![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/04c0.jpg\")
A snapshot of Azzedine Ala\u00efa\u2019s Dior Collection – Dior\u00a9 ADRIEN DIRAND<\/p>\n
\u00a0 In effect, the exhibition is in sync with a parallel dialogue between Dior and Ala\u00efa, as a second exhibition will open on December 14 in the Ala\u00efa Foundation in the Marais, where 30 Dior looks acquired by Azzedine will be juxtaposed against his own creations. \u00a0 \u00a0 Shopping for fashion and couture was such a passion, Ala\u00efa eventually acquired over 20,000 pieces, managed today by his Foundation and held in a secret location. \u00a0 \u00a0 \n Copyright \u00a9 2025 FashionNetwork.com All rights reserved.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published November 19, 2025 Though at first sight they might appear very distant aesthetically, a striking new exhibition…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[111890,46551,712,72321,29611,111893,15518,709,2244,78581,59,111889,82168,57,58,111895,64433,711,111891,87455,710,2024,50,111894,111892,32668,713,78579,56,54,55,52310],"class_list":["post-272127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-azzedine-alaia","tag-balenciaga","tag-beauty","tag-belle","tag-chanel","tag-dia7","tag-dior","tag-fashion","tag-fashionnetwork-com","tag-galliera","tag-gb","tag-gianfranco-ferre","tag-givenchy","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-guy-bourdin","tag-john-galliano","tag-luxury","tag-madeleine-vionnet","tag-maria-grazia-chiuri","tag-network","tag-new-look","tag-news","tag-olivier-saillard","tag-poiret","tag-prada","tag-professionals","tag-saint-laurent","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-vogue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Both towered over fashion during their careers, even if their aesthetics differed widely. Dior invented the New Look<\/a> and developed a romantic vision of couture, rippling with garden and floral prints. Ala\u00efa created warrior women and empowered super heroines in body-con, highly sculpted clothes.\u00a0
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Titled\u00a0Azzedine Ala\u00efa\u2019s Dior Collection, the exhibition opened Wednesday evening inside La Galerie Dior, the brand\u2019s ultra elegant museum, presenting a scenographic narrative of the history of the famed couture house. The show features 101 looks by Christian Dior and five of his successors \u2013 Yves Saint Laurent<\/a>, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferr\u00e9<\/a>, John Galliano<\/a>, and Maria Grazia Chiuri<\/a>, owned by the Fondation Ala\u00efa, possibly the greatest private collection of high fashion ever assembled.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Professionally, the designers’ paths crossed, even if just for five days. An employment contract on display shows that Azzedine Ben Ala\u00efa did a short internship at the house of Dior in June 1956.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Outfits](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/8c6e.jpg\")
Outfits and their design sketches at Azzedine Ala\u00efa\u2019s Dior Collection – Dior\u00a9 ADRIEN DIRAND<\/p>\n
The genesis of the project dates back two years, when the Ala\u00efa Foundation’s director Olivier Saillard<\/a> realised just how many pieces Ala\u00efa had acquired by Dior and by Monsieur\u2019s successor couturiers.\u00a0
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\u201cWhen we put them all together, we realised there was a whopping 600 pieces. Wow! So, we proposed to Dior Heritage to view the collection, and provide their expert advice,\u201d recalled Saillard.
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Eventually, Dior Heritage prepared a special inventory, sleuthing the right season and collection each piece belonged to, the date the dress was made, and its exact fabrics. That very fashion detective work is highlighted by walls of exactly dated sketches by Monsieur Dior and photos of him at work, alongside panels of fabric swatches, precise details about fabric manufacturers, embroiderers, and even the name of the model who first wore the look.\u00a0
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\u201cDior Heritage ended up asking, as there are so many very important creations, would you be able to create a show to present at least part of this collection? In the end, we chose 101 pieces for this exhibition here. It makes sense because Ala\u00efa\u2019s collection is right back where he started in Paris, pushing open the door of Christian Dior for five days,\u201d said Saillard.
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Noting a remarkable serendipity, the exhibition opens on the eighth anniversary of Azzedine, who passed aged 82 on November 18, 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Floral](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/5459.jpg\")
Floral looks set amongst a blossoming garden – Dior \u00a9 ADRIEN DIRAND<\/p>\n
Ala\u00efa first began collecting fashion rarities in the late 1960s, long before even the great houses of Paris \u2013 like Dior, Givenchy<\/a> and Chanel<\/a> \u2013 had begun assembling their own historic collections.
