An exhibition is a planned staging and demonstration of selected items such as attires and garments which occur in an educational or cultural setup. It may be carried out in museums, exhibition halls, art galleries, parks, or libraries. All exhibitions are short-term; hence they are scheduled to occur within a set timeframe. For an exhibition to be successful, it has to be assembled and implemented by a team of experts such as the curators whose work is to select items to be displayed and presented. It involves activities such as commercially focused trade fairs and expositions, art in major museums and smaller galleries, and interpretive shows. Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams show scheduled from September 10 th , 2021 to February 20 th , 2022 is an example of a presentation illustrating several aspects of an exhibition.
Thesis and Themes of Christian Dior’s Exhibition
The exhibition on Christian Dior sightsees the intelligence behind Dior’s theatrical creations that rejuvenated the entire Parisian haute couture industry after the desolation of the Second World War. In 1947, the revolutionary “New Look” and the establishment of the new couture house swept away the manly wartime silhouette, making Christian Dior’s postwar fashions wanted, worn, and imitated by women around the globe (Bowles). Drawn from the Royal Ontario Museum, the Christian Dior fashion design collection is perfected by a dozen attires from the McCord Museum’s fashion, dress, and textiles collection and loans from Dior Heritage, Paris. The exhibition emphasizes on the epoch from 1947 to 1957. It offers a fascinating insight into the inventive process and the mechanism of the Parisian haute couture industry during the 1950s (Bowles). It examines Dior’s luxury textiles, romantic embroideries, and iconic lines that laid the basis for the fashion house’s international success. Presenting magnificent fashions from daytime to sunset attire for grand events, the exhibition invites guests to discover the gorgeous artistry, sophisticated feature, and brilliant luxury designs by the amount from the Golden Age of haute couture.
Presented are galleries dedicated to Dior and the creative directors who thrived him: Marc Bohan, Yves Saint Laurent, John Galliano, Gianfranco Ferre, and Raf Simons. A latrine room, an acknowledgment to the Ateliers, and contiguous galleries of tailoring garments display Dior’s petite mains (Bowles). The chief foyer of our Beaux-Arts Court has been restructured as an enthralled garden, and an ending gallery reveals dresses worn by celebrities from Grace Kelly to Jennifer Lawrence. The Brooklyn Museum exhibition of Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams is curated by Denver Art Museum, Florence Muller, Avenir Foundation Curator of Textile Art, and Fashion curate Designer of Dreams, in collaboration with Brooklyn Museum.
Installation view, Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams, Brooklyn Museum, September 10th, 2021–February 20th, 2022. (Photo: Here and Now Agency)
Description of Displays
Guests are correspondingly shown how Dior has been understood through the years. Fashion photography beautifies a room, plus the work of such prominent artists such as Ethan James Green, Irving Penn, Lillian Bassman, Annie Leibovitz, and Horst P. Richard Avedon takes the middle stage in this room, instantaneously displaying the most photos and also the largest. Avedon’s Dovima with Elephants is positioned in the center of the room, to be observed beside a mannequin earring and the same dress that Dovima dressed in the photograph. Unprecedented attention is also given to American photojournalists, who have their hedge to depict how Americans see the brand.
Narrative Structure
Dior exemplars on show comprise Galliano’s first dress premeditated for the house: the midnight satin and lace lingerie-inspired clothing worn by Diana, Princess of Wales, to join the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Dior reviewing in 1996. Here is the chartreuse satin outfit trimmed in fawn-colored pink that Nicole Kidman wore to the 1997 Academy Awards (Bowles). Raf Simon’s shell pink ballgown that Jeniffer Lawrence sprawled over as she went to claim her 2013 Academy Award. The fashionable diadems throughout the exhibition are by Stephen Jones, who has craftily recommended period hairstyles and replicated archive hat silhouettes, and this final room suggests the character of the specific wearers with twists of ribbon.
Exhibition Design
The exhibition uses an interesting display method whereby a few rooms offer an understanding of the encryptions of the house and how they play a part in different designs. The 18 th century’s inspiration on the house is given exceptional attention, displaying how the overgenerous dress of the time prejudiced the silhouette and configurations of the designs (Bowles). Raf Simon’s work here markedly differs from his forerunners because he takes encouragement not from ladies’ current dresses but rather from men and dressing representations in traditionally manly coats.
Color also plays an important portion in the brand today. Items of all kinds from the house are presented in a color slope that shows how each hue is used in context. An exclusively white room highpoint the work that goes into the garments, while the “toile-the in-process test garments” give an unparalleled insight into the course of couture’s creation (Bowles). Flowers and gardens, which held a special place in Dior’s heart, are given the largest room in the exhibit. Their influence is seen constantly throughout the show and beautiful dresses from the house’s history encircles the visitors, reaching up to the ceiling in front of garden-inspired backdrops. Christian Dior’s exhibit poses relevant question in the fashion study. It asks whether the legacy of its process has led to the progressively narrow and standardized fashion exhibitions that can harm America’s fashionable status through excluding several places and networks that make the State’s fashion culture unique.
Installation view, Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams, Brooklyn Museum, September 10th, 2021–February 20th, 2022. (Photo: Here and Now Agency)