TOKYO — On Wednesday, the Japanese capital will grow to be the seventh city worldwide to host the “Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams” exhibit when it opens on the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT). While the exhibit has made its way from Paris to cities corresponding to London, Dallas and Recent York, roughly half of what’s exhibited within the Tokyo iteration shall be shown for the primary time.

“For this exhibition, we discovered loads of stories,” said the curator of the exhibition, Florence Muller. “We knew that Christian Dior was the primary couturier to return to Japan, but now we have discovered amazing documents telling the story in a really detailed way, with Japanese ladies that were very instrumental to this relationship.”

The deep ties between Dior and Japan are explored within the third room of the exhibition, which is designed by Japanese architect, OMA partner, and scenographer for the exhibit Shohei Shigematsu to resemble a conventional Japanese lantern. Naturally textured, translucent paper is stretched over frames to form curved, organic shapes upon which mannequins wearing house archives stand. There are kimono-inspired designs by John Galliano, cherry blossom emblazoned pieces from Maria Grazia Chiuri’s first couture collection for Dior, and more subtly influenced dresses by Marc Bohan and Raf Simons, all sharing space within the room. These are complemented and enhanced by documents and pictures that tell the story of Dior’s connection — dating back to the post-World War II period — with Japanese corporations corresponding to Kanebo and Daimaru.

“What is restricted to the home of Dior is that it was the primary house in the style business to explore the world. And every time it’s really interesting to try to understand how they did so,” Muller said. “For instance, when the exhibition was in Brooklyn, we showed as much as we could, but I even have to say that for Japan we found far more detailed sources and documents that enabled us to actually tell an ideal story.”

One other space that’s latest to the Tokyo version of the exhibit is entitled “The Dior Ball,” which celebrates the home’s connection to high society and the epitome of glamour. To display the handfuls of gowns on this section, Shigematsu constructed a dramatic, two-story, mirror-backed slope inspired by the steps that result in a Japanese temple, in addition to the platforms used to display dolls for Hinamatsuri, or Girls’ Day, in Japan. Dozens of gowns are displayed in cubicles along the slope, which is decorated with projection mappings of rain, stars, falling water and more.

“That is a recent museum — the setup in Paris was in a classical setup — but additionally the space here is kind of grand. And by some means we got to the purpose of pondering that couture at all times has amazing themes and stories behind it, and it’s not a lot exhibition design but more like set or scenography design to actually enhance the storytelling but additionally the great thing about each garment,” Shigematsu said.

The architect also said that before coming up with the slope concept, he studied how past exhibitions had made use of the vast space, while also considering what would make probably the most sense for Dior and this particular show. The slope will be viewed from two levels, and the other wall of every is decorated with photos by Yuriko Takagi, that are also published within the exhibition catalogue. The Japanese photographer spent three weeks in Paris shooting about 120 looks for the exhibit. Wanting to include motion into her images, she employed ballet dancers as models and used a moving platform and a protracted exposure to bring to life pieces that were shot on mannequins. 

Within the “Miss Dior’s Garden” room of the exhibit, paper artist Ayumi Shibata has created a wonderland of false botanicals, with lots of of hand- and laser-cut leaves and flowers suspended from the ceiling like a dangling garden. Shigematsu crafted a curved path through the space, like that of a Japanese garden, with mirrored floors on either side resembling a reflective pond. This room took particular care to stage, because the mirrors mean that the dresses must look good even from below, and invisible dress forms needed to be painted in exact colours and patterns to match the dresses they held. 

Like previous iterations, the Tokyo exhibition ends with a bit titled “Dior Across the World,” which explores the opposite cultures which have informed the style house’s collections prior to now, from Africa to India. These pieces are complemented by paper lanterns in various sizes, a few of that are printed in patterns taken from the dresses themselves.

“The wonderful thing about Dior is that they’re using this exhibition as a vehicle or platform to truly evolve the pondering themselves and I feel that’s key. Because retrospectives are typically just looking back but they’re always using this as a method to create a reference to different artists, to create a reference to different local cultures, and I feel that’s a really interesting thing that only possibly the style industry can do to type of respect the design cultures and merge them into an exhibition,” Shigematsu said.

Pietro Beccari, chairman and chief executive officer of Christian Dior Couture, said holding the “Designer of Dreams” exhibit in Tokyo is vital because Japan is one in every of the home’s top five markets on the earth and the brand continues to extend its market share here.

“There is no such thing as a technical proof that what we do will transform into sales, but what I can say is that this exhibition is certainly firing up by way of desirability. I feel the brand shall be more desirable after people see this exhibition,” Beccari said. 

The manager said Dior was one in every of the few luxury brands to grow by double digits in Japan within the yr 2020, and that it’s currently the fastest-growing brand within the industry here, having fun with something of what he described as an “awakening.” 

“We were very small in Japan [before], mainly nonexistent, and I feel the clients now have began to like Dior with the arrival of Maria Grazia [Chiuri], with the arrival of Kim Jones, who can also be adored here in Japan, and I feel that we’re marking the spirit normally worldwide, but additionally in Japan,” Beccari concluded.