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\u201cAround 1968, when Balenciaga<\/a>, closed his doors, Azzedine became very concerned about the preservation of great couture.\u00a0\u00a0In fact,\u00a0he\u00a0bought a lot more than every museum at that time in Paris. This was in an era when fashion museums simply didn\u2019t have the budgets they do today,\u201d explained Saillard, one of fashion\u2019s greatest curators, and the former director of the Galliera<\/a>, one of Paris\u2019 most important fashion museums.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI used to see Azzedine almost every week at auctions bidding without limit for the most important pieces I ever saw in my life. And, sometimes he would yell, “Olivier! You have to buy this dress.” And I replied, Azzedine I just don’t have the money.” And he would respond: “Call the Minister of Culture and get some! Which wasn\u2019t really possible.\u201d
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The Tunisan-born designer collected all the great Masters \u2013 like Vionnet, Balenciaga, and Madame Gr\u00e8s. Some 900 pieces by the latter became the subject of another expo by his foundation.<\/p>\n![\"Dior's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/b22a.jpg\")
Dior’s signature nipped-in waist and sculptural silhouettes – Dior \u00a9 ADRIEN DIRAND<\/p>\n
Ala\u00efa bought so much, and for such high prices \u2013 like a famed Schiaparelli dress worn by Marlene Dietrich that went for over \u20ac200,000 – that traders were concerned the bottom would fall out of the vintage market after he died. But the ever-growing interest in fashion has meant it hasn\u2019t.
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The week Ala\u00efa sold part of his house to Prada<\/a> in 2000, he immediately went out shopping. Buying many pieces by Poiret<\/a>, the rarest and most expensive fashion designer of all.
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Ala\u00efa\u2019s family were well-to-do wheat farmers in Tunisia, and he discovered fashion reading his mother\u2019s copies of French Vogue<\/a>. As a result, this exhibition opens with a gown from an era that influenced Dior massively, the Belle<\/a> Epoque, and a dress just like one Christian\u2019s mother Madelaine would have worn.
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\u201cIt\u2019s a reminder of the influence so many mothers have had on so many fashion designers,\u201d noted Galerie Dior\u2019s director Olivier Flaviano, who joined Saillard for an exclusive presentation of the exhibition for FashionNetwork.com<\/a>.
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Each look has a name, all positioned on simple stands in practically all the 14 sections of La Galerie Dior.
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The opening room contains a series of early works, including one by Dior for Lucien Lelong, where he learnt the m\u00e9tier of a couturier prior to opening his own house in 1947. A 1950 printed nylon taffeta looks like it was made last week, while a 1951 ensemble in pleated wool could almost have been designed by Ala\u00efa.<\/p>\n![\"Bows](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1763579050_362_2565.jpg\")
Bows and Valentines hues – Dior \u00a9 ADRIEN DIRAND<\/p>\n
In other ways, these two legends are lightyears apart, as seen in a charming display of beaded floral organza and lace dresses by Dior and Chiuri, all staged in a mock garden in front of a backdrop of Granville, the seafront villa in Normandy where Christian grew up.
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\u201cSeveral of these dresses date from 1956, the year Ala\u00efa worked here. So, theoretically Azzedine might even have done a little work on one of them,\u201d winked Flaviano.
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Monsieur\u2019s successors all are given their moments. Notably in a superb black and white trilogy of embroidered lace and printed silk twill, where creations by Ferr\u00e9 and Bohan accompany a nipped-waist New Look dress by Monsieur like two kid sisters.
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Saint Laurent, who barely lasted two years as Christian\u2019s first successor, enjoys a wow factor with an avant-garde bouffant and bevelled rose blush dress.\u00a0\u00a0It is named Nuit d\u2019Ispahan, after the ancient Persian city. While Galliano, who managed a decade in charge, is represented by a bravura funnel necked bar jacket from 2005 that scores magna cum laude for its tailoring.
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Ultimately, though their styles were distant, Ala\u00efa loved Christian Dior for the simple fact that he was the incarnate of both couture and France, the profession and country he adopted. Ala\u00efa was such a fan of Dior he even bought three versions of the same dress: a brilliant swirling cocktail number in silk faille entitled Venezuela from 1957, the year of Dior\u2019s death. Quite frankly, any woman would jump at the chance to wear this look. There\u2019s a concise photo by Guy Bourdin<\/a> of that very dress from French Vogue nearby. And another version of Venezuela in a blotchy red floral that is quite simply beautiful.
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\u201cWhen he first fell in love with fashion as a teenager in Tunis, he became fascinated by Dior and by dresses that seemed “to stand up by themselves.” Which is what we have tried to capture in this exhibition,\u201d concluded Saillard.
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For serious aficionados of fashion, this is quite simply a must-see display.\n <\/p>\n