What strange emotions the skirl of the bagpipes can evoke. ( Skirl , for the non-Scots among us, is that haunting/headache-inducing wail that they make.) With their ever so mournful and wistful lamenting sound, bagpipes are like the Bjork of the musical instrument world: otherworldly and totally opinion dividing.
Maria Grazia Chiuri opened and closed her Dior resort show, held in the ordered and verdant splendour of the gardens of Drummond Castle in Scotland, with the pipes. And this Scot, who never gets misty eyed at the slightest strain of them, found himself surprisingly and rather deeply moved. (But I’m not so equivocal about Bjork: Love, love, love her.
) It’s likely that wasn’t the only emotion that was evoked by Chiuri’s exceptional collection, which intertwined the history of the house of Dior with the romantic, dramatic, and sometimes frankly bloody history of Scotland to terrific effect. Desire is the emotion I’m thinking of here, because this was one of those Chiuri outings suffused with what she does best: clothes which are defined by a deep rooted sense of realism but which also simultaneously transcend it. (Total side note here, but her resort shows also allow for a little empirical research on how women actually look in her clothing, the real litmus test of a brand, and the Chiuri-ites looked so right—as in grown-up and effortless and cool—in their hourglass jackets, and full skirts, and clumpy boots or beribboned slingbacks, regardless of age, or .