We bring you photos from the Dior Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2018 Show in Paris

"The history of haute couture is intimately linked with the history of modern art. The couturier is an artist unto himself and the word 'atelier' designates equally the studio of an artist or that of a designer. But any artist’s true 'studio' is his or her spirit. It’s in this dimension, located somewhere between dream and reality, or imagination and realization, that Maria Grazia Chiuri, the Artistic Director of the House’s women’s collections, pursues her research and explorations. Because haute couture is a dream of fashion. It’s a place where there are no limits to pushing boundaries and experimenting with technique, material and form. Immersing herself in the heart of the Surrealist movement made it possible to bring a fresh breath of imagination to the spring-summer 2018 haute couture collection, conjuring an otherworldliness and constant optical illusion," the brand shared on their website.

Inspired by Italian surrealist artist Leonor Fini, a friend of Christian Dior, Chiuri says, "Leonor Fini, who left Italy for Paris in the Thirties, held her first exhibition in Christian Dior’s gallery and befriended the designer from that moment onward. Whenever she made one of her phantasmagorical appearances, she often wore Dior. Leonor Fini was the incarnation of the then-revolutionary idea that one must always remain independent and reinvent oneself as a representation of all possible realities.

"She used clothing to define herself and set her own stage, in public as in private: at once influential, severe and elegant, she struck poses inspired by portraits of men from the Renaissance, by the constant interaction of art and life, and the blend of the natural and artificial. These marvels of haute couture came into being in a dimension suspended between dream and reality."