News feed
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: Recreating Paris’ iconic Les Tuileries Royal Garden in downtown Darlinghurst is a mighty feat, let alone capturing its wintery landscape on the eve of a heat wave. But all was nothing short of enchanting on the evening of December 8 when Dior Beauty invited Sydney’s fashion set to a dinner inside the National Art School to celebrate the holidays.
Guests were led up a garden pathway where champagne was served around an icy white water fountain, scenes atypical of this time of year in the Tuileries. At the top of fountain, an enlarged bottle of the house’s famous parfum J’adore stood tall. Guests were then ushered inside the ornate building where a winter wonderland awaited: Bronzed seats, reminiscent of those steely monuments in the French gardens, hemmed in large round tables with white linen tablecloths. White flowers—peonies, roses and baby breath—were set against crystal wine glasses and dinner was traditional French fare including a dessert trolly and a delicious chocolate mousse.
Guests were treated to musician GRAACE who angelically performed two paired back compositions—Joni Mitchell’s “River” and Hayden James’ track “Numb” which GRAACe features on—on a Dior-themed carousel, the singer orbiting the room as snowflakes fell from above. In the crowd, actors Felix Mallard, Teresa Palmer, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Natasha Bordizzo, Olivia de Jonge, Geraldine Viswanathan, Lincoln Younes, Maddison Brown, Sam Corlett and Will Lodder watched on.
Christian Dior was always moved by gardens—he, indeed, spent his final years at Château de La Colle Noire in Provence, his sprawling country home overlooking hectares of land cultivated for fragrant flowers and fruit harvests.
“Part of the process that is very specific to Dior is that the inspiration can come from the garden,” Dior’s perfume creation director, Francis Kurkdjian, told me in May as we both stood in the garden at Château de La Colle Noire.
One of Monsieur Dior’s favourite gardens, however, was the Tuileries, the oldest French-style gardens in Paris. And on this particular evening in Sydney, I too felt the pull of the visionary’s greatest inspiration.
Take a peek inside the night below.
Explore Dior Beauty’s 2023 Holiday Collection here
