Christian Dior Confirms British Show

Christian Dior is going back to the site of one of its earliest shows, revealing the spring/summer 2017 cruise collection in Blenheim Palace. The show was confirmed by a Dior spokesperson this morning and will take place on May 31, although no further details are being released at this time.

Blenheim Palace - a stately home in Oxfordshire that is traditionally the principal residence of the Duke of Marlborough - first played host to Christian Dior himself in 1954, when the designer was invited by the then-Duchess of Marlborough to present his latest couture offering there.

Dior took more than 100 pieces from his winter collection to the palace, and showed them on models in the style of a salon show to a group said to have been made up of more than 1,500 women - including Princess Margaret. A collection by the house of Dior returned to the building in 1958, a year after the founder's untimely death, by then created by Yves Saint Laurent and his team.

The house is not the only international label that has chosen the UK as the site of its next cruise show; Gucci announced last month that it will present its forthcoming pre-spring/summer 2017 collection in Westminster Abbey.

Christian Dior's ready-to-wear and couture collections are currently being created by the in-house design team following the departure of Raf Simons last October. The house announced that the team would create forthcoming collections up to and including autumn/winter 2016, but haven't revealed what will happen following that, meaning that the cruise offering at Blenheim Palace could be the first to be designed by the as-yet-unnamed new creative director.