Grammy award-winning singer and fashion plate Rihanna had the “perfect elements” to lead a Dior campaign, said fashion photographer Steven Klein, who shot her for the darkly romantic Secret Garden 4 campaign that released on May 18.
Rihanna, born in Barbados, is the first black woman to front a campaign by the French fashion house, joining long-term brand faces Natalie Portman, Charlize Theron and Marion Cotillard. But the musical star, who has a new album due this year, isn’t simply a model here: She’s contributed a track, the intro to her eighth album: Only If For a Night produced by Midas.
“Rihanna’s mystery and intrigue combined with her razor sharp looks and sensibility, are the essential perfect elements to create the stage for Secret Garden,” said Klein in a release.
The photo campaign, which is the fourth in a series that began in 2012, takes Rihanna to the fairytale moonlight chateau and gardens of Versailles, with the singer dancing through the darkened Hall of Mirrors, with the reflections playing on a new metallic Diorama bag, and a sequinned dress from the Esprit Dior Tokyo collection that was shown in (and inspired by) the Japanese capital last year.
Theron previously appeared in a J’adore video shot in the Hall of Mirrors, alongside Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly and Marlene Dietrich.
The film explores more of the palace and its romantic, manicured grounds, ending with sunrise over the . Many of founder Christian Dior’s collections were inspired the chateau, and his house is now supporting restoration work there.
Dior fan Rihanna has a guest of several of the label’s runway shows. “Much more than a friend of the House, Rihanna is now the new face of Dior in the fourth chapter of the Secret Garden campaign,” the brand said.
Rihanna’s fashion choices are nothing if not memorable, especially the see-through net dress she wore in 2014 to collect her Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Icon Award — the same event where Dior creative director Raf Simons received the international prize.
