Christian Dior
Christian Dior: The Designer Who Changed Fashion After the War
Christian Dior changed fashion so completely that it's easy to imagine everything falling neatly into place. It didn't.
When his first collection appeared in 1947 he was already forty-two. Before that there had been fashion sketches, work for other designers, an art gallery that disappeared almost as quickly as it had opened, and years when couture cannot have looked like a particularly secure way to earn a living. By the time people began talking about Dior, most of the uncertain years were already behind him.
Early Life (1905–1931)
Christian Dior was born on 21 January 1905 in Granville, Normandy. His family lived at Les Rhumbs, a villa overlooking the sea, before moving to Paris while he was still a child.
Granville keeps turning up later. Not as a dramatic childhood paradise. More often it's a rose border, a few lines about lilies of the valley, a path through the garden. Years afterwards he wrote that after women, flowers were the most divine of creations.
His father, Maurice Dior, built a successful fertiliser business and expected his son to choose a respectable profession. Diplomacy seemed sensible enough, so Dior enrolled at the École des Sciences Politiques. He completed the course. His interests leaned increasingly towards paintings, architecture and galleries.
Then everything altered in a fairly short space of time.
The Depression reached France. The family business collapsed. His mother died, then his brother. The gallery closed. He covers these events briefly before turning to the practical problem of finding work.
He needed work.
The Gallery
The gallery had opened in 1928 with financial help from his father. One condition came with the arrangement: the Dior name could not appear above the entrance.
It exhibited works by Picasso, Braque and Dalí. The gallery gained a good reputation, although Dior gives only a brief account of those years.
Sketches, Hats and Couture
Selling sketches paid the bills.
Dress designs found buyers, but hats sold especially well. Dior once remarked that hats demanded imagination without requiring much fabric. It was a practical observation.
"In 1938, Piguet asked me to go and work for him as a house designer. I was thrilled at the offer and instantly accepted. At last, I would get to know the mysterious means by which an idea is transformed into a dress; I would make a shy, but fascinated, entrance into the universe of premières and workrooms."
Christian Dior, Dior by Dior, 1958
The war interrupted everything. Dior served briefly in the French Army before joining Lucien Lelong's couture house alongside Pierre Balmain. Paris was occupied. Materials were scarce. Couture carried on because clients still expected it to.
Pierre Balmain
A Curious Mix of Discipline and Superstition
Fortune tellers appear in the memoir almost without introduction. So do lucky charms. Lilies of the valley before collections. He mentions them as matter-of-factly as fittings or fabrics.
The House of Dior
Marcel Boussac offered Dior the opportunity to establish his own couture house in 1946.
After opening the house, much of his attention was taken up with suppliers, accountants, deliveries, staff and endless fittings.
The New Look
The first collection appeared on 12 February 1947. Carmel Snow called it a "New Look", and the phrase stayed.
Dior New Look 1947
The Bar jacket became the best-known piece in the collection. Much of the jacket's construction was hidden beneath the finished garment. Padding beneath the cloth. Hidden structure. Fitting after fitting before the proportions settled into place.
Dior gives more space to the workrooms than to the phrase itself. The premières, the seamstresses and the fitters appear again and again. The premières. The seamstresses. The fitters. At one point he compares the ateliers to orchestras.
Christian Dior's New Look
The silhouettes looked very different from wartime fashions. Fuller skirts. Softer shoulders. Narrow waists.
Beyond Dresses
The couture house expanded quickly after its first success.
Miss Dior perfume appeared in 1947. Gloves, stockings, accessories and licensing agreements followed. Within only a few years the business had become much larger than the couture salon.
His Final Years
Christian Dior died unexpectedly on 24 October 1957 while holidaying in Montecatini Terme. He was fifty-two. The official cause of death was a heart attack.
Around 2,500 people attended his funeral.
Responsibility for the house passed to the twenty-one-year-old Yves Saint Laurent.
Legacy
The New Look remains Dior's best-known achievement.
His memoir also returns repeatedly to flowers that appear every few chapters. Busy workrooms before a collection. The names of seamstresses mentioned almost in passing. Lucky charms tucked into a pocket.
Christian Dior Fall 2020 Couture Collection
Today the House of Dior remains one of the world's leading fashion houses, with its haute couture, ready-to-wear collections and perfumes continuing to shape luxury fashion.