Dear Shaded Viewers,
To install an exhibition in the Galerie Dior which creatively adds to the space is an extraordinary visionary leger de main, I had imagined just some rooms with the Peter Lindbergh pictures. This is far from that, it is a fluid installation of works both complimentary and enhancing the entire Galerie.
The beautiful images are distributed throughout the space, sometimes single enormous prints, sometimes framed sometimes truly enormous, then we find a smaller groups or an entire room space filled with images, but still there will be shifts of scale and always Dior clothes perfectly displayed on the simplest of mannequins. Sometimes the fashion pieces are not even immediately apparently there with corners and angles used to great advantage.
We are always led room by room space by space through these beautifully installed displays which enhance both our understanding of the fashion of the house of Dior but also show us why this relationship, creative harmony existed between Lindbergh and the house.
Lindbergh captures both the sense of fluidity and movement in the images which capture a moment, a fraction of a second in the life of the model and the clothes. There isn’t anything posed or static about this work, it’s Proustian in its sense of time captured. The delight in the team involved in creating the images is always apparent, the flow of creation is palpable in the work.
Of huge interest is the breadth of the range of clothes Peter Lindbergh uses from severe, tailored and structured, too transparent, fragile and floating. The images encompasses many variations of the heritage and signature pieces of the house, from the famous Bar jacket to the equally known New Look ballgowns. The range of pieces and looks, offers us the viewer, as we travel through the galerie, opportunities to investigate and perhaps understand the relationship between the photographer and the house. We get to see the variety of decades and styles it affords, and to appreciate through the over a hundred images taken between 1988 and 2018, the relationship between the haute couture and this visionary photographer. This is especially true of the previously unseen shots of seventy years of Dior creations shot on the streets of New York from Christian Dior himself through to Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré and Raf Simons or Maria Grazia Chiuri, John Galliano and Yves Saint Laurent, it’s simply dazzling. Film and contact sheets and even a camera enhance our engagement with the absent Lindbergh. Captions, notes, quotes and information support but never over load the exhibition.
Walking through the Dior Galerie, as we see the mixture of today and the past often blurring and overlapping we come to have a clearer understanding of the decades And the designers who have enhanced and even developed house signatures. Our appreciation of Christian Dior and the couture house he launched in 1946, and the impact the first collection shown in January 1947 has had on fashion, as well as how the signatures and styles he introduced have such longevity. In the exhibition we see how the Peter Lindbergh photographs transform, translate and transfer our imagery of the house into timeless beauty. The dates and the name of the designer become irrelevant or simply information but the ateliers, the Avenue Montaigne atmosphere, in fact everything truly Monsieur Dior transcends time. His vision of fashion, this one quiet shy man who has a mere ten years in the spotlight, remains so strong, he would be proud, but I have no doubt modest.
It must be acknowledged at at this point that the establishment of the Dior Galerie has been so important to fashion globally, offering both the history of a great couture house, but also with its updatings and rearrangements, offering access to pieces often only available to researchers or those working in the archives. The magic trick is that by adding Peter Lindbergh into the galerie rather than offering a separate exhibition at the Galerie or offering an off-site exhibition, it builds on an already great fashion experience to make it an even more memorable visit.
The pleasure in the entire thing is, as always, our journey through the breathtaking space of the Dior Galerie, but with the added glories of the Peter Lindbergh photography to enhance our experiences. Right though until May 4th 2025 this special experience is open and I urge you to go, it’s such a great use of your time, but allow that time, it’s not to be rushed through and it’s certainly not just another photography or fashion exhibition. In its unique glimpse into history from the original cabine to the moment you enter the white toile space with the workroom set up, it remains a special Paris moment. This exhibition within adds immeasurably to the House of Dior, in world where the instant, scrolling and thirty seconds of attention is the norm, it’s unique to entire a space where beauty stops time and breathing slows down to appreciate what we are being offered.
Peter Lindbergh and Dior; I’d say you’d be crazy to miss it.
Tony Glenville
