Azzedine Alaïa Was One of the World’s Great Couture Collectors—These Are His Diors

And the archival display is unprecedented. Dior would draw 600 to 800 sketches per collection. The studio selected 200 for the ateliers. Those became toiles—three-dimensional sketches in muslin. The refinement continued until approximately 180 models appeared on show day. For one dress—Zélie, from the 1954 H line collection—visitors trace the complete creative journey: Dior’s initial sketch, the atelier assignment, the pattern, photographs on the staircase at 30 Avenue Montaigne, press descriptions, and final magazine coverage. Oxford, a two-piece afternoon suit with light stripes from the Tulipe line, is presented up-close and on the cover of the Spring issue of Elle magazine.

“Haute couture is not just a story of embroidery,” Saillard explains as we gaze at an A-line coat dress in navy. “It’s a story of volume. Cutting a dress—if you cut it here or there, it’s not the same. There is a correct height. If it were longer, it would’’t be the same. If shorter, it would be ridiculous.”

Alaïa started collecting at a time when couture houses had not yet grasped the importance of their own archives. Dior didn’t establish its archive department until 1987—nearly 20 years after Alaïa began. “We knew he had a large collection, because everyone saw him buying,” Saillard recalls. “He once told me about Madame Grès, ‘I don’t have many; I have a few.’ I inventoried 900.”

Unsurprisingly, even if over four decades, this would have been a colossal investment beyond any museum’s wildest dreams. And if you are wondering, Alaïa never exhibited his collection during his lifetime. According to Saillard, when asked about his plans, he would say, ‘We’ll see.’ He had a strange relationship with death. He lied about his age. His grandmother lived past 100; he hoped to reach 104.”

But he completed the legal work to establish a public-utility foundation, ensuring the collection would remain inalienable—protected forever from sale or dispersal. “I have a sense he meant, ‘I buy these, and they’ll do it after,’” Saillard says.