World renowned luxury French fashion house Christian Dior has announced the opening of its dynamic display “Designer of Dreams” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. The show will run for five months from December 21 to May 28, following its popular reception at the debuts in Paris, London, Shanghai, Chengdu, New York City and Doha.
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The Tokyo display will feature a unique scenographic narrative created by Japanese architect Shohei Shigematsu, a partner at OMA. The exhibition will also be curated by art and fashion historian Florence Müller.
“We’re honored to design a new spatial narrative within the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo that draws from Dior’s storied relationship to Japan as well as the country’s current cultural contexts to showcase Dior’s creative continuity in a new light,” said Shigematsu.
“Our collaboration with Dior across multiple cities and venues has been an exciting opportunity to continuously rethink and recontextualize the retrospective in response to its specific, local setting, much like Christian Dior’s own global expedition and influence,” he added.
Previously unseen archival documents revealed the exhibition will examine Christian Dior’s love of gardens and his fascination with Japanese culture. It will feature creations by Dior and his successors: Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons and Maria Grazia Chiuri.
Works from the MOT’s collection as well as photographs by Yuriko Takagi will be available to view throughout the exhibition. To celebrate the different divisions of the Dior brand, archived Dior Lady Art and Lady Dior As Seen projects, including the one-of-a-kind reinterpretation of the Lady Dior handbag, and Dior perfumes Miss Dior and J’adore, will be on display.
Müller, who headed the previous Paris and New York City exhibitions, discussed the brand’s admiration of Japanese tradition and modernism. “With the first agreements signed in 1953 between Dior and Japanese textile companies of prestige, it was also the beginning of a fruitful cultural and artistic dialogue that lives on today with Maria Grazia Chiuri and this exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.”
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Dior’s fascination and appreciation for Japan was demonstrated in several designs that the brand released dating back to 1953. Most notably including a jacket, designed to be worn over a kimono, incorporating cherry blossom print. In 2017, Dior’s artistic director for women’s collections, Chiuri, designed a capsule collection of haute couture dresses to mark the opening of a store in Tokyo.