Step Inside Dior’s Striking Manhattan Flagship

One of the greatest luxuries in Manhattan is a private garden; the city’s newest—and most unexpected—can be found at the bustling intersection of 57th Street and Madison Avenue. Here, architect Peter Marino enclosed a fantasy plot within the spectacular House of Dior New York flagship’s modern, stone-clad façade and towering expanse of windows.

Conceived by Belgian landscape designer Peter Wirtz, the verdant oasis climbs upward with a proliferation of lush greenery, accentuated by three shady lady trees. Populating the foliage is a menagerie of animatronic creatures—bees, butterflies, a majestic peacock, even an enigmatic owl—crafted using upcycled yards of Dior Oblique canvas. “The garden is such a surprise; people walk by and they start looking in,” says Marino, who has masterminded Dior boutiques around the globe.

Channeling the timeless ethos of Christian Dior, who set up his first New York showroom nearby, on Fifth Avenue in 1948, Marino threaded the garden theme throughout the entire space, which has areas dedicated to women’s and men’s ready-to-wear, jewelry, and maison, as well as a high-tech spa. Artworks by Robert Mapplethorpe, Adam Fuss, Nancy Lorenz, and Miriam Ellner, curated for the boutique, are especially representative of the motif. A dazzling video installation by Jennifer Steinkamp of a pink-blossomed tree animates a wall in the stair. In another salon, a luminescent Nir Hod canvas pays tribute to Claude Monet’s water lilies. “This artwork couldn’t be more Dior, with these floating flowers on a field, but on silver, one of the fashion designer’s favorite colors,” enthuses Marino, who also chose a Jean-Michel Othoniel painting of hot-pink plum blossoms on silver-leaf panels for a VIP area.

One of the most enthralling moments, however, transforms icons of the brand into an artful installation. Colorama—a showcase of Dior classics, including couture gowns, Lady Dior bags, and J’adore perfume bottles in ravishing, eye-catching hues—wraps around the grand stair. This imaginative multifloor display, reminiscent of the one at La Galerie Dior in Paris, organizes the flow throughout the flagship, which Marino devised with intimate rooms to convey the feeling of a townhouse. “The nicest thing anyone could say to me is ‘I just want to live there,’” he shares.

Filling these residentially scaled salons are the latest Dior fashions and limited edition store exclusives as well as an array of design pieces encompassing periods important to the fashion designer. “We either go from the time of Mr. Dior or his preferred era, sort of 1780s, or completely and totally today,” explains Marino. There are parquet de Versailles floors that nod to the late 18th century and Louis XVI–style chairs—a Dior favorite. A palette of icy pinks and blues represents the 1950s, as does the abundance of velvet. Marino also celebrates today’s brightest design stars with a shimmering cocktail table by Vincenzo De Cotiis, a wood-and-glass desk by David/Nicolas, and a swirling lacquered console by Roland Mellan.

The overall effect is enough to make any collector swoon—but there’s also an immersive, emotional element that feels utterly personal. Nowhere does it evoke a greater sense of intimacy than the fourth-floor spa, which marks not only the first permanent Dior spa in the U.S. but also the maison’s first in a boutique. Here, cutting-edge skin-care and high-tech treatments utilizing cold laser, cryotherapy, and ultrasound are administered in four lavishly appointed treatment rooms. It doesn’t get more immersive than that when it comes to living a brand. And what else could the legendary designer have ever wished for?

A version of this article will appear in print in our 2025 Late Fall issue under the headline “Full Bloom.” Subscribe to the magazine.