Christian Dior

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.^[3] When Christian was about five years old, the family moved to Paris.^[4]

Dior's family had hoped he would become a diplomat, but Dior was interested in art.^[5] To make money, he sold his fashion sketches outside his house for about 10 cents each (US$2 in 2025 dollars^[6]). In 1928, he 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. Alongside managing his art gallery, Dior cultivated friendships with influential artists, including Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Jean Cocteau, and Alberto Giacometti. Immersed in this creative environment, Dior drew inspiration from their work, which shaped his later approach in fashion design.^[7] The gallery 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.^[8][9] Dior had no choice but to find another source of income.^[9]

In search of work, Dior again created and sold fashion sketches. Those sketches were discovered by fashion designer Robert Piguet.^[9] From 1937, Dior was employed by Piguet, who gave him the opportunity to design for three collections.^[10][11] Dior later said that "Robert Piguet taught me the virtues of simplicity through which true elegance must come."^[12][13] One of his original designs for Piguet, a day dress with a short, full skirt that was in his collection called "Cafe Anglais", was particularly well received.^[10][11] Whilst working for 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.^[11] Dior left Piguet when he was called up for military service.^[4]

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, 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.^[14][15] His sister, Catherine (1917–2008), 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.^[16] In 1947, Dior named his debut fragrance Miss Dior in tribute to her.^[17][18] The story of Dior’s life during WWII and the following few years is featured in the mini-series The New Look.

Dior was known for being superstitious. He often consulted his astrologer before making decisions, and his collections frequently featured talismanic symbols. He also carried a cluster of lucky charms with him, believing they brought him good fortune.^[19] At a pivotal moment when industrialist Marcel Boussac offered six million francs to establish Maison Christian Dior, Dior accepted only after receiving approval from two separate clairvoyants.^[20]

In 1946, Marcel Boussac, a successful entrepreneur, invited Dior to design for Philippe et Gaston, a Paris fashion house launched in 1925.^[21] Dior refused, wishing to make a fresh start under his own name rather than reviving an old brand.^[22] In 1946, with Boussac's backing, Dior founded his fashion house, ensuring exclusive control over the company and securing a third of all profits in addition to his salary.^[20] The name of the line of his first collection, presented on 12 February 1947,^[23] was Corolle (literally the botanical term corolla or circlet of flower petals in English). Dior's debut collection included a launch of 90 garments displayed in outfits.^[24] The phrase New Look was coined for it by Carmel Snow, the editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar.^[4]

Dior's designs were more voluptuous than the boxy, fabric-conserving shapes of the recent World War II styles that had been influenced by the wartime rationing of fabric.^[25] Despite being called "New," the Corolle line was clearly drawn from styles of the Edwardian era,^[26][27][28] refining and crystallizing trends in skirt shape and waistline that had been burgeoning in high fashion since the late 1930s.^[29][30][31] The house employed Pierre Cardin as head of its tailoring atelier for the first three years of its existence,^[32] and it was Cardin who designed one of the most popular of the Corolle ensembles, the 1947 Bar suit.^[33]

The "New Look" revolutionized women's dress, reestablished Paris as the centre of the fashion world after World War II,^[34][35] and made Dior a virtual arbiter of fashion for much of the following decade.^[36] Dior's collection was an inspiration to many women post-war and helped them regain their love for fashion.^[9] Dior believed that fashion was more than clothing; it was an art form and a continuation of French cultural heritage. He described maintaining the tradition of fashion as 'an act of faith,' a way to preserve the mystery and beauty that fashion brought to society.^[20]

His fall 1947 collection continued with a more exaggerated version of his debut line, with longer, more bell-shaped skirts;^[37] more bust emphasis; and bulkier coats, plus an alternate narrow silhouette.^[38][39] Each season thereafter would feature a newly titled Dior "line," in the manner of 1947's "Corolle" line, that would be trumpeted in the fashion press:^[40] the Envol^[41][42] and Cyclone/Zigzag lines^[43][44] in 1948; the Trompe l'Oeil^[45][46] and Mid-Century lines^[47][48] in 1949; the Vertical^[49][50] and Oblique lines^[51][52] in 1950; the Oval^[53][54] and Longue/Princesse^[55] lines in 1951; the Sinueuse^[56][57] and Profilėe^[58] lines in 1952; the Tulipe^[59] and Vivante/Cupola lines^[60][61] in 1953; the Muguet/Lily of the Valley line^[62][63] and H-Line^[64][65] in 1954; the A-Line^[66][67] and Y-Line^[68] in 1955; the Flèche/Arrow/F-Line^[69][70] and Aimant/Magnet line^[71] in 1956; and the Libre/Free^[72] and Fuseau/Spindle lines^[73][74] in 1957, followed by successor Yves Saint Laurent's Trapeze line in 1958.^[75][76]

