SHARED VISION
Before he became a couturier, Christian Dior was an illustrator for Bazaar, where his talent was fostered by the editor Carmel Snow. As we celebrate our 150th anniversary, Justine Picardie traces the interconnected legacies of our magazine and the storied
The story of Christian Dior has always been indelibly linked with that of Harper’s Bazaar, even before the couture house was launched with its spectacular first collection, 70 years ago, in 1947. History does not relate when Dior himself first became aware of Bazaar, but given his background – he was born in January 1905, the second son of a wealthy industrialist, in an era when prosperous French families had anglophile tastes – it does not seem inconceivable that he might have seen the fashion magazine, whose readership extended from the US to France and England. Certainly, as a boy growing up in the Normandy seaside resort of Granville, overlooking the Channel, he and his four siblings had enjoyed a privileged childhood of croquet and charades, picnics and fancy-dress parties; and Christian had proved himself to be adept at sketching and designing costumes for his friends and family.
However, his parents, Maurice and Madeleine Dior, refused their son’s request to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Instead, at his father’s insistence, he was sent to the prestigious Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques, with the expectation that he would become a diplomat; but the apparently mild-mannered young man was expelled for not attending classes. Instead, he befriended avant-garde artists including Christian Bérard and Jean Cocteau – both of whom were contributors to Harper’s Bazaar – and enjoyed the leisured life of a Parisian dilettante, before his conscription into the French military service.
In 1928, Dior opened a modern-art gallery in Paris, championing the paintings of Picasso and Miró, among others (again, at a time when Bazaar was featuring their work). But his bohemian existence came to an end in the wake of the Wall Street Crash, which had wiped out his father’s fortune, and led to the collapse of Dior’s art gallery in 1931. He attempted to establish another the following year, showcasing surrealist artists such as Dalí and Giacometti (whose work was just beginning to appear in Bazaar); but that, too, did not survive. To make matters worse, his family was suffering – one of his brothers became mentally ill; his beloved mother died soon afterwards – and Christian decided that he must help support his father and youngest sister, Catherine. By the mid 1930s, he was earning a living by drawing fashion illustrations for Harper’s Bazaar, while also trying to sell designs to couture houses. ‘Dior made hundreds
and hundreds of drawings,’ wrote Cecil Beaton (in his 1954 book, The Glass of Fashion), ‘stubbornly and patiently attempted to learn, to understand and intuit. After two years of labour and research, working night and day, he had finally attained his end; he had become a good dress designer.’
In 1938, Dior went to work for the couturier Robert Piguet, but with the outbreak of World War II, he served in the French Army; then, after the surrender to the Germans, he joined his father and sister Catherine in the unoccupied zone of southern France, where they grew vegetables on a smallholding. At the end of 1941, he returned to occupied Paris, working for the couturier Lucien Lelong; but the shadow of the war became ever more ominous, particularly when Catherine, who had joined the Resistance, was arrested by the Gestapo, and deported to a German concentration camp (astonishingly, she survived these horrors, and eventually made her way home to France, after the war ended).
Meanwhile, Carmel Snow, Bazaar ’s influential editor-inchief, had been one of the last to leave Paris in 1939, and was among the first to return in 1945. A passionate advocate of French couture, Snow was delighted to discover that Dior – her former illustrator at Bazaar, was already a promising designer. Such was her belief in him that she commissioned Henri Cartier-Bresson to take his portrait for the magazine, and proclaimed that ‘Lelong has a new designer whose collection was sensational – full of ideas… His name is Christian Dior.’
Snow’s steadfast support continued when Dior set up his own couture house at the end of 1946, and she was sitting front row when he showed his debut collection at his new salon on Avenue Montaigne on 12 February 1947. Legend has it that she was the first editor to rush backstage to congratulate Dior for a dramatic show that she instantly recognised as being transformative. ‘It’s quite a revolution, dear Christian,’ declared Snow, before coming up with the phrase that was to make her protégé famous: ‘Your dresses have such a new look.’
In fact, as Cecil Beaton observed, Dior’s New Look was influenced by the romantic belle époque fashions of his childhood, inspired by a time before the ravages of two world wars: ‘With an impeccable taste, a highly civilised sensitivity, and a respect for tradition that shows itself in a predilection for the half-forgotten, Dior creates a brilliant nostalgia.’ Yet the extravagant full skirts, exquisitely crafted with an abundance of fabric, contrasting with tiny waists and fitted jackets, caused a sensation in the world of international fashion.
Dior’s success also happened to coincide with the rise to fame of Richard Avedon, a New York photographer who had started working for Bazaar in 1944 when he was just 21. His photography – more often than not of Dior couture – came to define Bazaar as much as the golden triumvirate who led the magazine at the time: Carmel Snow, Alexey Brodovitch (the visionary Russian art director she hired soon after she became editor in 1934), and Diana Vreeland (another of Snow’s inspired appointments, who joined the magazine in 1936).
Some of the most evocative images that Avedon created for Bazaar were Dior looks shot on the streets of Paris; several of them modelled by his first wife, Doe Avedon, in 1947. (The marriage only lasted five years, but it was to form the inspiration for Funny Face, starring Fred Astaire as the photographer Dick Avery, opposite Audrey Hepburn as a doeeyed young model.) It is these pictures – timeless, graceful, spirited, and once seen, never forgotten – that seem to me to represent the art of fashion photography at its most compelling; and one might assume that these heights might never be achieved again.
But such is the power of both Dior and Bazaar that they continue to act as creative catalysts to one another; still flourishing, even after their great founders and leaders pass away, to be replaced by new talents. Christian Dior himself died in 1957, at the age of only 52; yet even after this tragic loss, his couture house endured, guided through six decades by a series of remarkable designers: Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons, and now Maria Grazia Chiuri. They have all brought their own sensibility and vision; yet the original language and codes established by Dior – all the way back to the lines of the New Look – remain a thread that runs though each evolving era. And this is a language in which Bazaar remains fluent – for it is part of our legacy, too.
As the editor of Harper’s Bazaar for the past five years, I have been privileged to see the debut collections of Raf Simons and Maria Grazia Chiuri; and every time, there has been a magical sense of seeing the past and present combine to create a future for Dior. This alchemy is at the heart of all great couture houses; and it is the essence of Bazaar, as well. By understanding our shared heritage – and celebrating our entwined stories – together, we shine a light into what may lie ahead in the decades to come.
Dior and Bazaar
continue to act as creative catalysts to one another, still flourishing, even after their great founders
pass away