Christian Dior - Part II
June 10, 2010
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Dior's art gallery soon became very important, with paintings of famous artists like Pablo Picasso, or Jean Cocteau.
A painful family's disaster took place in 1931, his older brother died and a little later his mother died too. In addition to these tragedies the family firm collapsed.
Dior closed the art gallery and began pursuing fashion in a different way, closer to his vocation. He began his fashion career drawing numerous fashion sketches, and selling them to haute couture houses. Initially his hat designs were more successful than his dress designs. But his dress designs improved and he was hired by Robert Piguet in 1938.
Dior served in the South of France during the war, and then he returned again to Paris in 1941 and worked for Lucien Lelong, a much larger design house.
In 1946, he was able to open his own house, backed by textile manufacturer Marcel Boussac, who had already made a small fortune in fabrics. Boussac was particularly interested in Dior's predilection for extravagant and often layered fabric.
By 1947, (42 years old) Dior had finalized and premiered his first fashion desgins collection.
Dior's new look was focused on creating a curvaceous and beautiful silhouette for women. And women were waiting for that. He presented a fashion look with a fitted jacket with a nipped in waist and full calf length skirt. It was a dramatic change from wartime austerity styles. After the rationing of fabric during the Second World War, Dior's excessive and luxurious use of material was an astonishing and shocking stroke.
But then, one blessed day, the end of war arrived. The critics had to remain silent, and the fans spoke up. Dior revolutionized women's clothing fashion. After the war women longed for frivolity in dress and desired feminine clothes.
They were extremely tired of looking like a civilian version of a military uniform. Dior was the one who could understand and respond to those desires.
The New Look and new approach to fashion was a major post war turning point in Fashion History.
Just two years later, Christian Dior New York opened, and throughout his life it remained the primary fashion house. Since then classic, elegant, and stunning, Christian Dior's fashion label exemplifies and defines high style.
Now I'm asking again: Are those who succeed special people? Were they born "fashion desgin's stars" from the very beginning?
Someone told me once, and I agree: "nothing is written, we have to write our own chapters in the story of our lives."
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