Christian Dior was born on January 21, 1905 in Granville, a coastal town in northern France. His family later moved to the bustling city of Paris, where Christian would spend much of his life. He was the second of five children of Madeleine and Alexandre Dior. His father, Alexandre, was the owner of a successful fertilizer factory, which allowed the Dior family to enjoy a bourgeois and comfortable life, at least for a time.
As a child, Christian lived in his own world. He loved anything that was shiny or frivolous, but his greatest love was flowers and plants. He was also passionate about art and hoped to one day become an artist. However, his father had other plans for him. Alexandre did not believe his son could make a living as an artist, and instead he wanted her to become a diplomat. Although Christian was not interested at all, he finally gave in to his father’s wishes. In 1925, he enrolled in the prestigious École des Sciences Politiques, majoring in political science, hoping to find work as a diplomat after graduating.
At 23 years old, Christian Dior found his way back to the creative world. He opened a small art gallery with his father’s money. In exchange for financial support, his father’s only demand was that the family’s name not appear in the gallery or be used in connection with it. Happy to be able to dedicate himself to art again, Christian quickly accepted and, before long, the gallery was open. He sold artwork by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Max Jacob. But in 1931 the unimaginable happened: both Christian’s mother and older brother died, and due to the Great Depression, his father lost control of the family business. Three years after establishing the gallery, Christian was forced to close it due to financial problems.
Losing his mother and his brother deeply affected young Christian. Without financial help from his father, he had to find creative ways to make a living. He sold out of the gallery’s stock, but this was not enough. He lost his apartment and had to sleep on a friend’s floor. But his darkest days were yet to come. Due to his poor diet and poor living conditions, Christian contracted tuberculosis and spent a year recovering.
Dior was a survivor and, once cured, he found new ways to make money by selling his fashion sketches for about ten cents each. Soon after, he began selling sketches of hat designs to newspapers. Dior clearly had talent and was offered a job as a design assistant with Swiss couturier Robert Piguet. Dior later said that Robert Piguet taught him “the virtues of simplicity, through which true elegance must come.”
Working with Robert was Dior’s first step towards serious involvement in fashion and also opened many doors for him, however he would only get to explore those doors. A few years later, with the start of World War II, Dior was called up for military service by the French army. Although some sources indicate that he served as an officer, others claim that he performed compulsory agricultural work. What is certain is that Dior did not stay until the end of the war; He chose to return to Paris and began working in haute couture for Lucien Lelong. During the remaining years of the war, Lelong’s design house dressed both the wives of the Nazis and French collaborators. It was then that Dior’s ambition began to slowly blossom with his own ideas for a business.
At the end of the war, millionaire Marcel Boussac, who had idle factories, sought to keep his machines running by purchasing a new fashion house. Seeing Dior’s potential, he invited him and offered him the opportunity to revive a defunct fashion house called Philippe et Gaston. Dior refused, as at this point he was not interested in simply working for others, much less trying to revive a failed company. He wanted to start over under his own name. Fortunately, Boussac agreed and provided him with a large sum of money. With this financial backing, Dior, at 41 years old, was able to launch his real career.
That same year, Dior opened his own boutique at the famous 30 Avenue Montaigne. This is how the Christian Dior brand was born. His father died in December of that year, but we can assume that this time he had no problems with his daughter using the family name. In the following months, Christian worked harder than ever. Although she had earned a degree in political science, it quickly became clear that her true education came from elsewhere: associating with many of the world’s greatest artists had instilled in her a unique eye for fashion, and her privileged years were reflected in her work.
Over the past two decades, a pragmatic trend had taken over the fashion industry, reaching its peak during World War II, when clothing was rationed. However, Dior was never a fan of this trend; he craved dreams and glamour. With the end of the war, he felt it was time for a change, wanting to reintroduce femininity and focus on luxury. In less than three months since creating his brand, he launched his first couture collection. A lover of flowers, Dior called the collection “Corolle” and the pieces were truly innovative for the time. The look was reminiscent of an earlier Belle Époque silhouette: romantic, luxurious and feminine, with raised busts, gently sloping shoulders, corset-cinched waists and long, puffy taffeta and tulle skirts. The garments were opulent, with each dress using an average of 20 yards of fabric.
