“Azzedine Alaïa and Christian Dior: Two masters of Haute Couture Fondation” exhibition opening in Paris 

What if a dress could talk? What stories could tell? And… what if two dresses, from two fashion masters could initiate a dialogue, one to each other? Well, the scenery is not totally impossible. The exhibition “Azzedine Alaïa and Christian Dior, two masters of Haute Couture” is opening in Paris, at Azzedine Alaïa Fondation and It features an intimate and enlightening conversation between the works of Alaïa and those of Christian Dior (and his successors) from the Tunisian couturier’s personal and historic collection.

(Photo up: « ANDALOUSE », Christian Dior, Haute Couture Printemps/été 1955 Azzedine Alaïa, prêt-à-porter Printemps/été 2013)

Exhibition, curated by Olivier Saillard, is on display from December 15th, until May 24th, 2026 (every day from 11 am to 7 pm). Fondation Azzedine Alaïa, 18, rue de la Verrerie, 75004 Paris – https://fondationazzedinealaia.org/en/

The exhibition – “Azzedine Alaïa and Christian Dior, Two Masters of Haute Couture” brings together nearly 70 designs by the two couturiers. Archives from the 1950s and creations by Azzedine Alaïa, all from the collections he assembled and which are now preserved in his foundation, engage in a subtle dialogue. Despite the decades that separate them, formal agreements, colour combinations, similarities in ornamentation and inspiration attest to the reconciliation of fashion and time that these two great couturiers naturally led and governed.

The collector – “A dress holds three memories” Azzedine Alaïa would say. “The memory of the couturier who made it, the atelier that realized it, and the woman who wore it.” For nearly 40 years, Alaïa quietly assembled what is considered the largest private fashion archive on record: some 20.000 pieces, acquired from 1968 until his death in 2017. That he collected around 600 Christian Dior designs.

The story of the two legends…

In 1956, Paris was no longer the distant horizon that the young Azzedine Alaïa gazed at dreamily as he leafed through fashion magazines. Leaving Tunis with nothing but a letter of recommendation in his pocket, he arrived in the capital and went straight to the Champ de Mars, to the home of Madame Lévy-Despas, a client of Christian Dior. She found him an internship in the workshops. At a time when Dior’s fashion dominated the world and the decade, the couturier of the New Look was still alive. 

The first dresses that Alaïa made for a few clients summed up his passion for the Parisian-style dresses so glamorously mastered by Christian Dior. These cocktail dresses, which, in his words, ‘seemed to stand up on their own,’ led him to the mysteries of cutting that he sought to solve throughout his life, becoming himself the most virtuoso couturier of his time. Throughout his career, Alaïa’s work remained a silent witness to the youthful impression Dior’s suits and coats, short and long dresses had made on him. He shared Dior’s taste for accentuated waists, sculpted shoulders, curved hips and voluminous skirts. They were also united by a shared heritage of refined fabrics and colours, such as the immoderate use of all shades of black and grey, which transformed dresses into timeless statements. A couturier who never refused the lessons of his masters and predecessors, whose documents and creations he tracked down, Alaïa was also an inspired and extravagant collector. Throughout his life, he acquired more than 500 Christian Dior designs, thus protecting them from possible loss or damage. 

Photography: (c) Fondation Azzedine Alaïa