Night and Day With Dior in London
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
LONDON — Dior is striking a chord with the Brits, serving up a gingerbread fantasy at Harrods, and lifting morale after one tough year.
Some 1,500 people streamed into Harrods during the opening weekend of Friday through Sunday to witness the gingerbread world of Dior, where the designer, his family, the seamstresses from the atelier and his couture clients have been transformed into animated iced cookies as part of an ambitious creative installation on the store’s lower ground level.
More from WWD
The Dior Café, a gingerbread-themed restaurant serving cookies and full meals inspired by the life and times of Christian Dior, was booked all weekend, the brand said. Dishes on offer include Cornish crab with green apple, and roasted chestnut velouté with winter chanterelles. For dessert there’s honey cake in the shape of a Christmas tree.
Also on offer are colorfully iced cookies in the shape of the Bar jacket; the Dior Book Tote, Saddle and Lady Dior bags, and the J’adore perfume.
On Thursday evening, the British tennis star Emma Raducanu cut the ribbon on the installation, which saw Dior take over all of the store’s windows; light up the facade as brightly as a Christmas tree; open two pop-up shops, and deck the halls with special Dior accessories, and a whole lot of gingerbread.
The crowds began arriving on Friday, following a string of Dior inauguration celebrations at Harrods and later at Kensington Palace.
At Harrods, they gathered at the Dior Café and mingled among the Dior toile chairs and carved tables drinking Ruinart Champagne and watching pastry chefs decorate towers of gingerbread with delicate lattices of white icing.
Later, guests including Raducanu, Erin O’Connor, Anya Taylor-Joy, Eddie Redmayne, Hannah Bagshawe, Stephen Jones, Bianca Jagger, Sabine Getty, Greta Bellamacina, Morgane Polanski and Bukayo Saka, the Dior-dressing Arsenal star who’s headed to Qatar later this month to play for England at the World Cup, gathered at Kensington Palace for dinner.
“I love seeing all the Christmas trees!” said O’Connor as soon as she stepped into the palace, which, like Harrods and Dior, is getting an early jump on Christmas.
Best of WWD
