George Antonopoulos gets a rare tour of the Dior archives in Paris.
George Antonopoulos visits the Dior archives in Paris and learns about the man behind the label.
During the most recent Paris Fashion Week, I was lucky enough to be one of the few editors ever to be invited to the Dior archives in Paris. Three years ago—around the time LVMH acquired full ownership of the fashion house—Dior Heritage moved into new premises, known as One Dior, tucked inside a courtyard near the Dior boutique at 31 Avenue Montaigne. The Heritage team looks after upwards of 4,000 garments, 252 of which were personally designed by Christian Dior (who passed away in 1957), as well as jewellery, hats, bags, shoes, sketches, documents and books written by Monsieur Dior. The rest are creations by the designers who have followed him at the house: Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons and Maria Grazia Chiuri. One Dior is where the DNA of the brand is stored, protected and used for inspiration by current womenswear creative director Chiuri, menswear creative director Kim Jones and creative director of fine jewellery Victoire de Castellane.
After being buzzed in, I was greeted by Soizic Pfaff, director of Dior Heritage, who has been with the company for 46 years. She led me through a library of early documents, vaults containing dresses and accessories and an atelier where vintage pieces are restored for the archives as well as for loans to museums. Whether acquired through auctions, gifting or word of mouth, these coveted items are housed in a pristine, state-of-the-art environment. It feels very discreet, like a secret only revealed to insiders. And in the following pages, I’ll give you a further glimpse into the house’s history.
Christian Dior’s Early Life
M. Dior founded his business in 1946 at the age of 41. But before that, he had a lot of ups and downs in his life. He was born into an upper-class family, and his mother was an elegant woman who always wore hats and tended to a magnificent garden where the young Dior would sketch. His mother was his first muse—he loved flowers because of her. But then she died and the family lost all their money during the Great Depression.
THE YEARS OF STRUGGLE
M. Dior had two art galleries with friends in the 1920s, paid for by his parents. He wanted to be an architect, and his parents wanted him to be a diplomat, but they felt obliged to help him financially. The galleries were successful for several years but were forced to close because of the Great Depression. M. Dior’s friends found a room for him to stay in and gave him money for food. He learned how to do hat sketches, which he sold to boutiques and couturiers such as Balenciaga. He also learned how to sketch garments and worked as an illustrator for Le Figaro. Because of this, he was allowed into couture shows, where he saw the work of other designers. He then began to sketch his own designs and worked for couturiers Robert Piguet, in the late ’30s, where he held his first position in a design house and was taught simplicity, elegance and refinement, and Lucien Lelong, in 1941.
The Lucky Star
M. Dior was very superstitious. He would consult tarot-card readers and mystics before a show. On his way to a meeting with Marcel Boussac, the richest man in France at the time, he tripped on a metal star that had fallen off a hubcap. He took this as a sign and put the star in his pocket; he then proposed to Boussac that Boussac fund Dior’s own exclusive haute couture house. Boussac agreed.
HE HAD THE MIND OF AN ENTREPRENEUR
M. Dior’s father was a businessman, and his great-uncle was the minister of trade. That’s where he got his global mentality from. In one short decade, he turned himself into a global couturier carried in 27 countries. He rapidly expanded, opening international boutiques and creating licences for perfume and costume jewellery. He never did fine jewellery, which allowed him to open stores alongside Cartier. I found that incredible—that he was thinking so internationally and thinking of his brand in a global way. So many others followed in his footsteps. He was a visionary—and a pioneer.
The Canada Connection
Holt Renfrew was M. Dior’s first contact in Canada as he broadened his scope to explore global women and what they looked like in every country. In 1951, Holt Renfrew and Dior embarked on an exclusive partnership, producing a capsule collection in Montreal using Dior’s Paris designs. Later, M. Dior visited the retailer’s Toronto location to attend a fashion show. In the archives, there are boxes for each country—the Peru box, the Brazil box .... The Canada box contains all the sketches and dealings with Holt Renfrew. There are even drawings of garments with Canadian names.
He Was Media-Savvy
M. Dior wrote many books on style and etiquette—The Little Dictionary of Fashion, Dior by Dior and Christian Dior and I are a few of his titles. They were almost like guides in which he talked about the colour grey, fit, accessories, what heel to wear, what to wear with what .... He even talked about mature women. The books were translated into six languages, for the countries in which they were sold. In 1955, M. Dior held a conference at the Sorbonne for foreign students who had come to Paris to learn French. He showed examples of his garments, and the event was televised. With this conference, he really wanted to project his vision to the world and to the young generation so they could pass it on. It was like a modern-day TED Talk on fashion.
HE LOVED TO COOK
One book not written by
M. Dior is of his recipes; it includes the eight-course menu he designed for his friends to celebrate the new year in 1940. Now, the house of Dior uses those recipes for events. For example, at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris, the company’s clients can order the Dior menu during fashion week and on special occasions.
The New Look
People know M. Dior best for introducing the New Look after WWII. It’s amazing to think about how risqué and avant-garde that was—using so much fabric. He was greatly criticized, but he didn’t care. He wanted to bust out of the wartime mould; he wanted people to dream again.
With his first collection, he won a fashion award at Neiman Marcus in Dallas; he was the first French couturier to get it. Though he was also criticized in the United States, he told a friend, “To be criticized on the first page of newspapers is the best advertisement—instead of being congratulated on the last page.”