The ‘Dior Bamboo Pavilion’ opened its doors in Tokyo earlier this year, on 12 February, the very same date that the maison’s founder, Christian Dior, inaugurated his neo-classical boutique at 30 Avenue Montaigne in Paris in 1947. Tucked away in the quiet residential area in Daikanyama – different from the traditional shopping areas of Omotesando and Ginza – the dramatic new address serves as a stage to celebrate the long-standing relationship between the Parisian house and Japan, which dates back to the first fashion show held in the country in 1953, six years after Dior’s first haute couture show in 1947.
The 2,465 sq m site features a traditional Japanese strolling garden, crafted by Sora Botanical Gardens, helmed by Japanese planter Seijun Nishihata, with pine, cherry and plum trees – each symbolic of Japan – alongside more verdant planting. At the end of a meandering promenade stands the Bamboo Pavilion, which recalls 30 Avenue Montaigne and is clad in a golden bamboo façade made from recycled Japanese aluminium. This 740 sq m pavilion features Dior’s latest collections by Jonathan Anderson, alongside furniture and fittings made in Japan (Monsieur Dior’s own homes were influenced by Japanese interior decoration and art, one which also filtered into his collections).
Passing through the bamboo grove façade, you enter the inner garden, created by floral artist Azuma Makoto, which evokes an orangery where shrub flowers such as lily of the valley, reeves spirea, sweet alyssum and marguerite bloom season by season, paying homage to Monsieur Dior’s love of the botanical world. Inside, the circular central space feels as though one has stepped inside a giant lantern; it is seamlessly covered from floor to ceiling in Awa washi, a handmade paper from Tokushima prefecture, while lighting embedded within the walls softly envelops the space. From this central atrium, six separate rooms can be accessed: the Timeless Room, the Small Leather and Accessory Bar, the Leather Goods Room, the Men’s Collection Room, Café Dior, and the Women’s Collection Room.
In the white-clad ‘Timeless Room’, you are drawn into the world of Dior’s 30 Avenue Montaigne store, with white wall coverings replicating the spiral staircase, neo-classical wall panelling, and French windows of 30 Avenue Montaigne, but here, realised with Echizen Washi paper made by Osada washi. At the far end of the room is a fitting room where the walls are embroidered with another leitmotif of Dior – Toile de Jouy – but realised here through the hands of designer Hana Mitsui in collaboration with a long-established embroidery purveyor Sun Look, in Fukui prefecture.
The menswear room, meanwhile, is adorned with Dior’s signature blue, with fitting rooms where the walls have been replaced with blue tatami mats designed by Hana Mitsui and woven by a tatami manufacturer Ikehiko from Fukuoka Prefecture – a novel concept, it overturns the conventional notion of using tatami mats on the floor to walk upon. But it is not just a new perspective that stands out; the manufacturing process also differs from traditional tatami-making. By exploring new techniques such as weaving Toile de Jouy motifs into the surface of the tatami, the fitting room gives a new look to traditional craft.
Other pieces are more futuristic in their innovations, like a series of stools and tables by the Tokyo-based design duo We+, created by melting down styrofoam boxes used in fish markets and recasting them into new forms. In addition, benches made using algae also feature in the space. This furniture is part of We+’s project exploring new possibilities for sustainable colour coating, whereby a material combining algae powder and naturally derived resin is applied to the pieces’ surfaces.
The space is completed with a new outpost of Café Dior, led by three-Michelin-star French chef Anne-Sophie Pic. The whimsical creations feature interpretations of the house’s quilted cannage motif, as well as those recalling flowers, four-leaved clover and ladybugs, motifs in Anderson’s early collections for the house.
Together, the ‘Dior Bamboo Pavilion’ is a love letter from Paris to Japan – a country which, despite its influence on the couturier, Monsieur Dior was ever able to visit in his lifetime.
Dior Bamboo Pavilion, 8-1 Sarugakucho, Shibuya, Tokyo 150-0033, Japan.
