To mark forty years of creation, Zhor Raïs presents “Dalí Diali – L’Étoffe du rêve” (My Dalí — the Fabric of Dreams” , a rare exhibition where twelve sculptures by surrealist master Salvador Dalí meet twelve couture pieces conceived as works of art in their own right. It’s installation that firmly establishes Zhor Raïs as one of the most visionary figures of contemporary caftan design.
Forty years devoted to Moroccan caftan creation, yet still with the intepid audacity of a beginner… To celebrate this symbolic anniversary, in Casablanca Zhor Raïs unveils one of the most ambitious projects of her career: an unprecedented dialogue between twelve iconic sculptures from the Dalí Universe collection and twelve exclusive couture creations inspired by them. Presented from December 9 at the Zhor Raïs Couture House, and then open to the public from December 16 by appointment only, the exhibition “Dalí Diali – L’Étoffe du rêve” (My Dalí — the Fabric of Dreams) unfolds as an intimate installation, designed to spark a fully immersive sensory experience.
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Here, the pieces are not meant to be worn, but displayed as works of art, a rare format that highlights Zhor Raïs’s pioneering path as a leading figure of the contemporary caftan. As she puts it herself: “I wanted to give my creations a second life, to challenge myself, and to free the caftan’s cut.”
When one encounter changes everything
Since her years at the Casablanca School of Fine Arts, Zhor Raïs has nurtured a deep admiration for Salvador Dalí. The true turning point came in 2016, during an exhibition dedicated to the Catalan master in Saudi Arabia, curated by Bertrand Epaud. Presented with Dalí’s three-dimensional works, the designer discovered a new way of thinking about materiality and volume. The collaboration soon became an obvious next step. Dalí Universe, home to one of the largest private collections dedicated to the surrealist master, supported the Maison throughout every stage of the project, notably granting official authorization for Dalí’s signature to appear on each of the twelve creations, all accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.
A first in the Arab-Muslim world, the project places Zhor Raïs at the crossroads of fashion, art, and heritage. Surrounded by her sister Nadia and her daughters Houda, Chadia, and Aïda, the designer transforms this artistic encounter into a true family endeavor, carried by forty years of craftsmanship and transmission.
Couture as sculpture: three years of exploration
For nearly three years, Zhor Raïs and her atelier shaped each piece as a textile sculpture, exploring Dalí’s major themes: the elasticity of time, the metamorphosis of beings, dreams and the unconscious, flight and weightlessness, and the duality of forms. Materials serve the narrative. Stretched chiffons evoke slipping hours, luminous organzas capture and refract light, transparencies glide between reality and reverie, sculpted embroideries create unexpected reliefs. Each creation interprets a sculpture rather than a silhouette, blending the ancestral gesture of the caftan with contemporary freedom.
In this dialogue between the two worlds, couture becomes a language. As Bertrand Epaud, exhibition curator for Dalí Universe, notes: “With Dalí Diali, Zhor Raïs transforms couture into a territory of the imagination. By bringing the ancestral gesture of the caftan into conversation with Dalí’s surrealist universe, she composes an immersive work of art—a space where material becomes dream, and tradition opens itself to bold modernity.”
The power of a shared imagination
Facing the sculptures that punctuate the journey—from Dance of Time I to Space Elephant, from Woman of Time to Alice in Wonderland—the exhibition reveals what deeply connects Salvador Dalí and Zhor Raïs: a shared ability to turn heritage into vision, to shift reality, and to make creative gesture a bridge to the unconscious. Carefully lit to highlight volumes and transparencies, the tour feels like a contemporary cabinet of curiosities, where each stop opens into a different symbolic threshold.
Where Dalí redefined the boundaries of art, Zhor Raïs redefines those of the caftan. Where he turned dreams into material, she turns couture into a space for artistic expression. With “Dalí Diali – L’Étoffe du rêve” (My Dalí — the Fabric of Dreams), the Maison inscribes Moroccan creation within the international cultural scene and delivers one of its most ambitious projects to date. It’s a sensory journey designed to draw the audience into the shifting light of dreams—and to mark a new era for Zhor Raïs by setting an unprecedented benchmark in the dialogue between art and couture in Morocco.
