Christian Dior
| Christian Dior | |
| Dior Logo | |
| Personal Information | |
|---|---|
| Name | Christian Dior |
| Nationality | French |
| Birth date | January 21, 1905 |
| Birth place |  Granville, Manche, Normandy
|
| Date of death | October 23, 1957 |
| Working Life | |
| Label Name | Christian Dior |
Christian Dior (January 21, 1905 – October 23, 1957), was the most influential French fashion designer of the late 1940s and 1950s. After the deprivations and dreary dress apparel of the war years, women were seeking a more elegant and feminine look which Dior created with his "New Look" line of clothing. His designs which graced celebrities from actress Rita Hayworth to former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy to ballerina Margot Fonteyn contributed much needed panache to an era of post-war prosperity. Although there were criticisms, particularly by feminists, of his extravagant use of fabric and his restrictive and decorative use of corsets and and crinoline, Dior himself described the "New Look" as "youth, hope and the future."[1]
Edna Woolman Chase, editor of Vogue magazine from 1914-1952, said, "His clothes, while wearable gave women the feeling of being charmingly costumed. There was a saintly romantic flavor about them." [2]
Dior, a successful businessman as well as a consummate designer, created licensing agreements that established a fashion empire which continues to market perfume, furs, and accessories around the world. Dior boutiques can be found in numerous cities nationwide with their main flagship stores located in New York, Beverly Hills, Waikiki, Boston, and San Francisco.
Biography
He was born in Granville, Manche, Normandy, France. He attended Ecole des Sciences Politiques from 1923 to 1926. The family had hopes he would become a diplomat, but Dior only wished to be involved in the arts. In 1928 he opened a small art gallery in Paris. Artwork adorned the walls such as Pablo Picasso and Max Jacobbut his father asked that the family name not appear on the gallery sign. The premature death of his brother and then mother, forced Dior to close his gallery.
In the 1930s Dior made a living by doing sketches for Haute Couture Houses. In 1945 he designed for Marcel Boussac, whose fortune came from fabric, like Dior's new idea which involved using lots of layers of extravagant fabrics. Dior's first collection, Corolle Line, (figure 8) premiered in 1947. In 1949 he established his main fashion house called Christian Dior New York, Inc.
Throughout the 1950s, Christian Dior was the largest, most well run haute couture house in Paris.
Dior bought an old mill near Fontainebleau outside Paris and a flower farm at Montauroux in the heart of Provence, where he could indulge his love of art, antiques and gardening. Extremely shy by nature, he left socialising to Suzanne Luling, his efervescent sales director. As he grew older, he grew increasingly supersititious as well. Each Dior collection had to contain a coat called the “Granville,” named after his birthplace, and at least one model was required to wear a corsage containing his favorite flower, lily of the valley. He also never began a couture show without consulting his tarot card reader.
Dior went for a "rest cure" at a spa in and ten days later he died of a heart attack after choking on a fishbone at dinner. The French newspaper Le Monde hailed him as a man who could be “identified with good taste, the art of living and refined culture that epitomizes Paris to the outside world.” Marcel Boussac sent his private plane to Montecatini to bring Dior’s body back to Paris. Some 2,500 people attended his funeral including staff, and world renowned celebrities who were also his clientele.
The New Look
The actual phrase the "New Look" was coined by the powerful editor-in-chief of Harpers Bazaar, Carmel Snow. Dior is quoted as saying "I have designed flower women." His look employed fabrics lined predominantly with percale, boned, bustier-style bodices, hip padding, wasp-waisted corsets and petticoats that made his dresses flare out from the waist giving his models an hourglass shape. The hem of the skirt was very flattering on the calves and ankles, giving a beautiful silhouette. At first, there was some backlash to Dior's genius form because of the amount of fabrics used in a single dress or suit, but as soon as the War Time Shortages came to an end, opposition ceased. His designs represented consistent classic elegance, stressing the feminine look. The New Look revolutionized women's dress and reestablished war-ravaged Paris, as the center .
The Dior years
After the war..... His new look was reminiscent of the Belle Epoque ideal of long skirts, tiny waists and beautiful fabrics that his mother had worn in the early 1900s.
Along with partner, Jacques Rouët built up the Dior business into an international ???. Some couturiers had diversified into other products, notably Chanel and Jean Patou into perfume, and Elsa Schiaparelli into hosiery. Rouët realised that the future lay in diversifying further afield into more products and international markets. Eager to capitalise on the publicity generated by the New Look, he opened a fur subsidiary and a ready-to-wear boutique on New York’s Fifth Avenue as well as launching a Dior perfume, with the US market in mind.
Christian Dior business acumen led him license his various designs as products that could be sold throughout the world. So conservative were those clients that when Dior called a suit the “Jean-Paul Sartre” in honour of the radical philosopher, no one bought it, and he stuck to ‘safer’ names in future. He even adhered to the same commercial formula for each collection: one third new, one third adaptations of familiar styles and one third proven classics.
The house was run along rigidly hierarchical lines. Each of the vendeuses, or sales assistants, had her own clients with whom she was expected to nurture friendly relationships. The ateliers, or workrooms, were staffed by seamstresses, many of whom had worked there since leaving school. During the twice-yearly haute couture shows in late January and early August, some 2,500 people filed in and out of the Dior salons to see the new collections. Each show included up to two hundred outfits and lasted as long as two and a half hours. The models, or mannequins as they were called, came from the same privileged backgrounds as the clients and were hired in different shapes and sizes to show how the clothes would look on different women.
Popular Dior clientele included: Hollywood stars, New York socialites and department store buyers, such as the Marshall Fields store in Chicago, who bought the exclusive rights to individual designs to be made up by their own seamstresses. Discount clothing chains, like Ohrbach’s, were allowed to attend the shows on condition that they bought a minimum number of outfits, which they were then allowed to replicate into “knock-off” lines.
As the most prestigious Paris couture house, Dior attracted the most talented assistants. One was Pierre Cardin, an Italian-born tailor who was Dior’s star assistant in the late 1940s before leaving to begin his own business. Another was Yves Saint Laurent, a gifted young Algeria-born designer who joined in 1955 as the star graduate of the Chambre Syndicale fashion school. As timid as Dior himself, the young Saint Laurent flourished in the feminine atmosphere of the couture house and contributed thirty-five outfits for the autumn 1957 collection. After Dior's untimely death at age , Saint Laurent took over as head of the company. He was succeeded by.......
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Decades of Beauty: The Changing Image of Women 1890-1990s. Hamlyn: New York (1998)
- "Christian Dior," Contemporary Fashion, 2nd ed. St. James Press, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.
External links
- Beth Duncuff Charleston, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000: "Christian Dior (1905–1957)", Timeline of Art History, Retrieved May 21, 2007.
- "Home Page", Dior, Retrieved May 21, 2007.
- "Christian Dior: Fashion Designer (1905-1957)", Design Museum, Retrieved May 21, 2007.
- "Infomat" Fashion Industry Search Engine, Retrieved June 19, 2007
- "Timeline Fashion" "Timeline Fashion: Christian Dior," Retrieved June 22, 2007.
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