The autumn 1954 H-line was one of his most controversial.^[77] Sometimes said to free the waist, it actually bound the torso from neckline to hips.^[78] Dior's intention was to give an impression of youth^[79][80] and also recreate the small, high, round breasts of the torsos of 16th century portraiture like that produced by Jean and François Clouet.^[81] He said that the H-line name was both a metaphor for the silhouette^[82] and a reference to the 16th-century era of French king Henry II.^[83] Critics pronounced the silhouette "flat"^[84] and too similar to the flapper look of the late 1920s (a common comparison for the waistless silhouettes of the 1950s)^[85][86] and the foundation garments required for the look^[87][88][89] were referred to as "ban the bosom" bras.^[90] While the bust-binding would be fleeting, the emphasis on youth and a less constrained waist was part of a trend that would continue into the 1960s.

The H-line is a good example of the line Dior straddled in the 1950s between a highy structured form and a more relaxed one, as it did continue somewhat a trend toward uncinching the waist while at the same time binding the breasts with boning. The tension between heavily structured clothes and more relaxed, comfortable ones characterized 1950s fashion,^[91] with Jacques Fath representing those favoring heavy structure^[92] and Chanel's 1954 reentry into the field representing more ease and comfort.^[93] While the fifties fashion era had started with Dior's famously corseted, boned, stiffened, padded, and lined 1947 Corolle collection, the general trend in the 1950s was toward more ease,^[94] while still maintaining some shape. The move toward more ease could be seen in several of Dior's collections, like his fall 1951 Long/Princess line that was his first without extensive stiffening^[95] and his spring 1952 Sinuous line that was comprised of soft blouses, cardigans, and skirts.^[96] Reversions toward more structure were seen in his fall 1952 Profile line that brought back stiff angularity,^[97][98] his spring 1953 Tulip line that restored bust padding,^[99][100] and of course his torso-binding fall 1954 H-line. All Dior collections from 1955 onward were less confining, for the most part, though almost all 1950s designers presented hobbling sheath skirts throughout the decade, including Dior.^[101]

The other main source of occasional controversy for Dior was hemlines, an obsession in the 1950s. His fall 1953 Cupola line included some skirts that raised the hemline to lengths that were startling to many observers, though they still perforce covered the knee.^[102] His fall 1956 Aimant line contained a handful of day skirts that dropped the hemline almost to the ankle, another startling move to some observers.^[103] These occasional controversial items only made up a portion of the garments in their respective collections, though; there were longer skirts in his Cupola collection^[104] and shorter skirts in his Aimant collection,^[105] as well as some less flattened torsos among his H-line offerings^[106]

Dior's last collections, such as the “Libre” and “Fuseau” lines, continued moving toward a more fluid, relaxed silhouette, distancing from the structured designs of earlier years. These changes reflected Dior's response to the era's evolving social dynamics, foreshadowing styles that would become iconic in the late 1950s and 1960s.^[107]

For his shoes, Dior initially used the most prominent footwear designer of the time, Perugia,^[108][109] but during the early 1950s he partnered with Delman,^[110] who employed Roger Vivier. Vivier would become Dior's preferred shoe designer of the end of the decade,^[111] continuing to produce shoes for the house after Dior's death into the 1960s, continuing sporadically even after he ended his official contract with Dior in 1963.

In 1955, 19-year-old Yves Saint Laurent became Dior's design assistant. Dior told Saint Laurent's mother in 1957 that he had chosen Saint Laurent to succeed him at Dior. She indicated later that she was confused by the remark, as Dior was only 52 at the time, but he died later that year.^[24]

Dior died of a third heart attack while on vacation in Montecatini, Italy, on 24 October 1957 in the late afternoon while playing a game of cards.^[112][113] He was survived by Jacques Benita, a North African singer three decades his junior, the last of a number of discreet male lovers.^{[114][115][116]}

Dior was awarded the French Legion of Honor in 1950. 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). The design house of Christian Dior, represented by designer Yves St. Laurent,^{[citation needed]} was nominated in 1967 for a BAFTA for Best British Costume (Colour) for Arabesque directed by Stanley Donen (1966).^[117] For the 11th César Awards in 1986, Dior, represented by Marc Bohan who created costumes from Christian Dior's original designs,^{[citation needed]} was nominated for Best Costume Design (Meilleurs costumes) for the 1985 film Bras de fer.^[118]

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