ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories: Dior at Château de Versailles

Welcome to Dior's Secret Garden

Before the camera lens of Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, the looks from the fall 2012 collection are brought to glorious life. In a deserted Versailles, as if plucked from a fantasy, the model Daria Strokous invites you to follow her on a wondrous path that winds through the Galerie des Glaces, through the palace's endless interconnecting salons, as far as the grand tree-lined walks that sweep through the classic parkland à la française.

Along the way she's joined by fellow models Melissa Stasiuk and Xiao Wen Ju for a dreamlike fashion show where Versailles is transformed into Christian Dior's secret garden, his emblematic château. D'or et Dior.

Door moldings, curtain holdbacks, crystal drops in a Galerie des Glaces chandelier. Why all these cropped shots? Because architecture is like couture: beyond the visual impact of the whole, it's in the details that the full expression of luxury and know-how lies. So why Versailles? It's because Dior is busy readying a surprise that you will be able to discover in this blog, and others, from May 3rd. Christian Dior and the Château de Versailles have a history stretching back to the very beginnings of the house. From the first collections, the names of the looks made direct reference to it: Versailles, Trianon, Bal à Trianon, Fête à Trianon, and many more besides. Countless dresses were photographed in the gardens, the courtyards and the peristyles, most notably by Willy Maywald. The spring-summer 1955 collection made clear its principal source of inspiration: "As sumptuous as they are discreet, [the embroideries] drew their spirit from the Indies as much as they did from Versailles", the couturier explained.

That same season, even the gold embroidery thread would be re-baptized, with Christian Dior speaking of "Versailles gold braid". A royal domain throughout four reigns (from Louis XIII to Louis XVI), Versailles symbolizes, in effect, both the splendor and the good taste of France. Gold is ubiquitous, a reference to Louis XIV, the Sun King. It was also here, in the Orangerie of the château, that the fashion show celebrating the 60th anniversary of the house of Dior took place. An important date, it merited an equally strong symbolic statement: that it is from here that French luxury traces its origins, the luxury that Christian Dior revived in 1947 after the years of war-enforced privation. And, last but not least, it was also here, in the Galerie des Glaces, that director Jean-Jacques Annaud filmed his latest advertising spectacular for J'adore with Charlize Theron.

Last year, photographer Patrick Demarchelier published a book about Dior's Haute Couture (Ed. Rizzoli). He now goes further on his journey inside the house with these pictures shot in the Château Versailles.