A traveling exhibition on Christian Dior’s legacy will soon take over Riyadh, featuring a desert-inspired backdrop for an experience unlike any other. Saudi beauty Yara AlNamlah showcases some of the stunning pieces that will be on display.
Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior, Numéro 667, Haute Couture FW23 Collection. Photo: Álvaro Gracia
Crossing the threshold of an elegant white-stone building presided over by a laurel-wreathed bust, a blue plaque indicating the street number just to the left, it’s hard to believe you are not actually entering the birthplace of Dior at 30 Avenue Montaigne in Paris. This illusion, like so many elements of the Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition in the National Museum of Saudi Arabia, is a fantasy brought to life. Behind the scenes of this spectacle, curator Florence Müller, scenographer Nathalie Crinière, and countless experts in everything from chiffon to construction, came together to pay homage to the house that Christian Dior built.
Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior, Numéro 641, Haute Couture SS23 Collection. Photo: Álvaro Gracia
Originally unveiled in the French capital where it welcomed just over 700,000 visitors, Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams has since traveled the world, from London to Tokyo. Every new setting shapes the presentation in different ways. “For each museum, I am curating a kind of a new show,” explains Müller of the process of working with the conservation team to decide which pieces from the Dior vaults to take. The dresses require a “rest” after months on public view as the fabrics and embellishments become increasingly fragile over time, and Müller notes that even today’s designs by Maria Grazia Chiuri will become archival eventually. To mitigate damage, each piece is displayed on a specially made mannequin, with some of the more extravagant gowns requiring as many as five people to mount. Fashion may be decadent, but it is also delicate, which is why the curator wants people to see the work of Christian Dior and his successors while they can, as “some of it will go back into storage and never be seen again. It’s a very fragile form of art.”
Gianfranco Ferré for Christian Dior, Avec le temps, Haute Couture SS1990, Songes d’une nuit d’été collection. Photo: Álvaro Gracia
Thankfully, more than 250 dresses have been deemed travel-safe to make their way to Riyadh Season 2024, where they will guide visitors on a journey through the life of the couturier, the history of Dior, and the level of artistry that goes into the creation of a single silhouette. Beginning with the illustrious Paris headquarters where it all started in 1947, the exhibition explores a series of themes, from the six post- Christian Dior designers, who have all left their mark on the history of the house, to the experts whose meticulous savoir-faire has brought the most intricate of haute couture creations to life. Müller animatedly describes the alchemy that takes place in the atelier as a type of sculpture made from fabric, which is “always in a way escaping your hands: the form is changing constantly. This is why it is so difficult to achieve a beautiful shape.”
Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior, Numéro 670, Haute Couture FW23 Collection. Photo: Álvaro Gracia
At the heart of the show, visitors will once again be transported as they enter the immersive Desert Beauty chapter, this time to the majesty of the Al-Ula oasis. Here, Müller saw so much of Dior’s love of the outdoors and, in particular, his passion for gardening and connection with the earth itself. She describes this space as “a love letter for the nature that you can see in Saudi Arabia, and especially in Al-Ula.” Sculptural recreations of the dunes will serve as a monumental backdrop to a variety of outfits in soft beige tones – a recurring theme of the designer. “The starting point was this ensemble called ‘Sable,’ or sand, from the Summer ’57 collection,” the curator explains. As the path winds its way through the conjured landscape, the palette graduates to gold and fiery red creations by John Galliano and Gianfranco Ferré, evoking the sun rising over the canyon, alongside several exquisite flacons of the aptly named perfume Dune, crafted by artist Véronique Monod.
Marc Bohan for Christian Dior, Boutique SS1988 Collection. Photo: Álvaro Gracia
From the revolutionary New Look by Dior himself to the feminist slogans of Grazia Chiuri and her equally daring pairing of ball gowns with sneakers, each mannequin at the National Museum of Saudi Arabia tells a different story – not just that of the House of Dior, but of life itself. Through the prism of fashion, Müller explains, each moment in history is symbolized by a type of clothing, and that style, in turn, reflects “how we want to behave and define ourselves.”
Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior, Numéro 705, Haute Couture FW23 Collection. Photo: Álvaro Gracia
Beyond capturing human progress and cultural change, Müller hopes the exhibition, steeped as it is in the notion of dreams becoming reality, leaves visitors with a sense of wonder. “Through fashion, you can bring people elsewhere – you can escape into a world of beauty and sophistication,” she muses. “Sometimes it’s above reality, of course, but it’s nice to be able to go into another dimension and to enjoy the show of beauty.”
Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior, Numéro 666, Haute Couture FW23 Collection. Photo: Álvaro Gracia
Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition is on display at the National Museum of Saudi Arabia from November 21, 2024 to April 2, 2025 as part of Riyadh Season 2024.
Style: Enol Blasco
Makeup: Aurelia Liansberg
Set Design: Lou Saveria
Producers: Danica Zivkovic and Julia Joseph
Local production: Clément Daugabel
