At No 30 Avenue Montaigne, a few steps from the Champs-Elysees, in Paris, France, the dove-grey exterior of the Christian Dior fashion house gives off an air of cultivated serenity. Limousines come and go, deposit- ing well-heeled clients at the door, but nobody seems to be in a rush.
Step inside and head for the workrooms on the fourth floor and everything changes. The artisans who do the exquisite embroidery that is the trademark of Christian Dior garments are in a state of frantic activity and the word on everybody's lips is 'Shanghai'.
In one corner of the room is a blur of activity called John Galliano. The creative director of Christian Dior has been eating, drinking and, sometimes, sleeping in the atelier for days, as he puts the finishing touches to his latest cruise collection.
There are many things that make a Galliano collection remarkable but his latest is unique, at least in terms of where it will be unveiled. On Saturday, for the first time in its 63-year history, the fashion house will present a new collection in China - on a specially constructed catwalk built on Shanghai's Bund. The day before, Christian Dior will reopen its store in Shanghai's Plaza 66. The renovated outlet is double its former size and comes complete with an art exhibition inspired by the work of the label's founder. The events will mark an evolutionary cycle for the luxury-goods industry and China that has profound economic and geopolitical significance.
'When I started in business, the world was divided between the West and the rest of the world,' says Bernard Arnault, the French billionaire who controls Dior and its parent company, LVMH. '[Back then] the US way of doing business was dominant. Today, that is not the case. The most significant thing that is happening [now] is that gradually the US will not stay as the only global leader. Little by little, and maybe faster and faster, the emergence of Asia will become the major factor in geopolitics.'
In other words, Shanghai, not Paris or New York, is becoming the luxury-goods capital of the world and China is the industry's most important market.
Christian Dior opened the doors of his fashion empire in 1947, two years before Mao Zedong took power in the mainland. The following year, the mainland's per capita income fell to US$439, which was lower than it had been in 1850. By 1984, when Arnault gained control of Christian Dior through his acquisition of Boussac, a troubled textile company, the mainland's per capita income had risen to US$982. Eight years later, the first mainland Louis Vuitton store opened, in the basement of Beijing's Palace Hotel.
