Vogue on Christian Dior by Charlotte Sinclair

Author:Charlotte Sinclair [Sinclair, Charlotte]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2014-04-16T23:00:00+00:00

A model is fitted for a Lefaucheur corset in Dior’s atelier in 1952. Such a corset, Vogue reported, lent a woman the required Dior shape: controlled hips, nipped waist, flat back, and caved-in midriff. Photograph by Frances McLaughlin.

Dramatic in red: Dior on the cover of Vogue, December 1954. Photograph by Clifford Coffin.

He had unremittingly high standards for himself as well as his employees. “It is true that I am demanding: but who is not, in pursuit of the realization of his dreams?” Thus he was quick to temper if those standards were not met; his acute perfectionism meant he could and would erupt into a fury if things weren’t exactly to his liking. Manners were everything—Dior once refused to conduct a conversation with a man who was without collar and tie; a girl was ejected from his office for chewing gum. When a model confessed she hated the dress she was wearing, Dior was furious. “By making fun of that dress, this young lady was making fun of all the people who made it. That is something I can’t accept!” he said. He felt, heavily, the responsibility of caring for the hundreds of people who worked for him, an undertaking that added to the stress and anxiety already heaped upon his workload.

And it was quite a workload. By 1957 Dior was sitting on a fashion empire, the head of a complex network of licenses and business arrangements that span out across the globe from his Paris couture house like silk threads from a spider’s web. His couture collections were the distilled essence of his ideas and ideals. But it was his business ventures that gave the house of Dior its enduring legacy.

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