In the history of literature there are often stories about houses or buildings described as living creatures, capable of triggering strong emotions in those who live inside them. In some cases like in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" the misery and sorrows of the main characters are reflected by the house in which they live; in others, such as Dino Buzzati's short story "Un torbido amore" (literally, "A shady love" or "A troubled love"), an unassuming passer-by falls in love with a house and becomes obsessed by it.
In the 304-page coffee-table book Dior Metamorphosis (Rizzoli USA) by Robert Polidori, the photographer chronicles the renovations carried out at the historical address of the House of Dior, 30 Avenue Montaigne in Paris, originally inaugurated in December 1946. The photographer – well-versed in exploring and documenting destruction (from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005 to the decayed grandeur of the abandoned Hotel Petra in Beirut in 2010) – sees the historical building as a living entity and examines it as if he were a surgeon operating on a patient or carrying out a forensic examination.
Polidori explores the historical salons, the personal office of Maria Grazia Chiuri, the Artistic Director of the house, appointed in 2016, the design studio, the Haute Couture ateliers, the models' cabine and boutique.
In one image an office space is empty but still in relatively good conditions; but the next picture shows that same space stripped down, with wires coming out of the walls or hanging from the ceiling. It is as if the epidermis of the building had been removed to show what's underneath, from the bare walls that point at the history of the building to the electrical wires, reminiscent of nerves or veins.
There's nothing glamorous in these pages, but, in quite a few pictures, there's a sublime sense of desolation: there are many closed off areas; raw materials are scattered around; an image of Dovima with elephants by Richard Avedon hangs on a bare wall, a relic of lost times; chairs for illustrious guests are now stacked in a corner or in the middle of a room; cupboards and wardrobes are open but there's nothing inside; spray painted numbers and letters left by the construction workers indicate areas that should be demolished.
The pristine historical salons are dismantled; the design studio is reduced to a pile of rubble; the wood panels and floor of the historical models' cabine are stripped off leaving it looking like the sort of archaeologically intriguing space you may find in Pompeii. Beautiful gowns are replaced by workers' high-vis jackets hanging around these halls and rooms.
There's beauty in the rubble, though, in those scraped walls and in that eerie sense of apocalypse hanging around the empty boutique shelves that give off a Day of the Triffids mood.
The demolition and reconstruction process lasted two years and, while taking the images, Polidori had the chance to ponder more about these spaces and to find correspondences and contrasts between the building, its spaces and the designs created, displayed or showcased there.
Out of this process came the next section, an interlude dedicated to twenty-two moments in time in which the photographer shot Dior's gowns among the rubble. Polidori and Olivier Bialobos, chief communication and image officer of One Dior, had the idea of photographing Dior's gowns on the building site. They picked a variety of gowns by Christian Dior himself, but also by the designers who followed him at the helm of his house – Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons and Maria Grazia Chiuri, the first female and seventh couturier at Dior. In this way, Polidori hinted at the metamorphosis of the house that passed through different creative directors and at its regeneration and consequent return to a new life.
The first one is the iconic Bar ensemble from the Haute Couture S/S 1947 collection, framed in a corridor; the "Francis Poulenc" dress (Haute Couture S/S 1950 collection) is photographed on the plastic-covered historical staircase; the metallic "Athena" gown (A/W 1951 collection) is instead shown among tubes covered in silver insulation sheets; classic '50s dresses in bright shades or delicate pastels (Patchouli, Cotillon, Aurore and Opéra) create contrasts with the grey concrete walls surrounding them.
It is bizarre how you get the illusion that the handrail along the staircase in the picture featuring Gianfranco Ferré's colorful "Hellébore" ballgown from 1995, is covered in luxury magenta velvet or with a similar luxurious fabric, but, looking better, you realise the cover is just an industrial plastic tube used to protect the rails.
In some cases such as Raf Simons' inverted cupcake liner-like full pleated skirts decorated with green, orange, yellow, red, and blue ribbons from Dior’s Haute Couture S/S 15 collection, the comparison between the space and the dress works pretty well as there is a perfect symmetry between the lines of the scaffolding structures behind it and the lines formed by the ribbons on the pleated skirt.
Chiuri's surrealist chess board gown "Alchimiste ensemble" (Haute Couture S/S 2018 collection) with black and white squares twisting or gradually changing dimensions in a game of optical illusions, integrates pretty well among the graffiti scribbled by the workers on the walls, while the artisanal technique employed in the "Essence d'Herbier" raffia gown (Haute Couture S/S 17) finds a contrast (and a surreal correspondence as well) with the wooden cable coils next to it.
Three dégradé gowns, all from the Haute Couture A/W 19 collection, are pictured under iron beams; the latter are half eaten by rust that created a sort of industrial dégradé motif on the architectural elements, an effect that goes well with the gowns.
Reconstruction, regeneration and the final stage of the metamorphosis are chronicled in the last section of the book. The building, like a patient, recovers its health and gets populated once again by dresses and accessories, dummies and the new exhibits of an exclusive museum. Workers in the distance signal the return of humans in these spaces; boards covered in Post-It notes arranged by the construction workers and the interior designers form colourful displays. Life returns in the boutique, the Haute Couture ateliers and the "galerie" space.
In a way this section is less interesting as it leads to a conclusion, ending the narration of this transformation. Shot when on-site work conditions were not the most clement (the photoshoots were scheduled in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic), the volume is dedicated to the fans of the House of Dior, but it should be recommended to architecture and design enthusiasts, especially those who love exploring abandoned and derelict spaces or buildings going through complex renovation stages.
"Dior Metamorphosis" by Robert Polidori is published by Rizzoli on February 28th in the U.S. and March 1st in Europe.
Image credits for this post
All Images in this post by Robert Polidori, courtesy of Dior / Rizzoli