Darling of high society, creator of the "New Look", Dior shot to international fame almost overnight at the age of 47. At first his creations provoked angry accusations of unpatriotic extravagance, but women everywhere soon warmed to his hour-glass lines and long, rustling skirts. In this work, Dior's most characteristic designs - dresses and hats, shoes and accessories - are featured, with an outline of his career and his inspired output.
Aswirling skirt twenty metres in circumference, hat tipped over
one eye, haughty bearing. No dream, when she first appeared on
12 February 1947, but femininity incarnate, flirtatious, voluptuous,
a blend of the outrageous and the elegant: a true Parisian allegory.
This was the New Look, fifty years ago, the masterstroke that won back for
Parisian couture the place it had lost during the war. Even now, many years
later, the name Dior has lost none of its lustre. Though other masters of
couture may be synonymous with a particular style, Dior expresses all the
magic of fashion, its ability always to start afresh. It was Dior who brought
about that marriage of the modern and the miraculous by transforming the
role of haute couture. Until then, this was confined to a privileged minority;
thanks to him it became the means of fulfilling the dreams of millions of
women. 'Women, with their sure instincts, realized that my intention was to
make them not just more beautiful but also happier.' A businessman as well
as poet, he made fashion responsible for expressing society's desires and
showed it how to communicate universally, establishing the democratic
course of its future development.