A woman's perfume tells more about her than her handwriting
- Christian Dior.
Early Life :
Christian Dior was born on 21 January, 1905 in Granville, a seaside town on the coast of Normandy, northern France. His father, Maurice Dior was a wealthy fertilizer manufacturer and his mothers name is Marie Madeleine Juliette Martin. Christian Dior was second of five children. His siblings were Raymond (father of Francoise Dior), Jacqueline, Bernard and Catherine Dior. Dior's family hoped to see him as a Diplomat but young Christian Dior was very much interested in arts. When Christian Dior was five years old, the family moved to Paris. Due to pressure from his family to make him a diplomat, in 1925, he enrolled at the École des Sciences Politiques to begin his studies in political science. The young Christian Dior used to sell his fashion design sketches outside his house for 10 cents.
Evolving as a world class fashion designer :
In the year 1928, he convinced his father that he would set up an art gallery to which his father agreed and also helped him financially. Christian Dior and his fiends sold works by artists including Pablo Picasso. The following year 1929, was a horrible one for the young Dior as world was hit by Great Depression. During the Depression, his father lost control of the family business and lost all the money. The deaths of his older brother and mother forced him to close his gallery in 1931.
To make his ends meet, he sold his sketches on the streets. After few years, he was selected as a design assistant by Paris Couturier Robert Piguet. The next of that year, world war II broke, Dior served in the French army. In the year 1940, France surrendered to Germany. Dior returned to Paris where he was offered a job by Couturier Lucien Lelong. He along with Pierre Balmain worked as the primary designers there. At the same time, Dior's younger sister Catherine joined French Resistance due to which she was arrested and moved to concentration camp.(She was survived and released in 1945).
Marcel Boussac, a cotton fabric magnate offered a job to Christian Dior. But Dior was planning to open his own fashion house. Backed by Marcel Boussac, Christian Dior opened The House of Christian Dior on December 16, 1946 at 30 Avenue Montaigne Paris. The real start for Dior is considered as year 1947, in which he showed his first collection. On February 12, !947, he showed his debut line of collection named "Corolle" and "Huit", consisted of 90 different looks. That line of collection was phrased as "New Look" by the editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar named Carmel Snow.
Dior was master at creating shapes and most of his designed dresses have a Corset and Petticoat flare out from the waist, giving women the curvaceous shape. Initially, women protested because his designs covered their legs to which they were unused. Number of fabrics used in a single dress is also high compared to other designers, which was a backlash. After his first line of collection, Coco Chanel said the following, "Look how ridiculous these women are, wearing clothes by a man who doesn't know women, never had one and dreams of being one." Apart from all these negativities, Dior's designs hit the fashion industry strongly. The "New Look" revolutionized the women's dressing and re-established Paris as the fashion capital of the world after world war II. In the year 1957, Dior became the first designer to be featured on cover of TIME magazine proving he was true fashion legend.
Death :
Christian Dior died on a spa holiday in Montecatini, Italy on October 24, 1957. Most reports say that he was died of a heart attack after choking on a fish bone. Some reports say that he died of heart attack while playing cards. As of 2019, the exact circumstances of Dior's death remains untold.
