Je T'Adore Dior

As a child I remember having a very specific fondness for 1950's fashion. There was just something about those silhouettes, the attention to detail, the perfect accessories, the overall emphasis on uber-femininity and elegance that made my mouth salivate in a most fashionable way. It wasn't until I got older that I realized who was responsible for this insatiable desire to be born 40 years earlier...none other than the incomparable Monsieur Christian Dior.

“It is not money that makes you well dressed. It is understanding.”
-Christian Dior

Did you know that....

• he was an extremely superstitious man. He would consult his personal tarot card reader before every show and decorate at least one model with lilies of the valley (his favorite flower). He would also include a coat in every collection named after his birthplace...Granville.
• representatives from discount clothing stores were encouraged to attend Dior's runway shows as long as they bought a minimum number of designs which they were then allowed to copy stitch for stitch into knock-off lines.
• his models were called mannequins and they were hired in different shapes and sizes to show off how his designs would look on all types of women.
• he followed the same timeless commercial formula for all of his lines: one third new, one third adaptations of familiar styles, and one third proven classics.

“My mother says that when I was little my grandfather used to take me and my cousins on one side after dinner and ask us what we wanted to be when he grew up, and I’d say ‘Christian Dior’. He was so famous in France at the time. It seemed as if he wasn’t a man, but an institution.” -French fashion designer Christian Lacroix

Learn more about Dior at the Design Museum
Photos courtesy of the Met Museum and For the Love of Opera Gloves.