Dior's Enchanting Holiday Windows: A Timeless Twist on Festive Magic

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It turns out holiday windows, like sitcoms, can have reruns - and not lose any of their magic.

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After blockbuster Christmas-time takeovers of Harrods in London in 2022 and Saks Fifth Avenue in New York in 2023, Dior has repurposed many decorative elements to extraordinary effect at its 30 Avenue Montaigne flagship in Paris, and in other boutiques around the world.
Actress Laetitia Casta and Dior chairman and chief executive officer Delphine Arnault kicked off the season last Friday night, flicking on the lights to reveal mini Eiffel Towers, two Arc de Triomphe, giant Lady Dior and Saddle bags. They also revealed miniature Haussmannian-building-shaped cuckoo clocks studding the pale stone facade of the French brand's historic flagship.

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Passersby trained their cell phones on the spectacle and let out a cheer when the mini Eiffel Towers started scintillating, and white and yellow lights bloomed across the vast building.

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"We have this stunning location here on Avenue Montaigne where Mr. Dior created his fashion house in 1947," Arnault said, standing in front of a pyramid of bell jars approximating a Christmas tree. "This location is so iconic, so emblematic, and we really wanted this facade to make everyone dream.

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"It's amazing for kids, but also for adults - any generation is able to dream in front of those windows," she said, describing a yearlong process to develop its 2024 Christmas windows, packaging, store displays and special events.

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At the rambling Avenue Montaigne store, customers encounter tiny blue velvet foxes, fawns and squirrels as adorable sentinels inside jewelry and watch display cases - or larger ones you can pet like a pet dog or kitten.

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There are clusters of Christmas trees twinkling in the café and winter gardens, bulging with presents at the base and joined by glowing animal figures, including lions, whose lifelike fur manes were realized with paper.

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A two-story caravan has been converted into a hot-chocolate station, though it was serving Champagne at the illumination party, where opera singer and Dior ambassador Pretty Yende entertained with a medley of Christmas carols, her long neck garlanded in Dior Lucky Star jewelry.

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Wearing a long, dark coat embroidered with colorful flowers, Arnault greeted the likes of chef Jean Imbert, ballet star Hugo Marchand, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton executive Sidney Toledano and Dior's newest recruit, managing director Benedetta Petruzzo.

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How is Arnault's Christmas shopping going?

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"I haven't started," she said sheepishly.

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No wonder, given the full-court press Dior has unleashed to spread holiday joy at its vast global boutique network, designing fantastical undersea-world facades for boutiques in Seoul and Beverly Hills and building a 33-foot tall gingerbread Christmas tree for the atrium of Plaza 66 in Shanghai.

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Its multifaceted holiday themes go well beyond wreaths, garlands and ornaments to include seahorses, starfish and coral, the underwater story stemming from prints in Maria Grazia Chiuri's cruise 2025 collection, now arriving in stores.

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Unicorns, lions, monkeys and birds also join fairy-tale-like displays. The creatures emerged from regular Dior collaborator Pietro Ruffo's drawings for Chiuri's key seasonal prints, titled "Dior Around the World," "Millefiori Unicorn" and "Dior Cabinet de la Mer," (mer is the French word for sea).

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"Maria Grazia is always thinking about how to create something new and unexpected for Christmas," said Olivier Bialobos, Dior's deputy managing director in charge of global communication and image. "Christmas is about storytelling."

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Indeed, the marine creatures add color and fantasy to illuminated store facades, packaging and in-store installations - and seem to be on trend: Across town, the Christmas windows at Le Bon Marché, which like Dior is controlled by luxury giant LVMH - include plush lobsters and octopuses.

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Windows at Dior's Avenue Montaigne flagship reprise elements from the "Carousel of Dreams" extravaganza at Saks last year.

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Vitrines depict Christian Dior's childhood in Granville, the revolutionary Bar jacket that comprised half of the New Look, and the exceptional atmosphere of couture salons and fashion shows, all in gobsmacking miniature.

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"We didn't want to throw away those beautiful decorations because they were all handmade, so they're almost like pieces of art, each of them," Bialobos explained. "And so we decided also to have them travel all over the world.

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"All those windows, like the ones we did at Harrods last year with the gingerbread, they are timeless," he added.

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New windows in Paris are dedicated to Chiuri's cruise 2025 show for Dior, held in the grand, Italianate gardens at Scotland's 15th-century Drummond Castle, which were represented in miniature.

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Bialobos explained that Dior has a long history of stoking wonderment around the holidays.

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Founder Christian Dior, who called his Avenue Montaigne address a "kingdom of dreams," would organize spectacular end-of-year parties and the gregarious designer would personally distribute gifts.

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He once enlisted French art couple François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne, famed for their whimsical sheep sculptures and rhino cabinets, to create decorations for the boutique that are echoed in the bevy of animal figures central to the 2024 windows and store displays around the world.

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In recent years, Dior has been a luxury trailblazer in using its store facades as grand canvases for Christmas decorations. It also ignited the craze for designer advent calendars back in 2011, offering the chocolate-filled boxes as gifts for top clients.Bialobos related that Marc Bohan, who held the creative reins at Dior from 1960 to 1989, once covered the pale stone facade of Avenue Montaigne with lily of the valley decorations in honor of May Day - and the founder's favorite flower.

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Dior should finish the global rollout of its holiday windows by the end of the week, and it's plotting a series of surprises for its clients, including personalized services. "For example, you can have your initials engraved on a perfume bottle," Bialobos noted. "During the whole month of December, we will have various animations for our clients."

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In addition, the French brand conscripted Imbert, who oversees the Monsieur Dior restaurant at Avenue Montaigne, to create a special Christmas log cake in the shape of a big spool, complete with a threaded needle crafted from sugar, and a button made of chocolate. It goes on sale Dec. 14.

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Dior also wove some of its holiday narratives, and Chiuri's prints, into its home collection, which is popular for holiday gifting.

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There are delicate blown-grass candlesticks embellished with shells and marine plants; enamelware vases etched with colorful undersea scenes, realized by Manufacture des Emaux de Longwy, and Limoges porcelain plates bearing a caning pattern and festive colors.

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Dior will extend and magnify its holiday themes and decorations on digital platforms, and leverage augmented reality filters for its windows, holiday packaging and special pop-up installations, including one at Galeries Lafayette, where a special Snapchat lens turns the flora and fauna decor into an immersive experience, Bialobos said.

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"We want, more than ever, to offer everyone an unforgettable experience and to let everyone dream," Bialobos said. "We hope to continue this tradition of traveling installations for different cities at different times."

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