The Fashion Revolutionary: Christian Dior
Written by Lisa-Anne Sanderson

They were all there. Supermodels such as Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell, celebrities and the leading lights of the fashion world gathered at Versailles this week to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the House of Dior. The show, located in the Orangerie, was suitably lavish and spectacular. John Galliano’s designs were influenced by the Impressionists and other artists because he wanted to reflect the famous designer’s life-long interest in art.



Christian Dior, born in 1907, surprisingly came from a family which had made its fortune in the fertilizer business. He studied science and his family hoped that he would become a diplomat, but the young man knew that his destiny lay in art. He opened an art gallery with some of his father’s money and featured such artists as Picasso. But he was forced to close when his father’s business collapsed.

He then sketched for haute-couture designers, and later began working as a designer himself at Robert Piguet’s house and worked with the fabric designer, Marcel Boussac, whom he impressed with his ideas for designs with luxurious materials.

Finally able to open his own business in 1949, Dior’s first collection created a sensation. Dior’s dresses with their tight bodices, narrow shoulders, and long, flared skirts worn with narrow, pointed shoes gave women a beautiful silhouette. This style revolutionized the fashion world and revitalized the fashion world of Paris which declined during the war. The collection was called Ligne Corolle meaning ‘flower bud’, and Dior said that: “ I have created a flower woman!”

Women, used to the dreary clothes they wore because of wartime shortages, adored this new feminine fashion. Christened the “New Look’ by Carmel Snow, the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, movie-stars and celebrities such as Rita Hayworth and Margot Fonteyn flocked to buy it. Dior was even asked to stage a private collection for the British Royal family but the young princesses were not allowed to buy any Dior dresses because of wartime rationing.

The look emphasized tiny waists and, according to the former Dior model, Svetlana Lloyd, each dress for the models had its own corset. These were extremely uncomfortable. In her interview at The Daily Mail Lloyd said that: "The steel would run from the bosom to the crotch, and so there was no question of sitting down or of raising your arm other than to hold a glass of champagne.” Dior’s business was so successful that he was able to open a store in New York as well as Paris and design for movies. He also expanded the line by starting a perfume business. His first perfume, Miss Dior, a fresh, feminine and spring-like fragrance, was a tribute to his sister who worked for the French Resistance.

The Dior business chose the best young designers to work for it. Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent are two of the best known. As the great designer grew older he became very superstitious, always including a coat named after his home town, Granville, in his collection, and a model with a bunch of lilies of the valley, his favorite flower. He died in 1957 of a heart attack after choking on a fishbone. Since his death, Dior’s chief designers have been Marc Bohan and John Galliano, whose recent collection has been highly praised.