The Victoria & Albert Museum’s Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition is the hottest cultural ticket in town; an experience that some critics have argued is as inspirational as the French designer’s New Look when it launched in 1947.
It’s currently sold out but there are some ways in which you can see this exhibition before it ends on July 15. A very few tickets are released each morning on a first come first served basis and are available at the Grand Entrance on Cromwell Road. It opens at 10am each morning.
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Another tranche of tickets will be released on March 15 (and the 15th of each month thereafter). However, a more guaranteed method to ensure entry is to become a member of the V&A.
Standard membership to the museum currently costs £70 a year. This automatically gives unlimited entry to exhibitions for members plus a guest. There will also special members-only sessions from 8am until 10am on March 2 and 9 to the Dior exhibition, free to attend, although you will have to book.
There is also a programme of events being released, including a talk Dior and his Decorators with historian Maureen Footer on April 1. Dior: Top to Toe is a weekend course on June 22-23 which includes a visit to the V&A’s print archive to examine its holdings on the designer. It costs between £147 and £195.
Some of London’s hotels also have packages that include tickets. In nearby Queens Gate, a ten-minute walk away from the V&A, the Kensington Hotel has a three-night package available for stays between February and June 2019 which includes a stay in one of the hotel’s suites, two tickets to the exhibition and a round of bespoke ‘The Corolle’ cocktails, created by the hotel’s K Bar.
These have been inspired by Dior’s first collection in 1947 named ‘La Ligne Corolle’, a twist on the classic ‘French 75’ cocktail. The break costs £1,800 for three nights with breakfast.
The Franklin Hotel in Egerton Gardens has a special menu designed with event planners La Fete, with a series of savoury and sweet items that all reference the designer. For instance J’adore, a peanut sponge and dulcey chocolate cream is served with vaporised Calvados, a spirit hailing from Dior’s Normandy home. The apple brandy is served in a perfume bottle, harking back to the Dior scent of the same name. It costs £55 a head, including tickets or £40 without.
The Berkeley Hotel also has the Christian Dior at the Berkeley package that includes two tickets to the V&A Dior show, staying in a Deluxe King room with a bottle of champagne, plus breakfast the next morning and cakes from the current Prêt-à-Portea at The Berkeley, including the Miss Dior Eau de Parfum inspired by the designer’s own sister, Catherine, reimagined as a lychee and raspberry cake glazed with pink icing. Prices start at £780 per night.