LONDON — Dior is striking a chord with the Brits, serving up a gingerbread fantasy at Harrods, and lifting morale after one tough 12 months.

Some 1,500 people streamed into Harrods through the opening weekend of Friday through Sunday to witness the gingerbread world of Dior, where the designer, his family, the seamstresses from the atelier and his couture clients have been transformed into animated iced cookies as a part of an ambitious creative installation on the shop’s lower ground level.

The Dior Café, a gingerbread-themed restaurant serving cookies and full meals inspired by the life and times of Christian Dior, was booked all weekend, the brand said. Dishes on offer include Cornish crab with green apple, and roasted chestnut velouté with winter chanterelles. For dessert there’s honey cake in the form of a Christmas tree.

Also on offer are colorfully iced cookies in the form of the Bar jacket; the Dior Book Tote, Saddle and Lady Dior bags, and the J’adore perfume.

On Thursday evening, the British tennis star Emma Raducanu cut the ribbon on the installation, which saw Dior take over all the store’s windows; light up the facade as brightly as a Christmas tree; open two pop-up shops, and deck the halls with special Dior accessories, and a complete lot of gingerbread.

The crowds began arriving on Friday, following a string of Dior inauguration celebrations at Harrods and later at Kensington Palace.

At Harrods, they gathered on the Dior Café and mingled among the many Dior toile chairs and carved tables drinking Ruinart Champagne and watching pastry chefs decorate towers of gingerbread with delicate lattices of white icing.

Later, guests including Raducanu, Erin O’Connor, Anya Taylor-Joy, Eddie Redmayne, Hannah Bagshawe, Stephen Jones, Bianca Jagger, Sabine Getty, Greta Bellamacina, Morgane Polanski and Bukayo Saka, the Dior-dressing Arsenal star who’s headed to Qatar later this month to play for England on the World Cup, gathered at Kensington Palace for dinner.

“I really like seeing all of the Christmas trees!” said O’Connor as soon as she stepped into the palace, which, like Harrods and Dior, is getting an early jump on Christmas.