French fashion house Dior will hold a runway show on 17 June in Athens to launch its inter-season collection by designer Maria Grazia Chiuri.
After several online-only fashion weeks in recent months, it was not clear if an audience would be present for the latest "cruise collection" show in Greece, with Dior saying only that it would be held "in full respect of health measures".
So-called cruise collections fall between usual spring/summer and autumn/winter collections, and French houses often visit other countries for the launch.
"The house has chosen Athens, an exceptional destination, cradle of Western civilisation and European art, for its 2022 cruise collection," it said in a statement.
Last summer, Dior launched its cruise collection in Piazza del Duomo in Lecce, Italy with only "friends and family" invited.
The trip to Athens will pay homage to an iconic photo session at the Acropolis 70 years ago for an haute couture collection by Christian Dior.
Chanel's cruise collection is being launched online on 4 May with a film shot in southern France.
The luxury brand recently unveiled its 'Dior Gold' capsule that reinterpreted old Dior styles in subtle versions using shades and threads of gold. Ethereal skirts in tulle, silk or multicolored mesh offered a hope that we will step out one day, in style.
Meanwhile, a report Bloomberg earlier this month said that Asia has become a lifeline for luxury companies like Dior parent LVMH, thanks to its quick exit of the strictest lockdowns that have bogged down Europe and to a lesser extent the US in the past year. As the first of the major fashion houses to report first-quarter results, LVMH posted sales growth in April that smashed analysts’ estimates, driven largely by demand from the region.
That suggests, the Bloomberg report says, more good news to come from the industry, even if growth varies widely across regions, brands and product categories. After recovering from a steep downturn in 2020, luxury is benefiting in particular from the appetite among younger millennial and Gen Z Asian shoppers for high-end shoes and handbags. And those shoppers are increasingly spending their money at home and online, rather than travelling to the expensive luxury emporiums of Paris and Milan as they would have done pre-pandemic.
