“The look of the summer is going to be kind of haunted,” wrote fashion editor Rachel Tashjian in her newsletter, Opulent Tips, this April. Without a crystal ball – or holding a seance – she couldn’t have known Dior’s Resort 26 collection would be made up of spectral gowns and accompanied by a film featuring ghosts called Les Fantômes du Cinéma. And yet, here we are.
In Rome, for her final show with Dior on 28 May, Maria Grazia Chiuri issued female attendees an all-white dress code (men were asked to dress in black), then each look on the runway at the 18th-century Villa Albani Torlonia was more ethereal than the last. The final three: a white tulle gown that was only half there; a high-necked dress beaded so it moved like snakeskin; and another in embellished silver as resplendent as Tolkien’s mithril.