Oh Dior!
By: Megan
QUICK FACTS
Location: Royal Ontario Museum, Level 4
Special Exhibit: Yes
Running: November 27, 2017 – March 18, 2018
Price: $28 adult; $21.50 youth/student (combined with General Admission)
A little while ago, I went with my grandma and her friend to the Royal Ontario Museum to see the Christian Dior exhibit presented by Holt Renfrew. I’d been wanting to go see it for quite some time, and admittedly had some high expectations for it. It felt like it made sense though to go during award season, where generally I’m paying the most attention to designer gowns. It’s the time of year where I actually feel like I might have a sense of design besides a gut feeling of “oooh” or “yikes” when something comes on screen, – and this was an opportunity to get up close and personal to some beautiful pieces of history.
The exhibit was celebrating the 70th anniversary of Dior – something that I found out AFTER the exhibit when double checking some of my facts online… so that tells you something. There were original Dior creations from 1947 on, as well as modern reconstructions. I think the goal was to make it kind of personal to the GTA, with a lot of the pieces from Toronto-area socialites. There was a whole section on the perfect outfit to wear to the Woodbine Racetrack, a place I don’t think I’ve ever associated with Dior, but apparently it was super fancy like 60years ago. Who knew!
We were dumb. I don’t know what else to tell you. We went on the Friday before Family Day weekend, which also happened to be a P.A. Day: SO MANY PEOPLE. I’m pretty sure I texted Rachel being like “Why are they all four?!” I thought maybe the exhibit would have less of the kindergarten crowd but nope. I think the age range was somewhere between 3 and 80+, there were strollers and canes all over the place! And a sprinkling of confused looking boyfriends, but really it was like 95% women, and really no one was surprised.
Unfortunately, the way the exhibit was set up didn’t do justice to how cool it was: when you walked into the main room, there was no clear path to wind your way through the exhibit, so I ended up in traffic jams, losing track of what I had already seen, and having to pass things multiple times to get to the next part of the exhibit. On top of that, there was so much history behind each piece of clothing, but it wasn’t clear which poster of information went with which item of clothing – and there were a few times that I only realized there was information to be had until I was already onto the next part of the exhibit and had to backtrack to find out more. So that was frustrating. As much as I was there for the beauty, I actually wanted to know about the history behind it. Having the information right there and not being able to find it, let alone get to it… Ugh.
But the dresses were stunning. Like, stop in your tracks stunning. The attention to detail is insane, and on that note, one thing the exhibit does do really well is the display on embroidery. Just to the side of a large screen set up with a video demonstrating what goes into the creation and reconstruction of the dresses themselves, there are several cases of embroidery samples and an explanation of how they were made and used in his pieces. I spent probably fifteen minutes just trying to wrap my head around the level of detail, especially once I found out that the specific style of embroidery that Dior was known for using had the embroiderer working “blind”: they had the design side down so couldn’t actually see what they were doing! Just mind-boggling. Like I can knit without looking but that’s just next level. My second favourite part of the exhibit was the display showing how Dior was obsessed with recreating historical fashion techniques and bringing them into his designs. According to the accompanying sign, apparently at least once Christian Dior was caught in fashion history exhibits after hours fully underneath the skirts of the dresses, trying to figure out how they were made. Can you imagine being that security guard?! “Um sir, can you please come out from under that ball gown please?” They must have thought he’d lost his mind! But that need to figure out the “how” definitely shows in his designs and how timelessly elegant they are.
It was really cool to go to the exhibit with my grandma and her friend, especially when I realized that this would have been the fashion when they were my age! After I commented on how all the dresses were shown with gloves, they explained that you would always have your gloves, particularly if you were going to something like a lunch or church, or even just to go downtown. My grandma, ever practical, said she thought it was a fashion norm born out of a concern for germs and infection – but then she was a nurse during the period, so I’m not sure if that was colouring her perspective… but it definitely made sense to me! I think having gloves all the time would drive me nuts, I’m not even a huge fan in the winter and that’s just necessary, because Canada.
Overall, I would say that if you’re looking to add it on to your visit to the ROM, paying the extra $8 or so on top of general admission is worth it, but I wouldn’t go just for the exhibit. It’s possible that it would be a totally different experience on a different day, but I think the issues of flow and unclear signs would still be frustrating even with less people there. Though if you’re less interested in the history, and are just looking to absorb the beauty, you definitely won’t be disappointed!
Best,
Megan
