Art & Exhibitions
National Gallery of Victoria Plans Blockbuster Dior Haute Couture Show
The fashion house has a long history with Australia.
Sarah Cascone
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The next blockbuster fashion museum exhibition could require a trip down under. The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, has announced that it will present “The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture” in 2017.
The storied fashion house has a history with Australia, having presented its first complete collection shown outside Paris in Sydney in 1948, where 50 Dior designs were modeled at the Spring fashion parade at David Jones.
At the time, Dior was setting the standard for post-war fashion with its so-called “new look,” a feminine silhouette defined by full skirts, fitted waists, and daring bust lines.
Models posing in new Christian Dior collection in the salon of House of Dior’s headquarters, 30 Avenue Montaigne, Paris 1957. Courtesy of Loomis Dean/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.
The upcoming exhibition, which is has been organized collaboratively by the museum and Christian Dior Couture, is a celebration of the House of Dior’s 70th anniversary. It will feature over 140 designs created between 1947 and today, highlighting the work of its head designers Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons, and Maria Grazia Chiuri (the company’s first female creative director, hired in July), not to mention Christian Dior himself, who died suddenly in 1957.
In addition to original garments, normally inaccessible to the general public, the show will include sketches, photographs, archival material, and plenty of accessories. Visitors can expect to learn more about Dior’s early influences, and the iconic designer’s legacy in the decades since his death.
The show will also provide an illuminating view of what the design process is like at the Dior atelier, where it can take hundreds of hours and dozens of skilled designers to bring the company’s vision to life—there’s a reason that haute couture garments can run upwards of $100,000.
“The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture” will be on view at the National Gallery of Victoria, 180 St. Kilda Road, Melbourne, Australia, August 25–November 7, 2017.
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