The Christian Dior Museum, located in the couturier’s childhood home in Normandy, celebrates its 20th anniversary and the couture house’s 70th anniversary with the exhibition Christian Dior and Granville: the Source of the Legend.

Focusing mainly on Dior’s childhood, the exhibition pays tribute to a period in his life that greatly informed his oeuvre and influenced the work of his successors. It was at Granville at the beginning of the 20th century that Dior spent the first years of his life. With its soft pink and gray stone facade, perched on a cliff, he kept “the sweetest and most wonderful memories,” he wrote in his memoirs. “What can I say? My life, my style owe almost everything to its location and its architecture.”

Curated by the fashion historian Florence Müller, the exhibition plays out as a dialogue between Dior’s childhood home and the designs produced in his couture house. Spread across three levels, the exhibition conjures the atmosphere of the era with the use of archival documents. On the ground floor, the various rooms each signify an aspect that shaped Dior’s personality, specifically the Japanese exoticism of the entrance hall, the rococo decoration of the grand drawing room, and the Normandy flavor of the dining room. The first floor is occupied by the bedrooms, each evoking a member of the family in displays that juxtapose photographs, portraits, and other personal objects with haute couture dresses. The top floor finishes telling the story of the Dior legend, showing the couturier’s output revisited by various successors.

Christian Dior and Granville: the Source of the Legend, Apr 8 – Sep 24, 2017, Musée Christian Dior