The place is unique.
It conjures up superlatives: extraordinary, spectacular, unequaled... After two and a half years of titanic work, the Dior house inaugurated, on March 6, a temple of luxury of more than 10,000 m2 in the spaces of the historic number 30 of avenue Montaigne, in Paris: a store of unprecedented dimensions, which brings together for the first time all the collections, those of women, men, beauty and home, but also the sewing workshops and jewelery out of sight, three lush gardens, a restaurant, a café and a pastry shop – all three run by chef Jean Imbert –, as well as an XXL private suite.
A new showcase of elegance and the French art of living, which reinvents the luxury experience, but also and above all a point of
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“The largest permanent fashion exhibition”
Because this 30 Montaigne, with its emblematic facade designed in the purest French style of the second half of the 19th century with ornate balconies, scrolls and mascarons, acquired on December 16, 1946 by Christian Dior, now also houses the Galerie Dior, the very first fashion house museum.
“These 2000 m2 on two levels become the largest permanent fashion exhibition in Paris, specifies Hélène Starkman, cultural projects manager and curator of exhibitions at Christian Dior Couture.
And, above all, the only one in a house still in operation.
It's an incredible experience to bring all these models from the archives back to their place of creation, a sort of return home and tribute to the workshops, present within these walls for more than seventy-five years.
In video, the Dior Fall-Winter 2022-2023 show
Located in the same building but with a separate entrance via rue François-Ier, the Galerie Dior was designed as a cultural space in its own right.
A high place of fashion memory, over which the spirit of its visionary creator hovers from the very first steps in the reception area.
The house has indeed asked the British artist Marc Quinn to imagine a work from a fingerprint of the couturier.
The visual artist has made what he calls a “maze sculpture”, in other words an immense marble whose lines you have to follow with your finger to try to access a world that has been kept secret for a long time.
A little further on, the star - the couturier's mysterious lucky charm - marked on the ground and its portrait of the
30 avenue Montaigne, the temple of luxury
In images, in pictures
See the slideshow26 photos
See the slideshow26 photos
The Dior spirit
"Christian Dior's sober office, the staircase taken by Marlene Dietrich, Joséphine Baker or Lauren Bacall during endless fitting sessions, the gardens so dear to the designer and the noise of sewing machines and chisel blows that have enlivened the building for decades, all these emblematic spaces reflect the Dior spirit and have naturally imposed themselves as the common theme of the museum, says Nathalie Crinière, the Gallery's scenographer.
Monsieur Dior wanted to be an architect, the building and the museum pay him a beautiful tribute today.”
It is also between these walls that, on February 12, 1947, the New Look and its emblematic Bar suit were born.
“It was therefore natural that he should be the star of the first room, the one dedicated to the history of creative genius, from his childhood spent in Granville to his death in 1957 at the thermal baths of Montecatini, in Italy, adds Hélène Starkman.
Alongside him are showcases laden with original sketches, audiovisual tapes and other archival documents (most of them exhibited for the first time), which attest to the couturier's passion for roses, his talent for drawing or his past as a gallery owner and his many artist friends, admirers of Giacometti, Bérard and Dalí.
In the middle of the room, sublime dresses are one with the memories of Monsieur Dior, like witnesses to the construction of his aesthetic.
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The mannequins' cabin, recreated identically, as in the 1950s. Richard Gianorio
The activity of a hive
Christian Dior compared the 30 Montaigne to "a beehive full of noise" for its perpetual effervescence.
This sensation of life, that of an inhabited house, is felt throughout the scenographic device.
“For example, thanks to numerous archive photos, we were able to recreate, in the same location and in the original woodwork, Christian Dior's cabin, says Nathalie Crinière.
It had the particularity of having a mezzanine, on which the couturier liked to sit to watch the girls, including the models Victoire and Odile Kern, dress and do their hair before a parade.
To give a particular dimension to this place, we have chosen to cover it with a glass ceiling, on which the visitor can walk and thus admire this low-angle view,
If fashion is made to be worn, it must also be explained
Helene Starkman
Transmission is one of the key values of the Parisian house.
This notion of heritage can be discovered in particular in the Allure room, as long as a corridor (it makes the link between the building on rue François-Ier and that on avenue Montaigne), and whose particularity is to go up the time with these six silhouettes arranged in a row, signed by the artistic directors who also built the myth Dior, Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons then Maria Grazia Chiuri.
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The “Enchanted Gardens” room with its spectacular scenography.
Richard Gianorio
A “dynamic” gallery
This passing of the torch and of talent can also be found in the room dedicated to the workshops, the one where the models of the dresses, the famous white canvases, are exhibited to be dissected.
"If fashion is made to be worn, it must also be explained," says Hélène Starkman.
Here, two artisans from the Dior couture workshops (embroiderers currently employed, retired leatherworkers or apprentice feather workers) will be present every day to explain to visitors their trade, the complexity of one gesture or the obviousness of another, and why not encourage vocations!
It is also essential to stick to the idea of a dynamic gallery, and therefore to make the public want to come back and discover another exceptional French know-how.”
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The magnificent spiral staircase of the Diorama allows you to admire 1874 iconic objects in miniature version.
Richard Gianorio
Iconics and miniatures
The last step summons the marvellous.
If the visit begins in an elevator, it ends in a spiral staircase transformed into a majestic installation: the aptly named Diorama.
To celebrate seven decades of creation, the brand's most iconic clothes and accessories, all designers combined, have been declined in miniature version and placed on the walls behind display cases: the first Miss Dior perfume bottle from 1947 or the famous dress Midnight blue babydoll designed by John Galliano and worn at the traditional New York Met Gala on December 9, 1996 by Lady Di...
The collection thus has 1874 objects, including 452 dresses made by the small hands of the workshops.
The rest of the parts were shaped by a 3D printer (in biosourced corn starch) and required more than 100,000 hours of printing!
We go down the steps taking our time, as we would with friends to admire the family portraits of a house full of stories and emotions.
Christian Dior said: “About my house, what can I tell you?
How to talk about the present and what we live?
She is, indeed, my whole life.”
Dior Gallery, 11, rue François-Ier, 75008 Paris.
Open daily from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Reservation required on the galeriedior.com website
