Seeking to relieve women from wartime frugality and shapeless clothes, Dior devised ways to enhance feminine beauty. His proposition was greeted with rapturous applause and immediately embraced by such disparate women as singer Juliette Greco and stage actress Dominique Blanchard, who had a long skirt made of 80 yards of pleated white faille. Later, with financial help from his father, Dior opened a small art gallery.
Christian Dior is awarded the French Legion of Honor for his contribution to the textile industry and fashion craftsmanship. When this option is selected, books are wrapped in a special white matte gift wrapping paper – sourced specifically by the Assouline family for an authentic approach and sealed with the brand’s signature red wax seal for the final touch of luxury. “When we finally met, I thought that she would make a perfect Dior ambassador because of how she represents a modern form of womanhood. Rosalía is a young creator who uses her voice to express herself, her strength and her creativity, thereby developing a new language,” Chiuri concluded. The designer used excerpts from “El Mal Querer,” Rosalía’s second studio album, for the soundtrack of her cruise 2023 show in Seville, Spain.
He was the only Paris couturier to maintain significant licenses in foreign countries, acquiring 41 of them during his time at the house. He had operations in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, England and even Syria, to name a few. Besides his couture and ready-to-wear, he also created gloves, jewelry and men’s ties. Then came a chance encounter with a childhood friend and a director of the house of Philippe & Gaston, a dressmaker owned by Marcel Boussac, the French textile mogul known as the cotton king, who was looking for a designer to infuse new life into the business. In 1938 Dior became an assistant designer for the leading couturier of Paris, Robert Piguet. Dior later said, “At last, I would get to know the mysterious means by which an idea is transformed into a dress.” During World War II (1939–45) he served in the army until France fell to Germany in 1940.
The “Bar” suit also reveals the hand stitching at the inside of the collar and hand-stitched self-covered buttons of the atelier tailleur. With the new direction, Gianfranco Ferre was hired as stylistic director in 1989, who formally founded Dior Haute Couture, a vital arm of the Christian Dior brand. Ferre elevated the brand to new heights, injecting his own creative vision, which included a more refined look than the brand was known for. Pierre Bergé recalled that Dior often instructed his chauffeur to continue circling the company’s headquarters in the black Citroën until he mustered the courage to enter. Faced with imperfections, Dior could go into a rage, poking imperfect stitches with a long stick.
His hybrid vision combined eclectic sources of inspiration, highlighting the cultural and artisanal riches of the world through the virtuosic skills of the Dior ateliers. Enhanced by spectacular scenography, each of his shows was conceived as a voyage into the extraordinary. In 1955, aged only 19, Yves Saint Laurent was named assistant to Christian Dior. Following the sudden passing of the founding couturier in October 1957, he became the Creative Director of the House.
The business quickly expanded to neighboring buildings, the one at 30 Avenue Montaigne housing what in the early ’50s was the biggest luxury boutique in Paris. Many of the founder’s decorating codes — medallions, ribbons, cane work, houndstooth and panther prints — remain today. By 1953, the business grossed a whopping $15 million annually, employed 1,500 people and accounted for 55 percent of all Paris couture exports.
Fascinated by the world of art, and particularly the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock, Marc Bohan designed modern silhouettes, cut with an elegant simplicity, for Dior over almost 30 years – a unique style embraced by many Hollywood stars. Raf Simons, the Belgian antithesis of Galliano, made his house debut with a tour de force couture collection in July 2012, one that moved Dior in a more streamlined, but no less elegant, direction. Simons never quite recaptured the majesty of that first outing, but his abrupt departure in late 2015 shocked the industry nonetheless, and seemed to launch a string of exits that has not slowed down. In July 2016, Valentino’s Maria Grazia Chiuri was chosen to pick up the Dior reins.
Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé met for the first time during a dinner at the Cloche d’or on the Rue Mansart a few days after Saint Laurent presented his collection for Dior. The dinner, which was also attended by Raymonde Zehnacker and Bernard Buffet, was planned by Marie-Louise Bousquet, head of the French edition of Harper’s Bazaar. Bohan stayed with Dior for more than a decade, continuing to build the brand and make it even more internationally successful. He launched ready-to-wear and baby clothes, making Dior more accessible than ever. Stores started popping up in more cities like London and Hong Kong, and the Dior brand was catapulted to the top of the fashion world. The Dior brand continued to grow and Dior himself continued to dress the biggest stars of the time.
His famous customers included the Duchess of Windsor, Gloria Swanson, Marlene Dietrich and Zsa Zsa Gabor, and among his intimate social circle were artists Jean Cocteau, Sir Francis Rose and Christian Bérard, and composers Darius Milhaud and Francis Poulenc. Despite a gentle and shy nature, Dior was a natural provocateur, whose drastic changes in silhouette often invoked controversy, outrage and numerous headlines, fanning his notoriety. “Gossip, even malicious rumors, are worth more than the most expensive publicity campaign in the world,” he figured. Later that same evening, in March 1946, while walking down the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Dior stumbled over something.
He even outfitted Marlene Dietrich for her 1950 role in Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright. His designs remained a fixture in her closet, as well as plenty of other starlets in the late ’40s and early ’50s. The brand has a rich history, full of impressive creatives and classic designs. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York celebrates the 50th anniversary of the house of Dior with an exhibit. At the Met Gala, Lady Diana wears the first Dior dress designed by Galliano. “His death was completely out of the blue,” said Jeanne Doutreleau, aka Victoire, one of Dior’s star models.
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