Dior Names Rosalía as Global Ambassador

PARIS — Fresh off their dalliance at the Met Gala, Dior and Rosalía are making it official.

The Spanish music star has been named as Dior’s latest global ambassador and is celebrating her new role with her first advertising campaign for the French fashion house, WWD has learned exclusively. She appears in new ads for the Lady Dior handbag shot by U.S. photographer Collier Schorr.

“I immediately fell in love with Rosalía’s music. I then looked deeper into her work and was truly struck by her dedication as both a musician and producer,” said Maria Grazia Chiuri, creative director of womenswear at Dior.

“I was especially fascinated by how this young artist was able to reinterpret and reactivate the sounds and clothing associated with flamenco, transposing them to a more modern and contemporary framework,” she said.

The designer used excerpts from “El Mal Querer,” Rosalía’s second studio album, for the soundtrack of her cruise 2023 show in Seville, Spain.

“When we finally met, I thought that she would make a perfect Dior ambassador because of how she represents a modern form of womanhood. Rosalía is a young creator who uses her voice to express herself, her strength and her creativity, thereby developing a new language,” Chiuri concluded.

The “Despechá” singer has embraced Chiuri’s Gothic leanings with a series of all-black ensembles.

For the Met Gala on May 6, she channeled evening chic in an haute couture black wool and silk bustier top and skirt with a long train, accessorized with a graphic veil headdress designed by Stephen Jones. The look was styled by Carlos Nazario.

At the Dior show in Paris in February, the Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter opted for a more casual look with a cropped quilted jacket and skirt made of technical fabric, worn with chunky boots, a turtleneck and a matching Lady Dior.

Rosalía appears in similarly stripped-back mode in the Lady Dior campaign, posing against a bare stage with just a microphone as a prop. Her hair neatly parted in the center, she wears a series of timeless looks including a black suit, a white shirt and a beige trenchcoat, as well as a white beaded evening gown.

“We set out to create a stage for Rosalía where she could practice/perform and play but also to daydream,” Schorr said of the shoot. “Watching her through the moving image camera she almost directed me, taking me along with her and sharing this energy. She is so strong and knowing.”

Since joining Dior in 2016, Chiuri has worked exclusively with female photographers in a bid to create more space for the female gaze in fashion photography.

“Schorr is an artist who uses seemingly simple images to simultaneously see both the strength and vulnerability of the person in front of her lens, as well as the intrinsic back-and-forth of the feminine and masculine energies in all of us,” the designer said.

“Her portraits, irrespective of whether they are of American teenagers or major stars, always manage to home in on the more intimate side of their subjects’ personalityy. I am fascinated by her ability to capture this aspect of everybody she photographs,” she said.

It marks the first time since 2016 that a celebrity has fronted an advertising campaign for Lady Dior, which was originally launched in 1995 and is closely associated with Princess Diana, for whom it was named.

Marion Cotillard previously appeared in a series of ads for the signature bag, including one where she posed on the Eiffel Tower. More recently, Dior featured a series of friends of the brand — including ambassadors Jisoo, Jennifer Lawrence and Anya Taylor-Joy — in a campaign for a spinoff handbag style called the Lady 95.22.

Rosalía is known as a style chameleon who has made her mark on and off the red carpet in looks from brands including Balenciaga, Miu Miu, Y/Project and Rick Owens. She has also appeared in campaigns for Acne Studios and Kim Kardashian’s Skims brand.

At Dior, Rosalía joins a women’s roster that includes longtime house muses Natalie Portman and Charlize Theron.