Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams

Posted on December 13, 2021 | by Maria Diment

New York City is renowned as one of the world’s fashion capitals. From numerous designers and boutiques lining the streets to the city’s very own New York Fashion Week, there’s one more fashion fairytale left to discover.

Tucked away in the Brooklyn Museum on the second floor, this immersive exhibit, with whimsical music softly playing in the background, takes you through the entirety of Christian Dior’s legacy.

At the entrance you’re greeted with a detailed nine-column timeline of Christian Dior’s life and the maison’s legacy, starting at 1905 in Granville, France where Dior was born. Looking to the right you’ll catch sight of an ongoing runway– an oval screen playing a montage of Dior’s dresses parading through the seasons down the runway, from black and white film to modern catwalks.

Onwards is the first display. The room is kept monotone and withheld from vibrant colours to represent the beginning; the New Look era of Dior. The exhibit signage reads, “On February 12, 1947, Christian Dior showed his first haute couture collection to great acclaim. Quickly dubbed the ‘New look’ by Carmel Snow, editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar in America, this revolutionary style, with its nipped in waist and full skirts, met with unrivalled success.”

Opposite of platforms with historic gowns, glass displays showcase original sketches and photographs, along with newspaper cutouts and postcards. One particular black and white photograph shows the iconic Bar dress worn by a model down the runway– the same one seen on the exhibit advertisements, pamphlets and in the glass display right next to the photograph. “Haute Couture Spring-Summer 1947, Carolle line. Afternoon ensemble consisting of a silk shantung jacket and wool pleated skirt,” reads the caption below.

Walking past gowns, capes, and detailed sketches, you walk out into another more dimly lit room. The walls are decorated in frames; fashion photography throughout the years, including the infamous photograph ‘Dovima with Elephants’ by Richard Avedon enlarged and hung centerstage on a wall with two lights shining directly at it.

You’ll exit into a hall with more haute couture displays. Magnificent dresses and designs, around five or seven at a time, are modelled on mannequins poised upon circular platforms along the sides of the hall. Each display is characteristic to each one of Dior’s successors, and begins with Yves Saint Laurent. As you walk along, you progress through time and names… Marc Bohan, Raf Simons, Maria Grazia Chiuri.

Eventually, you meet Miss Dior; ornate displays with fragrances and a tall glass cylinder containing the Miss Dior dress. It’s floral and feminine design is reflected by the display decor, and all you can feel is awe.

The next few rooms contain an archive of fashion magazines with iconic covers and a colour-coordinated display of Dior designs, until the second-to-last room– a room of mirrors and tall, monochrome all-white display containing all-white designs. The mirrors give an illusion of an endless shelf that stretches up to the ceiling.

At last, the room you’ll never tire of. Out of white, bland and monotone surroundings you’re immersed into enchanting colour and sparkle. In a massive room complete with decorative arches and pillars, extravagant gowns are placed everywhere you look and stars, lights and glitter are projected in a blue hue upon the walls. Displays stretch towards the ceiling and in the center is a resting area and display resembling a carousel. The scene feels like a Victorian garden in a fashion fairytale.

Over the several hours that it takes to explore the exhibit in full, you forget that you’re still in Brooklyn, New York, and are able to escape into a dream, just as Christian Dior had designed.