The fashion academic from LASALLE College of the Arts who sparked a collaboration with Dior

Few fashion curators can say that their work has served as a source of inspiration for one of the biggest fashion houses in the world. When Dior’s creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri attended the exhibition, Frida Kahlo: Beyond Appearances at the Fashion Museum Palais Galliera in Paris in 2022, she was so enamoured with what she saw that she rang its curator up.

“She loved the show and was truly inspired and moved by it. She called me to collaborate with her on her Dior Cruise Collection 2024 and asked me to help her work with Mexican artisans,” says Circe Henestrosa (pictured above), head of the School of Fashion at Lasalle College of the Arts, and University of the Arts Singapore.

It wasn’t the only time her work had caught Chiuri’s eye, who first encountered Circe’s work through an exhibition celebrating Frida Kahlo at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in 2018. The showcase explored how the Mexican artist’s experiences with disability, ethnicity and her queer identity had informed her art, life, and personal style. 

Fast forward to 2024, and Dior's latest Cruise collection pays tribute to Frida Kahlo, who favoured a three-piece suit as a symbol of “intellectual independence”. There were also references to the way Tehuana women wore full skirts with a tunic known as the huipil.

Additionally, a butterfly-shaped black leather corset, elegantly paired with a billowy white shirt and pleated skirt, pays homage to the corsets Kahlo endured due to a bus accident that fractured her spine in three places. The toile de Jouy fabric features a myriad of butterflies amidst depictions of Mexican flora and fauna, including parrots, monkeys, and strelitzias, reminiscent of the elements often found in Kahlo's paintings.

A custodian of Mexican heritage

Her work as a fashion curator and academic has brought Circe to as many as half a dozen cities over the past 20 years, but the 46-year-old has never let her Mexican heritage fall by the wayside. 

Originally from Mexico City, Circe is from a family of writers – her mother was a fashion journalist and her father was an editor. “From a very young age, my father took us to museums in Mexico and abroad, and we always grew up surrounded by artists and designers who would visit our home,” she says.

It was through her great-uncle and great-aunt that Circe became aware of Frida Kahlo and her husband, Mexican painter Diego Rivera, as a child. 

“My great-uncle, Andres Henestrosa, and great-aunt, Alfa Rios, were part of the circle of intellectuals surrounding the famous couple Rivera-Kahlo in the 1930s and 1940s. Some scholars say that Alfa used to bring Frida Kahlo many Tehuana dresses from Oaxaca (a region located in Tehuantepec Isthmus in southeast Mexico), which Kahlo later adopted as her iconic style,” she shares. (Photo credit: Frida Kahlo/Getty Images)

In 2007, when Circe embarked on her studies in fashion curation at the London College of Fashion, she only thought it natural to be inspired by her roots. “Being a wearer of the Tehuana dress myself, I wanted to know why Frida had chosen this particular dress as her signature look,” she says.  

As part of her thesis for her masters, she devised the exhibition Appearances Can Be Deceiving: The Dresses of Frida Kahlo at the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City in 2012. This was the first-ever exhibition of Kahlo's wardrobe, addressing Kahlo's disability and ethnicity as central components of identity through fashion. (Photo credit: Frida Kahlo: Beyond Appearances, Fashion Museum Palais Galliera in Paris, 2022)

“Great-aunt Alfa was one of those elegant and distinctive women from Tehuantepec Isthmus. She came from a matriarchal society, where women administrate the culture and dress in Tehuana attire,” shares Circe.

Frida Kahlo’s highly individualistic style extended beyond her love of Tehuana dresses. At 18, she endured a near-fatal bus accident, injuring her spine and necessitating the use of medical corsets. Over her lifetime, she underwent a staggering 32 surgeries. Her doctors would encase her in plaster corsets, and she'd hand-paint them with abstract motifs featuring animals and various objects. 

Kahlo was also known to wear boots made of luxurious red leather and decorated with bows and pieces of silk embroidered with Chinese dragon motifs and little bells to conceal the fact that she had her leg amputated due to gangrene in 1953.

“She turned her prosthetic leg into an avant-garde object, an accessory that she adopted as an extension of her body. She did this 45 years before British fashion designer Alexander McQueen featured Paralympian Aimee Mullins walking the runway in those amazing wooden carved prosthetic legs in 1998,” says Circe.

SH: Honouring Indigenous craftsmanship

Using Kahlo's archive of Tehuana dresses as a starting point, Circe then turned her attention to traditional Mexican textile techniques from the Puebla, Oaxaca, and Chiapas states. (Pictured above: By Pedro Meza and the cooperative La Casa de la Comunidad de las Tejedoras Mayas in Chiapas. Photo credit: Dior Cruise 2024)

“I was looking for innovative artisans with interesting techniques and approaches to their crafts, as well as those who had a unique point of view through their own textile research,” she says. (Pictured above: By Pedro Meza and the cooperative La Casa de la Comunidad de las Tejedoras Mayas in Chiapas. Photo credit: Dior Cruise 2024)

Circe reveals that Mexican artisans have had their work appropriated by fashion brands for decades – a law to protect indigenous communities and their textile material culture was only issued by the Mexican government in January 2022, to ensure that the communities are remunerated and credited for their work. 

Her collaboration with Dior presented an excellent opportunity to give due credit to their artistry on a global platform. Circe worked with Hilan Cruz, an Indigenous Nahua weaver and anthropologist who co-founded the Yolcentle Textile Workshop that conducts lessons on weaving. Her distinctive geometric patterned embroidery appeared on a Dior Bar jacket and skirt.  

Another artisan who worked on Dior’s 2024 Cruise collection is Narcy Areli Morales. She established Rocinante, a fashion brand committed to showcasing and revitalising traditional Mexican craftsmanship in Oaxaca. Narcy works closely with female artisans from the Indigenous Mixtec community of San Pablo Redencion, in Oaxaca. (Pictured below: By Narcy’s community in Tijaltepec. Photo credit: Dior Cruise 2024)

“I was looking for innovative artisans with interesting techniques and approaches to their crafts, as well as those who had a unique point of view through their own textile research.”

Traditional Mixtec textiles and embroidery techniques, such as pepenado fruncido (pick-up weave and gathered pleats), were applied to produce textile goods – Dior’s Book Tote, bucket bags and minaudieres – with elaborate graphic and figurative designs such as birds, animals, plants, and elements of nature in geometric patterns.

“We did this project [with Dior] with the artisans' consent. This includes ensuring their close involvement, providing excellent compensation for their work, and ensuring that everything was produced in Mexico.

“In the realm of fashion curation, adopting a comprehensive approach is essential. This approach forms the foundation for how I craft exhibitions and projects. By employing perspectives from historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, and fashion curators, I strive to foster a meaningful dialogue between fashion and diverse audiences,” says Circe.