Although his designs were not necessarily user-friendly, they were revolutionary and the collection was a huge success. However, not everyone was happy. Coco Chanel, in particular, made sarcastic comments. At the time, Dior’s style was dubbed “the New Look” of New York, as its appearance was very different from the androgynous styles that had been in fashion until then, specifically the androgynous style that Chanel had popularized. Coco, patron saint of pants, considered Dior pieces to be too stiff, cumbersome and, most importantly, difficult to breathe. She accused Dior of dragging women back to 19th century ideals of femininity and once even commented: “Dior doesn’t dress women, it upholsters them.”
Of course, Dior saw things differently, saying, “I consider my work as ephemeral architecture dedicated to the beauty of the female body.” In the United States, however, many women agreed with Chanel. When Dior visited in the fall of 1947, he was greeted by protesters with signs urging him to return home. Despite the backlash in the United States, Dior persevered.
By then, he was already a major player in the renaissance of haute couture in France, but he wanted to expand even further. This globalization was quite rapid. A year after launching his collection, he opened a store in New York City, and with this global launch came an expanded collection as well. Dior understood that to continue his legacy he needed to offer the entire fashion experience. So, like many other fashion houses, he began by creating a fragrance that he called Miss Dior, in homage to his sister Catherine. Later, he also licensed the Dior name for accessories, allowing lovers of the brand to fully capture the “New Look” from head to toe with clothing, jewelry and fragrance.
In the years that followed, the brand continued to flourish, dressing the biggest stars of the time. By the mid-1950s, the house of Dior had become a highly respected fashion empire. It was around this time that the now famous Yves Saint Laurent came onto the scene. The 19-year-old began working as Dior’s assistant, but it wasn’t long before Dior noticed his potential. In fact, he admired the young man’s eye for fashion so much that he wanted her to be his successor when the time came. However, no one knew that this moment would come sooner than expected.
In 1957, Dior traveled to Italy on vacation to the town of Montecatini, but while there he suffered his third heart attack and died at the age of 52. The loss was deeply felt by the fashion world, and to prevent the brand from veering off course, Yves was given the role of artistic director. The young talent kept Christian’s vision alive by using the same fabrics and proportions, but he also introduced a softer silhouette and lighter, easier-to-wear pieces. Although many collections were successful, the industry struggled to accept someone else at the helm of the brand.
When Yves was drafted into the French army in 1960, Dior management did not object to him leaving. Following Yves’ departure, Marc Bohan was named creative head. In the late 1960s, he infused a more conservative style and returned the brand’s designs to more closely follow what Christian Dior had done. He took the classic concept and adapted it to the 1960s, simplifying it slightly and giving it a more modern twist, but still staying true to Dior’s style. With Marc at the helm, Dior once again became the women’s brand loved by so many and the subsequent collections were a success. Marc was quickly credited as the man who kept the Dior label at the forefront of fashion, and WWD went so far as to claim that he saved the brand.
For over a decade, Marc continued to build the brand, making it even more successful internationally. Stores began to spring up in more cities such as London and Hong Kong, and the Dior fashion house was catapulted to the top of the industry. By the late 1970s, Dior had created global brand recognition, but unfortunately had also become an asset within a failed conglomerate called Boussac Saint Frères. In 1978, the Boussac group declared bankruptcy, which also included its assets.
However, someone was very happy with this news: Bernard Arnault. The billionaire, who currently runs the LVMH empire, had been obsessed with Dior since he was a child, and the idea of buying his parent company was music to his ears. When Arnault took over Dior, he assumed the roles of president, CEO and managing director. Over the years, a series of impressive creative directors have also added their own touches to the brand’s achievements. Despite being absorbed by LVMH, Dior remained an independent and prominent brand.
Today, Dior is thriving, having recorded a turnover of €28.7 million in the first half of 2021. The brand can rightly be considered the epitome of the fashion industry. The luxury fashion house has always strived to create an enduring image of itself and has become known for its meticulous attention to detail, infusing its wearers with an innate sense of style no matter the season or time of day. And it looks like that won’t change anytime soon.
This was the story of Christian Dior, the revolutionary visionary who almost ended up being a diplomat just to please his father. It took him four decades to build his career, but when he finally released his first collection, everyone took notice. And although he passed away more than half a century ago, his legacy at Dior has continued to dominate the fashion world ever since.
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