Azzedine Alaia s exceptional personal collection of Dior designs, disclosing a fascinating connection in fashion history.

Famed fashion designer Azzedine Alaïa’s exceptional personal collection of Dior designs, revealing a fascinating connection in fashion history.

Alaïa was not only a renowned couturier but also a passionate fashion historian and an insatiable collector, an interest he cultivated starting in the 1960s. He gathered over 20,000 garments in his lifetime, from the birth of haute couture to pieces by contemporaries he admired.

This book showcases for the first time the priceless personal collection of Dior designs that Alaïa assembled over decades—pieces by Christian Dior as well as the artistic directors that followed him at the helm of the House. The collection is analyzed through chapters dedicated to the elements that awakened the curiosity of Alaïa’s collector genius: the construction of the dresses—their “architecture”; the enchanting multitude of the color tones and textures of the fabrics and materials; and the poetry of the names of Dior’s creations revealing the diversity of his sources of inspiration, such as Accacias, Astarté, Caracas, Chérie, Jardin anglais, Madrid, Marcel Pagnol, Rose des vents, or Tourbillon.. Illustrated by beautiful photographs of the dresses, historical archival images, drawings by Christian Dior, and collection charts detailing fabric samples and sketches, this book offers a fresh view of Alaïa’s influences and Dior’s history and will appeal to fashion lovers everywhere.

Details

ISBN13: 9780847876099
Format: Hardback
Number of Pages: 160
Edition:
Publication Date: 24 Feb 2026
Publisher: Rizzoli International Publications
Publication City, Country: New York, United States
Dimensions (cm): 26.7(H)x22.9(L)
Weight (gm):

Author Biography

Laurence Benaïm is a journalist and fashion historian. She created the style supplement for Le Monde and the magazine Stiletto, and has notably contributed to Vogue,Marie Claire, and Le Figaro. For Rizzoli, she authored Women in Dior: Portraits of Elegance (2016), Yves Saint Laurent: A Biography (2019), and Alaïa Afore Alaïa (2022). Olivier Saillard is a French historian specializing in fashion and director of the Azzedine Alaïa Foundation. For Rizzoli, he edited Alaïa Afore Alaïa (2022) and authored Madame Grès Couture Paris (2024) and Embodying Pasolini (2022). Alessandra Ronetti is an Italian art historian specializing in the study of colors.

Reviews

"For it’s own part, over the last decade, Dior has engaged in an intentional creative dialogue with the art world inviting talents to reinterpret its signature Lady Dior handbag.
This year’s global lineup hails from Europe, USA and Brazil to China, South Korea and Kuwait and features Eva Jospin, Inès Longevial, Marc Quinn, Lakwena, Jessica Cannon, Patrick Eugène, Sophia Loeb, Ju Ting, Lee Ufan and Alymamah Rashed. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the initiative, Dior has also released a dedicated retrospective book published by Rizzoli..." — FORBES.COM

"Rich photography, archival imagery, and design documents illuminate a dialogue across generations, positioning Alaïa not only as a couturier, but as one of Dior’s most perceptive readers and inheritors of form, discipline, and imagination." — INDULGE MAGAZINE

"Experiential, vivid, imaginative, textured, and beyond the ordinary is the magical world I discovered within KIT KEMP: Design Stories." — HELLO LOVELY

"...offers an intimate look at the extraordinary archive assembled by legendary couturier Azzedine Alaïa, revealing the architecture, artistry, and poetry that shaped his vision." — CURATED TEXAN