Dior Show

The ambience and decor of the Dior Salons in Paris were recreated down to the last detail for the Haute Couture show in Shanghai. Here is how Christian Dior described them in 1956.

I strove to create for my house a home in the style and colors of my childhood years in Paris, which nonetheless was adapted to the climate of a couture house. I am speaking of neo-Louis XVI, white woodwork, white lacquered furniture, shades of gray, beveled glass-paned doors and the bronze wall lamps with small lampshades that reigned from 1900 to 1914 in “new” buildings in the neighborhood of Passy. Its invisible elegance survives in the salons of the Ritz and Plaza hotels. It’s sober, simple but not dry, and above all so classic and Parisian that there is no way this style could detract or divert the eye from the collection. It was important to me that my couture house not be an exceptional place in the theatrical sense; I am showing dresses, not decoration.

Therefore, it was  a matter of creating in this charming mansion on the Avenue Montaigne a decorated, but not decorative atmosphere befitting both my tastes and my project. Whare to find the decorator who in 1946 would be capable of understanding my dream and translating it without exceeding my modest budget? Victor Grandpierre had the right tradition; he was just the man I needed. Everything I desired more or less vaguely, he achieved. Our tastes harmonized wonderfully in the mutual search for our childhood paradises.