The legacy of Christian Dior

Six decades after creating the extravagant look that left the misery of World War II behind, the fashion house is still making waves. By Edwina McCann.

Six decades after creating the extravagant look that left the misery of World War II behind, the fashion house is still making waves. By Edwina McCann.

In 1947, a timid, 42-year-old man of dapper appearance showed his first collection, and the fashion world was turned on its head. His name was Christian Dior and the brand he created remains one of the most powerful in the luxury goods market. But for a designer of such lasting influence, Dior’s rule as arbiter of trends was brief. In 1957, only 10 years after he had become an overnight success showing the aptly named New Look, he was dead. “Dior made fashion of interest to masses … he made fashion news,” proclaimed The New York Times four days after his death. But the headlines weren’t always good.

Today it is hard to see why the conservative New Look, with its sculptured, cinched waist and full skirt that scraped the ankles, caused such a fuss. But to women living in the ruins of Europe in 1947 and still wearing utilitarian wartime dress, it was shocking in its excess. In a world used to fashions evolving at a steady pace, Dior had started a revolution and, as with most things revolutionary, people were polarised. Dior’s tiny waists, high busts and exaggerated hips hidden under yards of fabric were the antithesis of the dominant silhouette of the time, with its square shoulders, shorter skirts or mannish proportions. It was a slap in the face to cash-strapped, war-weary women. A model wearing Dior’s New Look for a photoshoot in Montmartre, Paris, was set upon by bystanders, furious at the unnecessary use of fabric during a time of rationing. His designs also met with stout resistance in England, where a tabloid war was waged against lengthening hemlines.

In the US, Dior provoked outrage for economic rather than social reasons. When he crossed the Atlantic in 1947 he was greeted by industrialists protesting with placards shouting “Christian Dior: go home!”, incensed because the enthusiastic press given to his New Look had relegated every garment already hanging on the racks or in production to the sales bin. The hostility on the streets towards such opulence and innovation was in glaring contrast to the delight of the wealthy elite, who flocked to Dior and ensured the fledgling house turned a profit within days of showing its first collection.

Novelist Nancy Mitford, in her 40s and living in Paris at the time, was smitten by the New Look. She wrote with disdain about the incident in Montmartre to her sister Diana (who was married to British fascist leader Oswald Mosley) and complained about a woman in a bistro she frequented who asked her if her coat was by Dior. “And of course everyone knows about Dior’s prices,” Mitford wrote. “So I made a sort of speech about how I saved up the whole year for a new coat.”

In a sumptuous new coffee table book, Dior, 60 Years of Style: From Christian Dior to John Galliano, released to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the house, historian Farid Chenoune explores the effect that Dior’s flamboyant haute couture had on feelings of femininity among French women who, like their country, had suffered under the German occupation. To the moneyed women who became Dior’s devoted clients, and thought nothing of renewing their entire wardrobe every season, Dior’s lavish dressing represented a return to elegance, to civilisation, but also to subjection. The New Look was nostalgic for a time when a lady of leisure was to be no more than feminine and decorative. To many working-class women who had lived and more significantly worked through the war, its restrictive corsetry and impractical fabrication represented a return to the shackles.

But despite worthy resistance, capitulation was swift. US Harper’s Bazaar editor Carmel Snow led the troops. She had coined the phrase “New Look” in a glowing letter to Dior following his presentation. She then assisted the designer in winning over his detractors by daring them to try the new proportions in her pages, saying: “Elegance is good taste plus a dash of daring.” By the showing of his second collection, Dior’s new proportions were being copied by dressmakers all over the world and his client list included society luminaries such as Baronne de Rothschild, surrealist muse Lise Deharme, the Duchess of Windsor and the woman feted as the world’s best dressed woman, Mrs Reginald Fellowes (née Daisy Decazes).

Dior soon added Hollywood glamour with Marlene Dietrich (he created her wardrobe for the 1951 film No Highway), Grace Kelly, Ava Gardner, Lauren Bacall and Rita Hayworth. He made Edith Piaf’s wedding gown, and Princess Margaret was a devoted client from her 21st birthday.

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THE EXTREMELY LAVISH and decorative Eugenie Chantilly pink ballgown (Dior considered the dresses the models and named them; those who wore them were mannequins) was made from mountains of tulle, chiffon, crinoline, taffeta and eight whalebones. It was labelled the most expensive dress in Paris in 1948 and its statistics are dizzying. According to Elle Magazine at the time, 689 people worked on it.

That figure makes sense to me only after seeing an exhibition at the Met in New York 10 years ago that coincided with the 50th anniversary of the house. The original haute couture pieces looked rich, exquisite and from another era. The bodices of Christian Dior gowns generally consist of three layers. The corsets, which are constructed of darts and whalebones and occasionally even springs, sit between the outer fabric and the inner lining. The deconstruction of these layers has become fodder for Dior’s present successor, John Galliano, and reworkings of the corset feature regularly in his collections.

Christian Dior famously refused to meet any man who was not wearing a tie, and you can’t help but wonder what he would make of Galliano, who took his bow at the 60th anniversary haute couture show in July dressed as a matador with pink tights. The celebratory collection was shown at Versailles: the palace’s lavish fountains and gilded halls, which symbolise excess and a certain detachment from reality, were the perfect place for Galliano to pay homage to his sun king, Dior. The collection coincided with Galliano’s 10th year at the helm.

Galliano is the fourth creative heir to the house since Dior’s death. (His demise was not elegant: he reportedly choked on a fish bone at dinner, provoking a heart attack.) Yves Saint Laurent was the first to fill the void and immediately made his mark with the trapeze line, a radically different look for the house. As effeminate as his boss, Saint Laurent had been an assistant to Dior and contributed 35 designs to his final collection. He flourished in the creative atmosphere, but left after a brief stint in the army and a posting in Algeria caused a nervous breakdown. Saint Laurent started his own house in 1962. The two appointments that followed, Marc Bohan and Gianfranco Ferre, were less successful. No one has been better suited to the role than Galliano; as with the man who gave his name to the house, reactions to his collections have ranged from outrage to adulation.

When Erica Baxter married James Packer in the south of France this year, an haute couture gown by Christian Dior was an appropriate choice. When a price tag of more than $100,000 for Baxter’s dress was touted in the press, some people murmured “obscene” quietly, others publicly. Having visited the press room at Dior’s Paris HQ, where I could see and touch the gowns that hang like jewels in a vault, I know why Baxter chose Dior for her wedding day. A breathless Nancy Mitford wrote just days after Dior’s showing of his New Look that she yearned to be one of his self-tagged “flower women”, to feel the bewitching femininity of one of his gowns with its yards and yards of fabrics. Baxter wanted that experience too, even if the restrictive corsetry made breathing rather tricky.

Fashion editor Edwina McCann’s previous story was “Wool circle” (July 14-15), a celebration of Australian wool. Dior, 60 Years of Style: From Christian Dior to John Galliano, by Farid Chenoune and Laziz Hamani, published by Thames & Hudson, $270. Available in January 2008.