Miss Dior is taking on new dimensions Christian Dior’s first fragrance, from 1947, is the subject of an exhibition, called “Miss Dior — Esprit Dior” to run in Paris’ Grand Palais from Nov. 13 to 25 “It is also an homage to Christian Dior’s sister, Catherine Dior, [in the Resistance] and deported during the Second World War and who has become a muse for the artists who worked on the codes of Miss Dior and the fragrance,” explained Hervé Mikaeloff, the show’s curator.
Fifteen female contemporary artists from around the globe and working in different media, ranging from painting to sculpture to installations, were given carte blanche to create large-scale works inspired by Miss Dior Mikaeloff said they each had a different interpretation but shared a global vision.
Chinese artist Liang Yuanwei’s oil painting is evocative of the Miss Dior dress with thousands of embroidered flowers that was made by Christian Dior for the launch of the fragrance “There is an optical illusion rather astonishing,” said Mikaeloff Each artwork to be shown in the sprawling exhibition space will be accompanied by a reference to what part of Miss Dior inspired it, ranging from the name, the bottle or the hound’s tooth-patterned outer box.
To accompany Yuanwei’s work is the dress by Dior Iranian photographer and filmmaker Shirin Neshat took a cue from Natalie Portman, who fronts the Miss Dior fragrance. Neshat’s black-and-white film of Portman on a beach is set to music specially composed by Johnny Azari “It’s like a reference to a silent film, a surrealist film — to films by [Luis] Bunuel — an epoch that was also important for Christian Dior because he made numerous exhibitions on surrealism,” said Mikaeloff.
Source: wwd