Iconic French fashion house Dior has had a standalone store in Vienna since 2014, but now, little over a decade, it has relocated to new and bigger premises in Innere Stadt, the city’s plush inner city shopping district. Here, Dior has secured a rather grand location, occupying more than 1,000 sqm. (10,764 sq.ft.) set across three floors of a listed, early 20th-century building by Austrian architects Ernst Spielmann and Alfred Teller. Mind you, the premises’ previous tenant was affiliated luxury brand Louis Vuitton which moved around the corner. The striking façade, which sees an upper zone with a continuous balcony, is set above a three-story base clad in black glass. The façade is elegantly fluted with majolica panels with neoclassical decoration between the windows, and all of it has obviously been retained. However, inside, it’s a different story. The fashion house has tapped New York City-based architect and longtime collaborator Peter Marino to create a fitting interior design.

The alluring settings not only reflect a dialogue between past and present, heritage and reinvention, but also merges Dior‘s codes with an ultra-contemporary aesthetic. The settings are plush and exquisite, captured by light colours, and a masterfully pairing of materials, such as cabochon stone with wood, and Versailles parquet flooring with delicate mouldings. Interestingly, a subtle guiding thread, a wall running through all the floors displays Dior‘s classic white toiles—they’re three-dimensional expressions of a sketch, the starting point of collections, which then give life to haute couture silhouettes. As an ode to legendary designer Christian Dior‘s passion for creation in all forms, the flagship store is dotted with curated art pieces, such as an installation created by Claudia Wieser, while paintings by Christian Eisenberger, Rudolf Polanszky, John McAllister, Maysha Mohamedi, Ross Bleckner and Donald Sultan stand alongside works by Etienne Moyat and Franck Evennou, photographic prints on mirror by Marc Swanson and a bronze sculpture by Philippe Pasqua.

Inspired by the designer’s fascination of the botanical world, a work by Japanese cult floral artist Azuma Makoto adds bucolic touch. And that’s not all. Adding another alluring visual layer to the settings is a series of furniture pieces by extensive number of leading designers, such as Claude Lalanne, Studio Glithero, Alasdair Cooke, Ado Chale, Delos & Ubiedo, Gary Noffke, Osvaldo Borsani, Ginger & Jagger and B G Robinson endow each space with a singular identity. An eternal Dior icon, the Lady Dior bag is revealed in its multi-faceted glory. In the window, a multitude of variations are unveiled, sublimated by minerals – a feat of artist Isaac Monté – forming an entrancing chromatic colour scheme. In one corner, visitors are invited to discover a wall dedicated to the multiple reinterpretations in the ninth edition of the Dior Lady Art project by several international artists. The new Dior flagship store carries women’s and men’s apparel, accessories, bags, shoes, eyewear, jewellery, and fragrances. © superfuture