Virtually nobody knows him before February 12, 1947, and a day later he is world famous. Christian Dior revolutionized fashion with his first collection ever. But his “New Look” is not only met with enthusiasm.
The war is over. But its consequences can still be felt everywhere. Also in fashion. The clothes are above all practical – until that February 12, 1947. At 30 avenue Montaigne, a parade takes place that no one could have expected. A certain Christian Dior, a debutant of Parisian haute couture, proclaims a return to glamor and opulence. With tailored jackets, accentuated breasts, swinging, wide skirts and a lavish abundance of fabric. The “New Look” was born and became one of the most formative chapters in fashion history.
new look
The term itself does not come from the couturier, but from Carmel Snow, the editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar magazine at the time. Dior himself calls this line “Corolle” because its shape resembles a calyx. The most famous photographers and illustrators stage his models and help make the “New Look” popular around the world. Everywhere tailors and manufacturers orientate themselves on this silhouette.
With its lavish use of fabrics and feminine staging, Dior’s fashion symbolizes an end to deprivation. Basically, the “New Look” is neither new nor modern. He draws on forms from the Belle Époque and Rococo. Doesn’t correspond at all to the active role that women recently took on, it’s a step backwards in terms of emancipation. Which not everyone wants to accept. On a trip to America, for example, Christian Dior was greeted in Chicago by demonstrators with placards that read “Down with the New Look!” or «Christian Dior, go home!».
“My goal was not to revolutionize fashion, but to carry out honestly what I felt,” the couturier says in his autobiography “Dior and I”. And: “Couture remembered its main task, which is to decorate and beautify women.”
1920s in Paris: Art, Music and Literature
Christian Dior was born on January 21, 1905 in Granville, Normandy. His father owns a fertilizer and chemical factory. A world that Christian Dior wants nothing to do with. He is interested in architecture, interior design and flowers. For the sake of his parents, he began studying political science, but then became a gallery owner. In 1920s Paris, Dior enjoys life between art, music and literature until his father’s ruin puts an abrupt end to all this amusement. The global economic crisis also affected his gallery. He is forced to look for a professional alternative. Through a friend, he eventually got into model drawing, sold his designs to Parisian couturiers, and found permanent jobs with Robert Piguet and Lucien Lelong.
In 1946, the extremely wealthy entrepreneur Marcel Boussac was actually looking for a creative person who would give the outdated couture house Philippe et Gaston a fresh look. He meets with Christian Dior, who turns him down. Instead, he wants to build something new, his own. Boussac financed his wish.
Dior has always denied the accusation that he created the “New Look” on Boussac’s instructions so that the high consumption of fabric would boost the textile manufacturer’s sales. Nevertheless, in the years that followed, he pushed this style “to the limits of its possibilities,” as he puts it himself. At the beginning of the 1950s he began to liberate the waist again, eventually developing the straight, slim H-line. For Carmel Snow, this is “an even greater revolution in fashion than the New Look.” And a name was found for this too: the «Flat Look».
The House of Christian Dior
Meanwhile, the house of Christian Dior is constantly growing: spatially, personally, strategically. But the couturier cannot enjoy his success for long. On October 24, 1957, Christian Dior died unexpectedly of a heart attack. He was only 52 years old.
His assistant Yves Saint Laurent, who would later write fashion history himself, is chosen as his successor. In the decades to come, the Italian Gianfranco Ferré and the Englishman John Galliano, among others, who triggered a new Dior hype with eccentric collections from 1997, followed. Since 2016, Maria Grazia Chiuri has been the first woman to design the women’s collections. From the beginning she has followed a feminist approach.
And in the 21st century, too, the Christian Dior label is sparking a fashion revolution. But now for men. Hedi Slimane, creative head of this segment from 2000 to 2007, tailors silhouettes skin-tight to the body, creating an androgynous look. With an amazing result: His men’s fashion is also worn by quite a few women. What would Monsieur Dior have said? (dpa)