Culture, Street Style

Christian Dior Arrives at
the Brooklyn Museum

By The Rebag Team, Sep 9, 2021

Legendary couturier Christian Dior’s legacy lives on.

Four years after its debut in Paris, the exhibition Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams arrives at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. The show travels through Dior’s beginnings as an art dealer to his first trips to the United States and his arrival in New York. It follows the history of the house and its subsequent designers, from Yves Saint Laurent to Maria Grazia Chiuri.

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams opens at the Brooklyn Museum this week, tracing the inspirations and legacy of the art dealer-turned-couturier. The exhibition begins with a section that follows Christian Dior’s first trips from Paris to the United States. The Dallas-based department store Neiman Marcus invited Dior in 1947 for a visit to be honored with the Award for Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion. Subsequent trips to various American cities, including New York, followed, and in 1948, Dior debuted a collection of 80 looks in New York. Photographs by Gordon Parks, Mario Sorrenti, David LaChapelle, Irvin Penn, Lillian Bassman, and more revisit Dior’s visual history and the images used to market the fashion house.

The exhibition then takes a look at the designers who helmed the house of Dior after its namesake’s death in 1957, including Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, John Galion, Raf Simons, and its current creative director, Maria Grazia Chiuri, using the Brooklyn Museum’s collection to juxtapose Dior looks against works of art that inspired them, like artist Judy Chicago and her influence on Chiuri and artist Sterling Ruby and his collaboration with Raf Simons.

Rebag visited the exhibition and caught a glimpse of Dior’s rich history, from Christian Dior’s iconic Bar Jacket and New Look collection to the house’s handbags, and we also managed to capture the fabulous Dior handbags worn by attendees at its opening. Scroll down for a look:

The Handbags of Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams

Here are some of the handbags featured at Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams:

Left: Dioraddict leather bag, Ready-to-Wear Spring/Summer 2018, Christian Dior by Maria Grazia Chiuri. Right: Lady Dior hand-painted leather bag, Ready-to-Wear Autumn 2014, Christian Dior by Raf Simons.

Leather and resin bag, Ready-to-Wear Fall/Winter 2007, Christian Dior by John Galliano.

J’adior leather bag, Ready-to-Wear Spring/Summer 2018,
Christian Dior by Maria Grazia Chiuri.

Feather-embroidered leather clutch with resin beads, Ready-to-Wear Cruise 2018,
Christian Dior by Maria Grazia Chiuri.

Leather and metal Motherpeace Lady Dior bag, Ready-to-Wear Cruise 2018,
Christian Dior by Maria Grazia Chiuri.

30 Montaigne leather bag, Ready-to-Wear Fall/Winter 2019,
Christian Dior by Maria Grazia Chiuri.

Left: Mini Lady Dior studded leather bag, Ready-to-Wear Spring/Summer 2017, Christian Dior by Maria Grazia Chiuri. Right: Medium Lady Dior bag, shiny calfskin, painted with an iris, 2016. Limited edition in collaboration with Marc Quinn.