OMA journeys through miss dior's 78-year history for tokyo exhibition

oma completes miss dior: stories of a miss exhibition

With sinuous pink ribbon walls, giant rotating perfume bottles, and olfactory niches, Miss Dior: Stories of a Miss celebrates the 78 years of history behind the iconic parfum. Realized by Dutch architects OMA, the experiential exhibition sits within Tokyo’s Roppongi Museum, weaving a multi-layered story of Miss Dior’s cultural impact across seven rooms.

Showcasing archival artifacts to contemporary products, couture to ready-to-wear, the space shapes by a multitude of intertwining stories. The design team has also curated a selection of ephemera, referential artworks, classic illustrations, and modern brand campaigns that have together crafted the fragrance’s enduring identity.

Miss Dior: Stories of a Miss | all images courtesy of OMA

from archival artifacts to reimagined iterations

‘Conceiving a space to experience something as immaterial as a scent was an interesting challenge,’ comments Shohei Shigematsu, lead architect at OMA. Encapsulating the parfum’s diverse contents, auras, and narratives, each environment of Miss Dior: Stories of a Miss reveals new perspectives of timeless iconographies while conveying the brand’s vitality. The journey begins with a whimsically large, rotating reproduction of the latest Miss Dior perfume bottle. Alongside it, Dior artifacts and reproductions are mounted across gallery walls or encased in bespoke containers that follow their contours, projecting their distinct shapes beyond their physical size.

Drawing on classical Roman architecture, Miss Dior by Eva Jospin is a domed space constructed from intricately embroidered tapestries by the French artist. A single vitrine sits at the center, spotlighting the special edition parfum also designed by Jospin. Ahead, Fields of Flowers introduces visitors to the five floral scents of the latest Miss Dior parfum and their individual floral note ingredients. Niches carved into the walls each carry a human scale, flower bud-shaped atomizer which create an immersive olfactory landscape. Within the room, a single flower is abstracted and enlarged with drapes of undulating fabric layered into a curved form reminiscent of petaled floral shapes.

the exhibition celebrates the 78 years of history behind the iconic fragrance

exaggerated scales, vibrant hues, and elegant finishes

In Stories of a Miss, the signature Miss Dior bow unravels across the room recalling the amphora shape of the original bottle. Carving through cases and double-sided vitrines, it creates a continuous path, retelling the brand’s history with new narrative frameworks. In a rounded, domed room with a central topography of plinths, Miss Dior: The Birth of Ready-to-Wear hosts the eponymous collection launched in 1967, the House of Dior’s first ready-to-wear line. Its original illustrated logo is reproduced at various scales across a pixelated, geometric form in saturated hues.

Dior Illustrated recreates works by René Gruau and Mats Gustafson, the first and the current House of Dior’s artists, respectively, in life size prints. Offering a closer view of the handiwork and details, they line the walls of a sinuous pink path reimagining the drapery of both Gruau and Christian Dior’s studio in fibreglass. Finally, The Miss Dior Dream is an excursion through an undulating landscape of key couture garments paired with artworks and specially designed perfume bottles. Each garment is displayed on an elevated washi-paper mound that enables eye-level views to one-of-a-kind pieces. Metallic walls and floors infuse a contemporary touch and create subtle reflections, while a ceiling of washi-paper clouds evokes an immersive, dreamlike environment bridging art and nature.

contents range from archival artifacts to contemporary products, and couture to ready-to-wear