The House of Dior is built upon Christian Dior’s spirit of reinvention and global reach in fashion, a legacy that persists and evolves with successive individual creative directors. In Japan, a country of technological innovation but also a rich, traditional culture, the exhibition design for Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams reflects a diverse multiplicity within historic and contemporary contexts. The scenography reimagines the gallery beyond its limits to provide an immersive and varied experience with rooms transitioning between light and dark, intimate and grand, organic and orthogonal. Natural materials are deployed throughout the exhibition, such as papers and fabrics that reflect Dior’s commitment to creative circularity and high-quality textile recycling.

Across two floors of the MOT, 22 curatorial themes are deployed in specific, immersive environments. These designs utilize different techniques and materials referential to elements shared between Japanese tradition and culture and Dior history and contemporary collections. Visual and spatial qualities of known elements and construction techniques like Shoji screens and Nebuta floats are manipulated and exaggerated into contemporary forms. Familiar and enigmatic, the constructed landscapes create a series of distinct experiences .

In one of the key themes of the exhibition, “Dior and Japan”, a winding path and pockets for display along it, akin to stations of the Japanese Tea Garden, is expanded vertically and horizontally. A wooden structure is wrapped in backlit Tenjiku fabric and Awagami washi paper, creating a layered, luminous backdrop for the garments and artifacts. The three-dimensional landscape is projected onto with various patterns and motifs to further activate the space.

“The Dior Legacy” is a unified framework of a series of spaces dedicated to the House of Dior’s seven creative directors. Enlarged fabric panels are deployed as enfilade dividers that draw from Sudare hanging panels commonly used in Japanese interiors.

The “floor” of the museum atrium is lifted and sloped to bisect the lofted space diagonally, creating a double-sided display. The top becomes a single, grand gesture for “The Dior Ball”, the grandest set of the exhibition, where mannequins in gowns climb up as spectators view their “procession” from below or above from a bridge. A more intimate environment is inserted underneath for “Dior around the World.” Visitors step into a domed room comprised of layers of concentric fabric surfaces, forming a scenographic hemisphere with animated projections. The projections in this theme reflect Dior’s global presence and commitment to sustainability, reflecting worldwide movement and travel patterns.

Together with nine other rooms, this sequence of themes comprise a diverse exhibition scenography. Visitors are taken through a journey of discovery of Dior, revealing the multifaceted relationship between the House and Japan against contemporary juxtapositions.