FASCINATION MEETS
REINVENTION

“Large panels painted in imitation of Japanese prints adorned the whole staircase. These versions of Utamaro and Hokusai made up my Sistine Chapel. I can remember gazing at them for hours on end…,” Christian Dior recounted in his memoirs, describing the ground floor at the villa Les Rhumbs, in Granville, Normandy. Beguiled by the beauty of the images and their extreme precision, and enthralled by the exoticism of the pagodas, flowers and birds depicted, he developed a genuine admiration for the cultural richness of the Japanese archipelago.

He would summon those inspirations throughout his life, season after season. For the autumn-winter 1952 Christian Dior-New York line, he named one of his dresses Tokio. A year later, he created the spring-summer 1953 haute couture ensemble called Jardin Japonais (Japanese Garden), featuring a repetitive motif of a bird alighted on a blossoming cherry tree. The following year, he designed an outfit in Japanese brocade called Outamaro, made with fabrics from Tatsumura, the prestigious Kyoto art weaving atelier. 

A visionary, Monsieur Dior understood the importance of writing his House’s destiny beyond French borders. Having forged relationships with England and America, he quickly established a special bond with Japan, with which he shared a sense of excellence and an eye for detail. In 1953, he became the first Western couturier to offer his collections there, by developing important partnerships with Daimaru and Kanebo. These companies were then authorized to produce models based on patterns supplied by 30 Avenue Montaigne and adapted for Japanese women who embraced the Dior look, through a taste that was both respectful of customs and a spirit of discovery turned resolutely towards modernity. This virtuoso alliance allowed Monsieur Dior to fully express his admiration for Japanese fabrics, which are renowned for their exceptional craftsmanship.

In November of the same year, the 1953 autumn-winter line was unveiled in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Nagoya: it marked the first time that a couture house presented its collection in Japan. From that point onwards, Dior enjoyed the steadfast support of major Japanese clients, loyal friends who became its fervent ambassadors.

The year 1958 marked the consecration of this union, when the House designed the three dresses for the civil wedding ceremony of Princess Michiko, the future wife of Crown Prince Akihito, which was celebrated on April 10^th, 1959. Six years later, Marc Bohan in turn favoured Tokyo and Osaka in silhouettes for autumn-winter 1964. Magnifying this eternal passion, John Galliano drew inspiration from Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly – which is set in Nagasaki – for the Dior spring-summer 2007 haute couture collection. Amid decorations of cherry blossom branches came a succession including an enchanting suit in embroidered pink gazar with meticulous pleating evoking the technique of origami, as well as a linen coat wrapped in a print recalling Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Lotuses, birds, dragonflies and water lilies appeared on kimonos, skirts and sumptuous sheath dresses embellished with lavish embroideries. 

Such abundant imagination inhabited the Dior spring-summer 2017 haute couture collection revealed in Paris, then in Tokyo a few weeks later. For that occasion, Maria Grazia Chiuri developed nine new looks, contemporary variations on the 1953 Jardin Japonais dress. Perpetuating those precious affinities, in 2018 Kim Jones staged the Pre-Fall 2019 show, the very first for the House, in the heart of the atrium in the Telecom Center Building, featuring a collaboration with Hajime Sorayama.

Dior and Japan: A Passion Recounted by Akiko Fukai, Director of the Kyoto Costume Institute

DIOR MAGAZINE: What can you tell us about the pieces preserved at the Kyoto Costume Institute (KCI), and their story of Monsieur Dior’s eternal fascination with Japan?

AKIKO FUKAI: For the autumn-winter 1947 collection, Christian Dior unveiled a long coat in cobalt-blue silk taffeta, which is held in the collection at the Kyoto Costume Institute. The willowy elegance of its gently flowing lines could have come straight from a painting by Antoine Watteau. The late Richard Martin, a former curator of The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, likened that piece to the uchikake, the long robe traditionally worn over a kimono for highly formal occasions. We can see that influence in many designs by Monsieur Dior in subsequent seasons.

DM: In the Dior Fall 2025 collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri explores the relationship between the body and clothing. For you, how does that rapport translate in Western fashion, and in Japanese fashion?

AF: Japanese kimonos did not emphasize the curves of the body as had conventional Western clothing; they covered the body without being moulded to an individual figure. This abstracted, standardized format was not gender differentiated, and so created a unisex garment. It was precisely this distinctive morphological trait of the kimono that influenced Western clothing and enabled it to be distanced from the human figure in a move towards freer shaping of garments.