When we traveled to London in 2019, a highlight of the trip was the Christian Dior show at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. This show was the precursor to the establishment of the Galerie Dior which opened in Paris in March of 2022. The London show opened in February of 2019 and was scheduled to end before our trip in late August of 2019. Later it was announced that the show would be extended, and I immediately booked tickets. I have since been to Paris to Galerie Dior, and it does not even come close to the grand scale and extensive collection featured in the London show.
From the moment you entered, you knew you were in for something special. Featured was the iconic Bar Suit, the design which launched Dior’s house.
The exhibition featured the iconic 21st-birthday gown designed by Christian Dior for Princess Margaret, on loan for the exhibition, accompanied by a life-size mural featuring Cecil Beaton’s official photograph of the Princess wearing the gown.
At one point, we entered the tribute to the ateliers, filled with muslin versions of some of Dior’s most iconic designs. Seeing these unfinished creations offered a glimpse into the craftsmanship and artistry behind the finished gowns.
Then came the rooms organized by color—pink, blue, and green. There were day dresses and evening gowns, rooms overflowing with flowers, and a room featuring a dramatic day-to-night light show that continually changed the atmosphere, illuminating the intricate beading and exquisite needlework on the gowns.
The exhibition also paid tribute to the various designers who took over the Dior label following Christian Dior’s untimely death in 1957, showing how each brought their own vision and sensibility to the house while building upon the legacy he had created.
There were rooms filled with accessories, beautifully arranged by color. This display would later serve as inspiration for the spectacular spiral staircase at the center of Galerie Dior in Paris. There were also multiple interpretations of the iconic Miss Dior perfume bottle, each one more beautiful than the last.
As a fashion lover, I spent more than an hour wandering through the exhibition, lingering over each creation and taking in all the details, while my patient husband waited nearby.
I have visited many gallery and museum exhibitions over the years, but to this day, I have not seen one that inspired me quite as much as Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams.
It was, without question, one of the highlights of our trip to London in 2019 —and an experience I still remember vividly.
