DIOR – A New Look in The Hague

Already more than 190.000 visitors since the opening on September 21, 2024. The 'DIOR – A New Look' exhibition has been extended through March 2, 2025, due to overwhelming success. So hurry this week. There are queues at the entrance in the narrow hallway. A surcharge of 5 euros also applies. Besides DIOR, you will also see 'Grand Dessert – The History of Dessert' and 'New Paris – From Monet to Morisot'. In short, you will certainly spend at least three hours inside for these three beautiful exhibitions. And that is before you have seen the permanent collection, the Mondrian galleries, and the Wonder Rooms for children (in the basement). You also shouldn't miss the restaurant in the middle on the ground floor. So be sure to reserve a whole day for the Kunstmuseum!

DIOR – A New Look

General Timeless, groundbreaking, elegant, and influential: the designs of Christian Dior (1905–1957) are all of these things. In the years following World War II, he founded his own fashion house in Paris, which soon became world-famous, and made an unprecedentedly rapid rise in the fashion world. His 'New Look,' with its wide skirts, changed fashion, and his silhouettes were worn from Paris to London, New York, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro. He was a visionary with guts, and the same applies to his successors: Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons en Maria Grazia Chiuri.

Their talent and boundless creativity have left an indelible mark on the unique history of the House of Dior. “The vision of founder/couturier Christian Dior is still very much alive,” says fashion curator Madelief Hohé. “At the Kunstmuseum, his designs enter into a dialogue with those of Maria Grazia Chiuri, the current and first female Creative Director of Dior.”

Dior is one of the world's largest and most imaginative couture houses, founded as Paris was recovering after World War II and needed to regain its position as a fashion capital. Christian Dior grew up on the Normandy coast in a pink villa with a colorful flower garden that he created with his mother. He actually wanted to become an architect and already had a career as a gallery owner and employee at other fashion houses behind him before the war. In 1946, he opened his fashion house on Avenue Montaigne with great panache and presented his first, ultra-feminine collection there in 1947. It is seen as a bold, revolutionary collection in which he made short work of the strong, square shoulder lines predominantly seen during the war. In the Corolle line, he introduced full skirts, narrow waists, and sloping shoulders. And in his En Huit line, in which feminine forms are beautifully showcased, refinement and craftsmanship take center stage.

Upon seeing this spectacle, Carmel Snow, editor-in-chief of the American magazine Harper's Bazaar, spontaneously exclaimed: “It's quite a revolution, dear Christian, your dresses have such a New Look!” Soon, the name Dior was known all over the world, and his creations were worn globally. Christian Dior died at a young age and was at the helm of Maison Dior for only ten years, but his work continues to have a major impact to this day.   The spirit of Dior The 'New Look' is one of the most imitated fashion silhouettes ever, but in the years that followed, Dior continued to surprise the world with new fashion lines, such as the Zigzag line (1948), the H-line (1954), and the A-line (1955). Christian Dior presented 22 successful, influential collections. The fashion house grew, branches followed in New York and London, and licensing agreements with fashion houses in various countries. It was not only couture clients who loved Dior's beautiful designs; he influenced the wardrobes of millions of women around the world. His unique, still inspiring legacy is central to DIOR – A New Look.   Dior women The title of this fashion exhibition also refers to the present time, in which the founder's philosophy lives on. Maria Grazia Chiuri has delved into Christian Dior's vision and the DNA of the fashion house, yet designs for the women of today. “If Dior is about femininity, then it is about women. And not about what it was to be a woman 50 years ago, but to a woman today.” For her first ready-to-wear collection in 2016, the classic New Look formed the basis, but combined with a simple T-shirt featuring the slogans '(Dio)Revolution' and 'We should all be feminists', inspired by the essay of the same name by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The Creative Director enjoys collaborating with female artists. In line with this, Kunstmuseum Den Haag commissioned Dutch photographer and visual artist Viviane Sassen to create a photo series specifically for this exhibition, in collaboration with Dior.

 

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More than 190.000 visitors, mainly the youth (Gen-Z), are visiting the expo in droves: https://www.kunstmuseum.nl/nl/museum/nieuws/al-meer-dan-190000-bezoekers-sinds-de-opening# Art Museum, temporary exhibitions: https://www.kunstmuseum.nl/nl/tentoonstellingen Previous museum blogs: https://www.postzegelblog.nl/tag/made-in-holland/