Take a glimpse at the 'So Dior' exhibition at Harrods, showcasing artists reinterpreting some of Dior's most famous codes. It's the event that's made London's pulse quicken since March 16th: on Brompton Road, the departmentstore Harrods welcomes the house of Dior, giving over its windows and devoting an exhibition to it.
Windows, pop-up store, exhibition, café - one can get the whole DIOR experience at Harrods until mid-April. A feast for the eyes, and for other senses, too.
On Brompton Road, the first burst of pleasure is a visual one. And one
quickly adopts the wide-eyed wonder of children before the animated
windows. All the enchantment of Christmas but yet, in this case,
celebrating the arrival of spring. Inside, in the pop-up store, the
Trianon gray walls outlined with white moldings transport the visitor
directly to 30 Avenue Montaigne, and the soul of that historic boutique
manifests itself unmistakably. The sensory pleasure continues with
fondling fabrics, and the leathers and the tartans of the bags. But
there's still more sensing to be done! On the fourth floor, the
exhibition advances the experience: in a traditional London phone-box
done over in the Parisian house's colors, the connection is made through
smell. It's an olfactive cubicle, and its aim is not to directly
perfume but to diffuse
Miss Dior, allowing it to waft subtly
through the air.
DIOR at Harrods
87-135 Brompton Road
Knightsbridge
London, SW1X 7XL, U.K.
A little further on, the Dior café boasts a mixture of
British inspirations and house codes: medallion-back chairs typical of
the Dior decoration aesthetic, stately tableware and porcelain finely
set with gray friezes. Christian Dior was a cultured gastronome, and
also a man with a hearty appetite, as
La Cuisine Cousue-Main, his
cookbook of favorite recipes attests. Be it a parfait of foie gras in
Dom Pérignon jelly, a black truffle omelette, a sole meunière or
scallops with crab butter, these favorite dishes of his have been
specially reinterpreted for the Harrods event. Among the delicacies
available to take out are teas - including a chypre creation that
recalls the composition of
Miss Dior - and traditional English cupcakes decorated with house codes such as the
Bar suit, the
Lady Dior bag, and a
J'adore amphora.
Next, upon leaving the café - after taking afternoon tea, perhaps - don't miss the mini theater of fashion.
Amour, Caprice, Abandon…
Their names resonate with an air of the kind of romantic adventures of
which they would be the heroines. Veritable characters in the own right,
the Dior dresses at Harrods are actresses in a unique kind of theater.
Scaled-down to perfection by the
petites mains in the ateliers at
30 Avenue Montaigne - the same ones responsible for creating the
full-size garments for the fashion shows - the house's emblematic
creations are displayed treading the boards of a tiny theater, in the
middle of a London department store.
If offers a nod to both the
"Théâtre de la Mode", a traveling exhibition that, in 1945 and 1946,
meandered across Europe and the US to showcase the energy and creativity
of French couture, and of the
Fashion Theatre launched by
Harrods in 1953, and inaugurated with a Dior fashion show. Today, the
excellence and the identity of the house is visible through every
expression: the
Corolle line of 1947's
Bar jacket, the Dior red of the
Arizona coat from the following year; the pinks of the
Schuman and
Aurore dresses;
the houndstooth and florescent draping of the first haute couture
creations by
Raf Simons … because even on miniature mannequins the Dior
dream lives large. And once the experience it complete, all the senses
will have been satisfied!
Dior Exhibition at Harrods
In the middle of the room, between two draped dresses worn by muse
Charlize Theron, it reigns supreme and majestic, a golden thread
caressing its mythic curves. It is the bottle of the perfume J’adore, and
the inspiration for the artist Jean-Michel Othoniel to create an airy
and voluptuous sculpture, an incarnation in the image of the scent
itself. Famous for his work in glass, for this occasion the French
sculptor created a flacon of XXL proportions, the sun-colored amphora in
glass beads a strong expression of the essence of J’adore : its precious story, its luminous aura, and its feminine curves.
Christian
Dior himself was friends with some of the biggest artists of his time.
Today, the love story between Dior and the art world continues apace,
and the house has given carte blanche to various artists to rework,
reinterpret and play with its history. The artist Oyoram - who creates
the videos shown in the Dior stores - has produced an exclusive video
inspired by the Miss Dior dress designed by Christian Dior in 1949. Projected on the walls of a room inhabited by Raf Simons' own reinterpretation of the Miss Dior dress, this spellbinding and poetic film tells the story of the house, its connection to gardens, and its passion for flowers.
The artist
Sinan Sigic d’Atelier Hapax, in turn, has taken the signature
white boxes labeled "Dior" and built a bright wall with them,
punctuated with house symbols cut into the cardboard (the Bar
silhouette, the star, the Lady Dior, Miss Dior, and so on).
Stopping off at Harrods, the
Lady Dior as seen by traveling exhibition is showcasing five new interpretations of the
Lady Dior :
realized in colored copper wires by
Alice Anderson and in ceramic by
Bevis & Youle, in the hands of Jack Lavender, Mat Collishaw and Neil
Ayling, the bag becomes a veritable work of art in itself.
The Dior Windows
Dior is celebrating this great Franco-British friendship until mid-April
in the Harrods windows. And it's also all about the history and the
creations of the house as seen through a British prism of the kind of
humor to which France is so receptive. And which appealed so much to
Christian Dior.
With a pop-up store on the ground floor, an
exhibition on the fourth, and all the legendary windows on Brompton
Road, Dior has crossed the English Channel and truly arrived with a
splash at Harrods. Check out the inauguration soirée in this video ...
Selections by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories
Photo Credit/Source: The House of DIOR
Mor DIOR To Love ...
