A hot mess

"Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams" opened at the Paris Museum of Decorative Arts in mid-July.

Letting too many people into a museum is a physics problem ― too many particles moving erratically, unpredictably, in space. When that space is not sufficiently air-conditioned you have a health problem. Physicists have devised sophisticated tools, like heat mapping, to describe where particles collect and how they move in time. The Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris could not give two fucks about these nuances, and as a result, the promising "Christian Dior: Couturier du Reve" exhibit becomes a death shuffle of banging elbows and a chorus of "pardons."

It is a shame, because this is the first Dior exhibition in Paris since Francois Mitterand was president (1987), and it is currently Fashion Week in one of the world's most fashionable cities. A question for the museum's patron: Have you strolled through your museum's current exhibit? Have you breathed the air? Did the experience live up to your expectations?

Enough. I have suffered so you do not have to. It's not that the exhibit doesn't have it all; it does! Well over 200 wasp-waisted couture dresses, stuff from the heritage collection you cannot see elsewhere, original sketches, photographs, runway videos, promotional materials. But the visitor experience harks back to the wartime privations from which Dior emerged. Following are some photographs. I am putting the captioned pieces first, but after awhile, with the tiny shin-high signage and constant press of the cattle behind you, it is ultimately impossible to keep track for certain of what is a John Galliano, or a Raf Simons or a Yves Saint Laurent or a Marc Bohan, etc.