Last week I was in Melbourne for a 2 day workshop and had a “free day” on Saturday. What to do?
A friend insisted the Christian Dior exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria was a “must see”. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I was really that interested to go.
And here was my first lesson!
Somewhat reluctantly I booked my ticket online. I didn’t for a minute think the exhibition would be sold out. Nor did I believe that there would be a lengthy queue for buying tickets. I pre-purchased my ticket so that I was committed to going.
The 2 hours I spent in the Christian Dior exhibition are the most pleasant I’ve spent in a long while and most certainly a terrific antidote to the previous days of the workshop and 150+ people.
The Christian Dior exhibition itself is physically beautiful and I enjoyed the fashions and the colours and the style! What I enjoyed even more was how I felt for the whole time I was there.
How many times have you been reluctant to do something, go somewhere or participate in an activity or event? Then, after some encouragement from someone else, you have reluctantly taken action and things have turned out so much better than you expected?
This was my experience last week at the Christian Dior exhibition. The peace and tranquility was perfect after my hectic workshop. The soothing music, the obvious enjoyment of everyone at the exhibition as they oohhed, aahhed and admired each exquisite piece in the exhibition. It was such a positive experience.
Lesson 1 for me: remember to do things I may not want to, because it’ll probably turn out better than I expect.
The second lesson came from Christian Dior himself: prolific beats perfect. You have possibly heard this somewhere in the past, either in my writing or elsewhere. In fact, in my podcast interview with Kate Toon she refers to this concept. The idea is that it is better to get something done vs keep perfecting. (Have you heard the expression “Sometimes a Holden today is better then a Rolls Royce tomorrow“)
Christian Dior designed 22 collections each numbering well over 150 pieces. That’s 3300 pieces. And I’m going to suggest that most of them were likely pretty close to perfect. My guess is there would have been many pieces that didn’t make it for him to produce those 22 collections. Prolific.
Lesson 2 for me: Let go of my need for everything to be perfect. As Kate said “when I first started my course the videos were a bit blurry and the worksheets were just word documents that I cobbled together and now they are all schmick and pdf designed but the content, the actual information, hasn’t changed.”
Lesson 3 for me: My third lesson came from the gorgeous Svetlana Lloyd (pic above) who was one of the seven mannequins who came to Australia in 1957 with Dior’s final collections.*
In an interview, Svetlana tells of the models arriving in Sydney and although they all badly wanted to see the famous Bondi Beach none of them dared to go out in the sun, even for a few minutes and take the risk of damaging their pale skin.
Lesson 3 for me: Absolute commitment to quality is really important. What are the things that really matter? And what is the standard that needs to be maintained? This doesn’t mean perfect of course (see Lesson 2)- but quality is really really important.
Who would have thought so many lessons would come from a couple of hours at the wonderful Christian Dior exhibition!
It’s on in Melbourne until 7 November 2017 and I can highly recommend it – especially if you just want to go and enjoy the stunning fashions.
One of the nicest parts for me was sitting and watching reels of years of fashion runway footage, listening to the music and absorbing the ambiance of joyous appreciation of the people around me. I felt re-energised and replenished.
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Happy reading!
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