Christian Dior

The Christian Dior Home and Museum in Granville (Manche), France

Christian Dior was born in Granville, a seaside town on the coast of Normandy, France. He was the second of five children born to Maurice Dior, a wealthy fertilizer manufacturer (the family firm was Dior Frères), and his wife, formerly Madeleine Martin. He had four siblings: Raymond (father of Françoise Dior), Jacqueline, Bernard, and Catherine Dior.[2] When Christian was about five years old, the family moved to Paris, but still returned to the Normandy coast for summer holidays.

Dior's family had hoped he would become a diplomat, but Dior was artistic and wished to be involved in art.[3] To make money, he sold his fashion sketches outside his house for about 10 cents each. In 1928, Dior left school and received money from his father to finance a small art gallery, where he and a friend sold art by the likes of Pablo Picasso. The gallery was closed three years later, following the deaths of Dior's mother and brother, as well as financial trouble during the Great Depression that resulted in his father losing control of the family business.

From 1937, Dior was employed by the fashion designer Robert Piguet, who gave him the opportunity to design for three Piguet collections.[4][5] Dior would later say that 'Robert Piguet taught me the virtues of simplicity through which true elegance must come.'[6][7] One of his original designs for Piguet, a day dress with a short, full skirt called "Cafe Anglais", was particularly well received.[4][5] Whilst at Piguet, Dior worked alongside Pierre Balmain, and was succeeded as house designer by Marc Bohan – who would, in 1960, become head of design for Christian Dior Paris.[5] Dior left Piguet when he was called up for military service.

In 1942, when Dior left the army, he joined the fashion house of Lucien Lelong, where he and Balmain were the primary designers. For the duration of World War II, Dior, as an employee of Lelong – who labored to preserve the French fashion industry during wartime for economic and artistic reasons – in attempts to preserve the fashion industry during the war, Dior designed dresses for the wives of Nazi officers and French collaborators, as did other fashion houses that remained in business during the war, including Jean Patou, Jeanne Lanvin, and Nina Ricci.[8][9] His sister, Catherine (1917–2008), served as a member of the French Resistance, was captured by the Gestapo, and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she was incarcerated until her liberation in May 1945.[10] In 1947, he named his debut fragrance, Miss Dior in tribute to his sister.

The famous "Bar Suit" on display at the Denver Art Museum in 2019.

In 1946 Marcel Boussac, a successful entrepreneur known as the richest man in France, invited Dior to design for Philippe et Gaston, a Paris fashion house launched in 1925.[11] Dior refused, wishing to make a fresh start under his own name rather than reviving an old brand.[12] On 8 December 1946, with Boussac's backing, Dior founded his fashion house. The actual name of the line of his first collection, presented on 12 February 1947,[13] was Corolle (literally the botanical term corolla or circlet of flower petals in English), but the phrase New Look was coined for it by Carmel Snow, the editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar. Dior's designs were more voluptuous than the boxy, fabric-conserving shapes of the recent World War II styles, influenced by the rations on fabric.[14] He was a master at creating shapes and silhouettes; 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 a very curvaceous form.

Initially, women protested because his designs covered up their legs, which they had been unused to because of the previous limitations on fabric. There was also some backlash to Dior's designs due to the amount of fabrics used in a single dress or suit. Of the “New Look”, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel said the following, “Look how ridiculous these women are, wearing clothes by a man who doesn’t know women, never had one, and dreams of being one.” During one photo shoot in a Paris market, the models were attacked by female vendors over this profligacy, but opposition ceased as the wartime shortages ended. The "New Look" revolutionized women's dress and reestablished Paris as the centre of the fashion world after World War II.[15]

In 1955, the 19-year-old Yves Saint Laurent became Dior's design assistant. Christian Dior later met with Yves Saint Laurent's mother, Lucienne Mathieu-Saint Laurent, in 1957 to tell her that he had chosen Saint Laurent to succeed him at Dior. She said at the time she had been confused by the remark, as Dior was only 52 at the time.[16]

Christian Dior died while on holiday in Montecatini, Italy, on 24 October 1957.[17] Some reports say that he died of a heart attack after choking on a fish bone.[18] Time's obituary stated that he died of a heart attack after playing a game of cards.[19] However, one of Dior's acquaintances, the Paris socialite Baron de Redé, wrote in his memoirs that contemporary rumor was that the heart attack had been caused by a strenuous sexual encounter.[20] As of 2020, the exact circumstances of Dior's death remain undisclosed.

Dior was nominated for the 1955 Academy Award for Best Costume Design in black and white for the Terminal Station directed by Vittorio De Sica (1953).

Dior was also nominated in 1967 for a BAFTA for Best British Costume (Colour) for the Arabesque directed by Stanley Donen (1966).[21]

Nominated in 1986 for his contributions to the 1985 film, Bras de fer, he was up for Best Costume Design (Meilleurs costumes) during the 11th Cesar Awards.[22]

The Paul Gallico novella Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris (1958, UK title Flowers for Mrs Harris) tells the story of a London charwoman who falls in love with her employer's couture wardrobe and decides to go to Paris to purchase herself a Dior ballgown.

A perfume named Christian Dior is used in Haruki Murakami's novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle as an influential symbol placed at critical plot points throughout.

The English singer-songwriter Morrissey released a song titled "Christian Dior" as a B-side to his 2006 single, "In the Future When All's Well".

In the song "Rainbow High" from the film Evita, Eva Perón sings "I came from the people. They need to adore me. So Christian Dior me. From my head to my toes"

Kanye West released a song titled "Christian Dior Denim Flow" in 2010. West mentioned the Dior brand in three other songs: "Devil in a New Dress", "Stronger", and "Barry Bonds"[23]

Rapper Pop Smoke released a song titled Dior in February 2020.

• Château de La Colle Noire

• Charleston, Beth Duncuff (October 2004). “Christian Dior (1905–1957)”. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Based on original work by Harold Koda.
• Dior, Christian (1957). Christian Dior and I. New York: Dutton.
• Martin, Richard; Koda, Harold (1996). Christian Dior. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-0870998225.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Christian Dior.

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• Photos of Dior and Samples of New Look Fashion
• "Interactive timeline of couture houses and couturier biographies". Victoria and Albert Museum.
• Documentary film Christian Dior, The Man Behind The Myth
• Christian Dior at Chicago History Museum Digital Collections