{"id":98054,"date":"2024-12-12T10:12:55","date_gmt":"2024-12-12T10:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&p=98054"},"modified":"2024-12-12T10:12:55","modified_gmt":"2024-12-12T10:12:55","slug":"dior-maison-grazia-usa-winter-2024","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/dior-maison-grazia-usa-winter-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Dior Maison is Home for the Holidays"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A festive holiday table set with 24-carat gold-finished red cannage plates from the Dior Maison Le No\u00ebl de Monsieur Dior collection. Photo Credit: Laora Queyras<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cL<\/span>iving in a house which does not suit you is like wearing some-one else\u2019s clothes,\u201d wrote Christian Dior in his autobiography Dior by Dior<\/i>. Fortunately for his clients, in 1947\u2014 the same year he showed his visionary New Look collection\u2014the Parisian couturier opened a boutique called Colifichets (French for \u201ctrinkets\u201d) on the ground floor of his haute couture salons at 30 Avenue Montaigne that sold flowers, letter holders, and mirrors for dressing one\u2019s home, alongside scarves and jewelry. Long before other maisons pivoted to homewares\u2014a trend only accelerated by the hybrid work schedule many now follow post-pandemic\u2014Dior\u2019s d\u00e9cor offering expanded to include such varied objects as candlesticks, spice boxes, earthenware, incense burners, vases, frames, and garden lamps that might help make a woman\u2019s home feel like a reflection of her personal aesthetic.<\/p>\n

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Christian Dior\u2019s first store, Colifichets. Photo Credit: \u00a9 Association Willy Maywald\/ADAGP, Paris, 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dior\u2019s founder intended Colifichets to feel like an 18th-century curio shop with a modern sensibility. His artist friend Christian B\u00e9rard proposed elegant toile de Jouy wallpaper and also suggested tucking monogrammed hatboxes on top of cupboards and in odd corners. \u201cIt was an inspiration,\u201d wrote Dior. The seeming casualness brought the whole place to life.\u201d And indeed, Dior\u2019s belief that a home should be both \u201clived in, and livable in,\u201d as he said of his own country house in Milly-la-For\u00eat, permeated each of the homes he decorated in the 1950s, from his Louis XVI townhouse in Paris\u2019s 16th arrondissement to his Proven\u00e7al chateau, La Colle Noire.<\/p>\n

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Christian Dior\u2019s Proven\u00e7al chateau, La Colle Noire. Photo Credit: Laora Queyras<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s that same mission that now drives Cordelia de Castellane, artistic director since 2013 of Dior\u2019s homeware division, now known as Dior Maison<\/a>. De Castellane, who is also the artistic director of Baby Dior, started her career in fashion at Chanel and Emanuel Ungaro, before launching a childrenswear line, CdeC, in 2006 and brings an intuitive touch to homewares. \u201cDesigning childrenswear collections was a natural choice for me, as I\u2019m a mother of four,\u201d she says. \u201cI never planned to do decoration. I\u2019ve always been creative and passionate about design and collecting homeware while decorating my house and so it just came naturally to me. Life is full of surprises.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Dior Maison Le Gris-Gris de Monsieur Dior star breakfast service and a celestial lamp at La Colle Noire. Photo Credit: Laora Queyras<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A cousin of Dior\u2019s artistic director of jewelry, Victoire de Castellane, she is a consummate European aristo: Raised between Paris and Gstaad, her family name is that of one of France\u2019s oldest dynasties, while her mother, interior decorator Atalanta de Castellane, is the daughter of a former Greek ambassador. Yet despite this posh upbringing, de Castellane\u2019s interiors philosophy is refreshingly unpretentious. A cultivated yet homey spirit infuses each of her homes\u2014a Saint-Germain-des- Pr\u00e8s apartment, a country house 45 minutes north of Paris, and a Swiss chalet\u2014that she shares with her husband and children.<\/p>\n

