Betak and Dior channel Surrealism
The fashion house and the runway-show producer draw on 20th century art for a 21st century collection
Leonor Fini was, as all readers of our Art and Ideas and Themes and Movements books will know, a key figure within the surrealist movement. Born in Argentina in 1907, Fini spent much of her adult life in Paris, where she was on good terms with Salvador Dali, Marx Ernst and Picasso, among others artists.
Though Fini passed away in 1996, her influence felt once again in the French capital a couple of days ago, when Dior and Alexandre de Betak teamed up to present the fashion house’s Spring/Summer 2018 haute couture collection.
Maria Grazia Chiuri, the Artistic Director of Dior's women’s collections, chose a quote from Fini – “Only the inevitable theatricality of my life interests me” – as the jumping off point for a surrealism themed collection, filled with bird cages, dice, domino masks and chess motifs.
Alexandre de Betak, the brilliant fashion show producer, complemented the collection by constructing a black-and-white checker board set in the grounds of the Museé Rodin.
The space was hung with disembodied eyes, hands, and ears, for the show, and also served as a suitably artsy venue for Dior’s accompanying masquerade ball, also overseen by Bureau Betak.
For more on surrealism, take a look at these books; for more on fashion, go here; and for more on Betak’s work, order this title.