Exhibition in Granville showcases Dior and Impressionism

You won’t want to miss the truly fabulous exhibition  Impressions Dior organized by the Christian Dior Museum, located in the designer’s childhood home in Granville, Normandy.

From Christian Dior to Raf Simons, the exhibition explores the many links between haute couture and Impressionism. The artistic movement, which sprang up during the latter part of nineteenth century, would revolutionize how people thought, just as Christian Dior did around a century later with his New Look. The colors, prints and embroidery on his pieces evoke the fields of flowers so frequently painted by Renoir or Van Gogh.

The Granville estate embodies the untamed beauty of the Normandy coast, whose landscapes fired the imaginations of the painters of light. The canvases of Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Berthe Morisot brim with immense seascapes and lush gardens dotted with rose bushes as far as the eye can see.

Impressionism and haute couture also share a love of female beauty. Depicting scenes from boudoirs, millinery shops or formal balls, the Impressionists were masters at capturing a fugitive feminine insolence. Today’s designers regularly revisit the hats and fine lingerie characteristic of the exquisitely elegant Impressionist age, connecting them with contemporary fashion.

In an intuitive, rich conversation, seventy gowns, a hundred accessories, and countless documents from the archives echo twenty paintings, drawings, watercolors and photographs on loan from such institutions as the Musée d’Orsay, the Musée Marmottan Monet and the Musée Galliera.