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Dior Maison Le Gris-Gris de Monsieur Dior clover lunch service and a four-leaf motif at La Colle Noire. Photo Credit: Laora Queyras<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Whether entertaining or for every-day meals, seasonal flowers like roses, peonies, and dahlias are de Castellane\u2019s centerpiece. \u201cI love all of my flowers, and all of them are my guests of honor,\u201d she says. De Castellane\u2019s personal glassware collection includes hand-engraved fern-pattern water glasses she designed for Dior Maison, Bohemian crystal, Murano tumblers, family heirlooms, and flea market finds\u2014and she loves mixing all of them together. To keep everything from looking too refined and meticulous, she has been known to lay a table with textiles she picked up on holiday in Madagascar or her grandmother\u2019s old sheets. She loves dying and hand painting vintage tablecloths, which sometimes form the basis for new patterns in her Dior Maison collections.<\/p>\n

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Dior Maison Le Gris-Gris de Monsier Dior rose tea service and the blossom covered summer salon at La Colle Noire. Photo Credit: Laora Queyras<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Another thing de Castellane has scored from flea markets: an extensive collection of vintage Dior dishes including her favorite Ginori plates from the 1970s, a Porte-bonheur <\/i>design featuring a star made of flowers, and a lily of the valley pattern comprising sprigs of the lucky charm the maison\u2019s founder often carried in his pocket or wore pinned to the lapel of his jacket. She intends for her Dior Maison pieces to be future heirlooms, and many of her designs\u2014like her own lily of the valley pattern rendered in a toile de Jouy style\u2014riff on such gris-gris beloved by Dior\u2019s founder.<\/p>\n

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Dior Maison Le Gris-Gris de Monsieur Dior bee dinner service and beehive walllpaper in Catherine Dior’s bedroom. Photo Credit: Laora Queyras<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For her Spring\/Summer 2025 Les Gris-Gris de Monsieur Dior collection inspired by La Colle Noire, de Castellane designed four services, each highlighting one of Dior\u2019s talismans through pieces like plates, tea and coffee sets, a tray, and a trinket bowl. For breakfast, there\u2019s a blue star pattern like the heavenly body Dior spotted in 1946 en route to a meeting with his future financial backer and which features prominently on lampshades, armchairs, and moldings in his chateau. For lunch, there\u2019s a green four-leaf clover design like the universal emblem of good fortune Dior always kept within reach, and which one might find on the verdant grounds. For tea, there\u2019s a pink rose motif taking cues from the charming blooms that adorn walls and folding screens in his summer salon and perfume his garden. And for dinner, there\u2019s a yellow bee design inspired by the beehive printed wallpaper and duvet in Dior\u2019s sister Catherine\u2019s bedroom.<\/p>\n

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Elegant glass candleholders, embroidered napkins, and crystal glassware from the Dior Maison Le No\u00ebl de Monsieur Dior collection\u2014and a few velvet bows\u2014add the perfect finishing touch to festive holiday tablescapes. For information on all Dior Maison products, call 800-929-DIOR. Photo Credit: Laora Queyras<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another prominent motif in de Castellane\u2019s Dior Maison collections is cannage, the signature stitching seen on many of Dior\u2019s leather goods, which borrows the geometrical pattern of squares and diagonals from the caned back Napoleon III chairs Dior kept in his couture salons. Her Le No\u00ebl de Monsieur Dior<\/a> line highlights a Limoges dinner service with a mesh of 24-carat gold subtly matched with festive red, green, or blue, complemented by elegant glass candleholders, embroidered napkins, crystal glassware, bespoke tablecloths, and hand-painted vases. \u201cThis season, I will spend the holidays in the mountains,\u201d says de Castellane. \u201cMy table will have a mix of vintage pieces and local pieces, with my Dior Maison Cannage red plates from Le No\u00ebl de Monsieur Dior collection.\u201d Sounds ever so cozy.<\/p>\n

Read GRAZIA USA\u2019<\/em>s Winter Issue featuring cover star Natasha Lyonne<\/a>:<\/strong><\/h4>\n