Dior: From Paris to the World

Dior: From Paris to the World surveys 70 years of the House of Dior’s enduring legacy and its global influence. A selection of 150 couture dresses, as well as accessories, costume jewelry, photographs, drawings, runway videos, and other archival material, will trace the history of the iconic haute couture fashion house, its founder, Christian Dior, and the subsequent artistic directors who carried Dior’s vision into the 21st century.

Christian Dior, the art gallerist who became a celebrated couturier, generated a revolution in Paris and around the globe after World War II. Dior created haute couture expressing modern femininity, completely shedding the masculine silhouette that had been established during the war. He conceived sophisticated designs featuring soft shoulders, accentuated busts and nipped waists that marked the beginning of an epic movement in fashion history that would eventually lead to Dior successfully becoming the first worldwide couture house.

The chronological presentation, showcasing pivotal themes in the House of Dior’s history, will focus on how Christian Dior cemented his fashion house’s reputation within a decade and will highlight how his successors, Yves-Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons, and Maria Grazia Chiuri, incorporated their own design aesthetic.

This exhibition is organized by the DAM and curated by Florence Müller, the DAM’s Avenir Foundation Curator of Textile Art and Fashion. It features exhibition design by internationally renowned architect Shohei Shigematsu, principal of OMA New York.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website  

Image: Gianfranco Ferré, Robe Hellébore, 1995. Photo: ©Paolo Roversi/Art + Commerce.

Whether you go or not, in celebration of Dior’s 70th anniversary and produced in close collaboration with the House of Dior, one of the world’s most prestigious couture houses, The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture features garments designed by Christian Dior Couture between 1947 and 2017 and more than 100 stunning images. Sumptuous in its design, this large-format hardback is led by full-page photography of works, and historical and contextual imagery.  This beautiful publication explores the story of the fashion house through a series of themes, featuring works by the seven designers who have played key roles in shaping Dior’s renowned fashionable silhouette. It narrates Dior’s rich history, including Christian Dior’s early influences, insights into the Dior atelier workrooms, the role that accessories and perfume have played in expressing the complete Dior look and the milestones of its six successive designers following Dior’s sudden death in 1957. 

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