Svahn. / Hair by Guido Palau; makeup by Peter Philips.