With a flourish of color and ’60s Pop style, the Dior collection has taken over several windows at Bergdorf Goodman and now occupies a formidable new space in the luxury emporium.
Four main windows and three vitrines across Bergdorf’s Fifth Avenue facade display Dior’s spring 2022 collection, which is housed inside the Dior shop on the Bergdorf’s second floor, overlooking Fifth Avenue. It’s significantly larger than the previous Dior shop that was across the corridor.
Maria Grazia Chiuri’s collection for Dior revisits the early 1960s, and has a spirit and expression that plays counterpoint to the gloom of the pandemic. Silhouettes reveal cuts and graphic effects transposed in yellow, green, red, navy, orange and raspberry, giving the aesthetic of Marc Bohan, Dior’s designer for 30 years until 1989, a color block spin.
Elements of Dior’s runway show featuring colorful game board pieces in different sizes and shapes, embodying artist Anna Paparatti’s Il Gioco del Nonsense (The Game of Nonsense) are sprinkled through Bergdorf’s presentation. The game pieces are illuminated and programmed to flash different colors randomly.
On display are Dior jackets reinvented with a boxy cut, refined coats, skirts, Bermudas, shorts and dresses. A selection of designs produced in 3D embroidery is enhanced by a textured visual effect. Materials such as scuba and nylon reinterpret volumes.
There are also new mannequins in yellow and orange, substituting for the typical wood and fabric mannequins. They help evoke the ’60s vibe of the collection.
In Dior’s new ready-to-wear boutique at Bergdorf’s, there’s a fun entry platform with oversize steps, and a focal wall of flashing game pieces, which are also inspirations from the runway show.
Bergdorf’s and Dior go back a long way, almost to February 1947 when Christian Dior unveiled his first haute couture collection at 30 Avenue Montaigne in Paris.
“Bergdorf Goodman’s representatives — Miss Frankau and Miss Jessica Daube to name but two — were present at the show on that extraordinary day, which marked the birth of the New Look, a style that would conquer the world,” Pietro Beccari, chairman and chief executive officer of Christian Dior Couture, told WWD. “In September 1947, Christian Dior was honored in Dallas with the Neiman Marcus Award for ‘Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion.’ As an echo, his successor Yves Saint Laurent 10 years later received the prestigious award.”
And in 1949, Bergdorf Goodman became one of Dior’s American retailers. Neiman’s and Bergdorf’s are both part of the Neiman Marcus Group.
“Since the worldwide success of the New Look, Bergdorf Goodman has been one of our closest partners, bringing Dior fashion to the United States,” Beccari said. “Today, it seemed natural to us to celebrate and revive more than ever the steadfast bond that unites Dior to this unique address and more globally to the United States, a country where Christian Dior has traveled extensively and where our house continues to grow through multiple ambitious projects, exhibitions, launches, and the creation of new boutiques and concepts.”
At Bergdorf’s, Dior has custom-designed the scenography. “It’s reminiscent of the Dior spring ready-to-wear 2022 show, which paid tribute to the work of iconic 1960s Italian art figure Anna Paparatti,” Beccari said. “The windows overlooking Fifth Avenue reveal an initiatory journey where ‘play’ becomes an exciting place of reflection, questioning the rules of art and life, in bright, joyful colors.”
Beccari characterized the setup inside Bergdorf’s Dior boutique as “a representation of a spectacular game board with oversize steps to welcome customers.”
Asked about exclusives for the Bergdorf presentation, expected to be in place for about a month, Beccari said, “We have created a new color version of look 78 from the Dior spring 2022 ready-to-wear show and the iconic Dior Caro and Lady Dior bags have been reinvented with exceptional three-dimensional embroidery.”
Last July, Dior opened a store on Fifth Avenue and the southeast corner of 59th Street, which officials said at the time would operate for about two years while the Dior store on 57th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues undergoes a renovation and expansion. Only a section of the first floor of the 57th Street store is currently open.
“Both Bergdorf’s and Dior are about modern luxury, beauty at its highest expression, and we have both evolved over our rich histories to anticipate our ever-changing cultures and how taste and desirability moves forward,” said Linda Fargo, Bergdorf’s senior vice president, the fashion office, and director of women’s fashion and store presentation. “Dior has always been essential to Bergdorf’s offerings.”
Fargo said Dior’s new boutique at Bergdorf’s, now overlooking Fifth Avenue, has “a chic residential vibe with incredible customized textures and materials — while managing to allow the product to always be the hero.”
Displaying Dior in the Fifth Avenue windows is ideal, since its New York Fashion Week.
“The windows should be extremely eye-catching whether speeding or strolling down Fifth Avenue,” Fargo said. “It’s an energetic and moving game board of vivid and colorful moving parts, and is the perfect setting for this pop collection. Maria Grazia Chiuri frequently looks to her deep appreciation for women artists from many eras, especially the disruptive ’60s. The dreamworld of the Dior spring 2022 women’s ready-to-wear collection is nourished by curiosity, desire and research. It is structured around a network of associations as Maria Grazia Chiuri explores Marc Bohan’s long tenure as creative director of Dior. More precisely, she highlights the Slim Look collection, presented in 1961 and described by the fashion press as completely changing fashion, just as the New Look did in 1947.”