At times it is claimed that one of the most influential fashion designers of the postwar period, Christian Dior, embraced superstition to offset his extreme anxiety. The assertion is hard to accept. That he was anxious is well known, and hardly by chance died of a heart attack in the full flush of his extraordinary career. We know that riding the crest of success is demanding, and often short lived, especially in the fashion world.
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Yet Dior enjoyed the good luck of having an extraordinary financial backer whose deep knowledge of the fashion world was matched by the depth of his resources. Success survived Dior’s premature passing in the hands of exceptionally talented Haute Couture designers, including two Italians, the last being Maria Grazia Chiuri.
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If we wish to eschew theories of predestination, we must count Christian Dior as having been as lucky in posterity as he was in his own lifetime. But luck is not only a chance matter.
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That rationality and intuition should be mutually exclusive is one of the oldest myths of our western tradition. All critical life choices are governed by intuition - or scent (fiuto) as they would say in Italy. Everyone has a hunch about how things may turn out, and many cultural systems help us structure a hunch by shaping choices according to systems which go beyond knowable laws. To call this superstition is reductionistic, ignoring the fact that some of the greatest figures of history were guided by intuition.
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Recall Pablo Picasso’s passionate irrationality is well known. Even Winston Churchill was amused in his advanced years to speculate on the random outcome of roulette.
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Creative people - and creative cultures - often devise systems to structure irrational impulses. One of the most famous examples is furnished by the Naskapi people of northern Canada, whose life and livelihood depended on the ability to track down caribou. They were peerless experts in the rational understanding of their habitat, yet the hunt condensed so many variables over such a vast territory that seeking out their prey was no straightforward utilitarian task.
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It was thus that they turned to divination to foster their efforts, heating over an open fire the shoulder bone of a slain caribou. The system of cracks which formed on the heated surface furnished a map which could lead them to the herds they were seeking. Far from being a form of self-serving or anxiety-reducing magic, this was a way of randomizing their investigation, avoiding established pathways so they could second-guess a highly intelligent prey.
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Today’s fashion markets are easily as wily and unpredictable as the beasts that were so vital to Naskapi survival, and not by chance many gifted designers cultivate the art of intuition to guide their choices. This strategy hardly undermines the technical skills required by the hunter or fashion designer to achieve their vital aims. The consummate expert recognizes that practical knowledge by itself is not enough to predict the outcomes of infinitely complex systems. To achieve its full potential technical prowess must be wed to scent.
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This is the lesson we take away from remote life in the arctic circle, a textbook example so often cited to help moderns think outside the box. It is also one of the many lessons we can take from Christian Dior’s modus operandi.
Rather than call this superstition we would do well to speak of serendipity or happy coincidence. Cultivated intuition is the irreplaceable skill celebrated in Gabriele Muccino’s splendid film used to present Maria Grazia Chiuri’s 2021 winter fashion collection. Tarot structures the creative effort, the same form of divination which oriented Christian Dior’s fashion career, reminding us that vital outcomes are often decided by a draw of the cards.
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Tarot randomizes our action and reflection, inviting us to explore and interpret possibilities that escape rational perception. The value of tarot was seized by the world’s most creative minds, forged in the Italian Renaissance to create the matrix which engendered such talents as Maria Grazia Chiuri. The ability to harmonize the rational and the irrational is a peculiarly Italian trait, weaving disparate threads into a versatile fabric.
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Creation in a challenging market inevitably stimulates an element of anxiety. The way to deal with this anxiety is to harness intuition to the needs of a market whose never perfectly rational outcomes are often a product of happy coincidence.
Gregory Overton Smith
D.Phil. Oxford
Temple University Rome
