Dior’s Youthquake Is Headed to Harrods in London
LONDON — Dior is swinging into Harrods with a collection inspired by ’60s fashion, and women’s sartorial liberation, through the eyes of Maria Grazia Chiuri, artistic director of women’s haute couture, ready-to-wear, and accessories collections.
The brand’s annual summer pop-up will showcase the fall 2024 collection, including shoes, leather goods, sunglasses, textile accessories, and jewelry, inspired by Dior’s first ready-to-wear line Miss Dior, designed by Marc Bohan in 1967.
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The Dior takeover is a summer tradition and part of a long-standing relationship between the French brand and the Knightsbridge store. Christian Dior and Harrods began working together in 1953, and the brand has staged myriad events and installations at the store over the past seven decades.
This year’s pop-up will run from July 31 to Aug. 25, at a time when London is usually filled with big-spending tourists from the U.S. and the Middle East.
The windows will feature variations of the Miss Dior bag in a variety of colors — including pink, purple and lime — while the walls will be adorned with sculptures featuring the season’s latest bags, including the Lady Dior style, in a similar rainbow of brights.
The Miss Dior logo features as a repeating pattern or as bold graffiti on a series of pieces including trenchcoats, jackets and skirts. The brand’s distinctive Book Tote and Tribales earrings, scarves, belts and Dway mules also showcase the logo.
Ahead of the fall show, Chiuri told WWD that Bohan “understood that women at the time were in a moment where they wanted to change their style of life. His dialogue was with the daughters of the clients at Dior.”
For fall 2024 Chiuri used big, slogan-style lettering inspired by the 1968 student protests for her “manifesto” trenchcoats and skirts, and was inspired by Bohan’s subversion of traditional silk scarves, once a badge of bourgeois style.
The new pop-up marks a departure from last year, which was all about history and tradition.
Last summer’s pop-up showcased the fall 2023 women’s collection against various backdrops, including a library decorated with the brand’s Plan de Paris print, with streets and monuments of the French capital traced on the floor and walls.
Dior also dressed the Harrods facade with Plan de Paris images, and recreated a cabinet of curiosities that stocked leather goods, and variations of the Lady Dior and Lady D-Joy bags, in a kaleidoscope of color.
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