Dior holds an enchanting Kyoto show in the midst of cherry-blossom season

In 1953, Christian Dior was the first Western couturier to show his collections in Japan, the culmination of his lifelong fascination with the country. He was particularly captivated by Japan’s traditional artworks and etchings: his home in Granville, Normandy, was adorned with Japonisme prints and textiles. ‘These versions of Utamaro and Hokusai made up my Sistine Chapel,’ Dior wrote in his diary, referring to a series of stairway panels in the home inspired by the artists. ‘I still love those silks embroidered with flowers and fantastic birds and use them in my collections.’

Yesterday in Kyoto (15 April 2025), Maria Grazia Chiuri – the current creative director of the house’s womenswear and couture lines – showed her Fall 2025 collection for the house, a destination show that paid homage to Dior’s deep-rooted links with the country. Choosing the grounds of the serene Tō-ji Temple as the show’s location – the site of Japan’s tallest wooden pagoda, its gardens in full bloom in the midst of the fleeting cherry-blossom season – Chiuri presented a collection that in part began with a jacket that Christian Dior designed in 1957 to fit over the proportions of a kimono.

Dior Fall 2025 in Kyoto, Japan

The kimono inspired the collection’s wrapped line, which Chiuri said was inspired by the ‘relationship between body and garment’ – a reference to Japan’s traditional dressing rituals. Looping jackets were cinched at the waist with belts (a contemporary riff on the obi belt), while roomy, robe-like dresses recalled the traditional kimono in their proportions. A play on the split-toe tabi boot, a style which dates back to the 16th century, was also a nod to the country’s historic dress codes (the tabi is also associated with the art of geisha, which remains centred in Kyoto’s Gion district).

Chiuri’s research had begun at ‘Love Fashion: In Search of Myself’, an exhibition the Italian designer had visited in Kyoto’s National Museum of Modern Art in late 2024 which explored the idea of ‘love’ through garments that spanned the 18th century to present day and comprised both Western and Japanese designers. ‘By confronting two distinct fashion cultures, [it] conveyed the singular attitude of bodies and the complexity of the emotions that pervade them through the cut of garments: the body, identity and desire,’ said Chiuri via the collection notes. As such, there was a mood of romance, particularly in the collection’s closing looks: a series of diaphanous tulle gowns delicately adorned with botanical embroidery.

Indeed, it was the fabrics that proved the most intriguing element of the collection, not least those Chiuri worked on with local artisans (the former ancient capital of Japan, Kyoto has long been a centre of fabric production due to its plentiful natural water supply). The artisans include Kihachi Tabata, a traditional kimono dyer – here, the textile studio was inspired by Dior’s 1953 ‘Jardin Japonais’ line with its cherry-blossom print – as well as Tatsumura Textile. The latter first created a brocade for Christian Dior in 1953; now, 70 years on, they recreated the fabric for Chiuri – a symbolic link between past and present, Kyoto and Paris, and the hand of the artisan and the imagination of the designer.

dior.com