WHEN IN JAPAN: Dior and parent LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton are having a big moment in Japan.
Word has it a clutch of top brass from the French luxury group will converge in Osaka this weekend for the opening of Expo 2025. LVMH is a sponsor of the French Pavilion and its Louis Vuitton, Dior, Celine, Chaumet and Moët Hennessy brands will be showcased in permanent and temporary exhibition spaces at the Expo, which takes place at Osaka Bay from Sunday to Oct. 13, as reported.
Over in Kyoto, where Maria Grazia Chiuri is set to parade Dior’s pre-fall 2025 collection on Tuesday in the garden of Tō-ji Temple, Dior and Christian Dior Parfums are supporting two exhibitions linked to the Kyotographie International Photography Festival, which kicks off on Saturday.
Dior is behind Graciela Iturbide’s first major exhibition in Japan, taking place at the Kyoto City Museum of Art Annex in Sakyo Ward.
Known for exalting female strength and authority in her images, the Mexican photographer has collaborated with Dior several times, doing a reportage in Oaxaca around its cruise 2018 collection, and another photo series spurred by Chiuri’s destination cruise 2024 show for Dior in Mexico City.
The Kyoto showcase covers nearly 60 years of Iturbide’s work, much of it in black-and-white and focused on local communities — also reflecting her devotion to feminist ideas and causes.
Separately, Christian Dior Parfums is a partner of the Kyotographie satellite event KG+ and supporting an exhibition by Pamela Tulizo, a journalist and documentary photographer hailing from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In 2020, she won the Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award for Young Talents, where she presented 13 photographs that questioned the identity of women, the role they play in African society, and how they are perceived by the world.
At KG+, Tulizo is presenting 12 new and carefully composed images that “bring to light the often forgotten roles of women in the transatlantic slave trade, by placing them in contexts linked to the financial incentives behind slavery, such as cotton plantations, tobacco fields, domestic work and sexual exploitation,” Christian Dior Parfums said in a statement. “With these works, the photographer pays tribute to these forgotten heroines, celebrating their courage, their resilience and their strength, faced with a destiny they knew they could not escape.”
Tulizo created the outfits for the photos because they “help tell the story through their colors, shapes and textures. These bright colors are essential for me, because they bring hope and life to my images,” she said.
The “Mababu, Spirit of the Ancestors” exhibition takes place at Sfera until May 11.
AloJapan.com