Christian Dior

Early life

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. When Christian was about five years old, the family moved to Paris.

Dior's family had hoped he would become a diplomat, but Dior was interested in art. To make money, he sold his fashion sketches outside his house for about 10 cents each (US$ in dollars). 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. 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.

In search of work, Dior again created and sold fashion sketches. Those sketches were discovered by fashion designer Robert Piguet. From 1937, Dior was employed by Piguet, who gave him the opportunity to design for three collections. Dior later said that "Robert Piguet taught me the virtues of simplicity through which true elegance must come." 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. 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. 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, 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. 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. In 1947, Dior named his debut fragrance Miss Dior in tribute to her. 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. 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.

The Dior fashion house

In 1946, Marcel Boussac, a successful entrepreneur, invited Dior to design for Philippe et Gaston, a Paris fashion house launched in 1925. Dior refused, wishing to make a fresh start under his own name rather than reviving an old brand. 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. The name of the line of his first collection, presented on 12 February 1947, 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. 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 that had been influenced by the wartime rationing of fabric. Despite being called "New," the Corolle line was clearly drawn from styles of the Edwardian era, refining and crystallizing trends in skirt shape and waistline that had been burgeoning in high fashion since the late 1930s. The house employed Pierre Cardin as head of its tailoring atelier for the first three years of its existence, and it was Cardin who designed one of the most popular of the Corolle ensembles, the 1947 Bar suit.

The "New Look" revolutionized women's dress, reestablished Paris as the centre of the fashion world after World War II, and made Dior a virtual arbiter of fashion for much of the following decade. Dior's collection was an inspiration to many women post-war and helped them regain their love for fashion. 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. Each season featured a newly titled Dior "line," in the manner of 1947's "Corolle" line, that would be trumpeted in the fashion press: the Envol and Cyclone/Zigzag lines in 1948; the Trompe l'Oeil and Mid-Century lines in 1949; the Vertical and Oblique lines in 1950; the Oval and Longue/Princesse lines in 1951; the Sinueuse and Profilėe lines in 1952; the Tulipe and Vivante/Cupola lines in 1953; the Muguet/Lily of the Valley line and H-Line in 1954; the A-Line and Y-Line in 1955; the Flèche/Arrow/F-Line and Aimant/Magnet line in 1956; and the Libre/Free and Fuseau/Spindle lines in 1957, followed by successor Yves Saint Laurent's Trapeze line in 1958.

Dior's last collections, such as the “Libre” and “Fuseau” lines, marked a shift 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.

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.

Death

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. He was survived by Jacques Benita, a North African singer three decades his junior, the last of a number of discreet male lovers.

Awards and honors

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, was nominated in 1967 for a BAFTA for Best British Costume (Colour) for Arabesque directed by Stanley Donen (1966). For the 11th César Awards in 1986, Dior, represented by Marc Bohan who created costumes from Christian Dior's original designs, was nominated for Best Costume Design (Meilleurs costumes) for the 1985 film Bras de fer.

References

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