lady dior biography

Lady Dior: the making of a design icon

An rare glimpse inside Dior's Florentine leather manufacture

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In 1994, the team at maison Dior chose its chouchou. A French term of endearment best translated as ‘favourite’, chouchou was also the name of a new Dior bag unveiled that year. When designing the bag, the team turned to Christian Dior’s own biography for inspiration. Design details and tweaks reveal aspects of Dior’s many superstitions and design predilections. A set of four metal letters spell the maison’s famous name in a nod to the talismanic charms (a gold star and a sprig of lily of the valley among them) that Monsieur carried in his pockets; materials including Nappa leather are top-stitched to achieve the brand’s emblematic Cannage motif quilting, its shape a tribute to the Napoleon III chairs Dior lined up to seat guests at his haute couture presentations.

Since he first had his palms read by a fortune- teller aged 14, Christian Dior believed in destiny, fate and signs; in a fairy-tale twist, Dior’s chouchou became the favourite of a visiting princess. When touching down in Paris in 1995 to visit the Grand Palais’ exhibition of Cézanne artworks, Princess Diana of Wales was presented with the bag by Bernadette Chirac, then the First Lady of France. It was a coup de foudre: upon her return to London, the princess ordered several versions of the accessory; one year later, it was rechristened Lady Dior.

The Lady Dior has since joined the maison’s canon of emblematic designs. Its architectural shape, duo of rounded top-handles and metal detailing are as recognisably ‘Dior’ as the brand’s Oblique logo repeat-pattern – originally drafted in 1967 by its then creative director Marc Bohan – or the tailored Bar jacket, whose peplumed waist changed the course of fashion history as part of Christian Dior’s seminal 1947 New Look collection. “I love bags, I love accessories,” says Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior’s first-ever female creative director. “I think they define the look. They give a sign.”

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Since joining the marque, the Italian designer has authored myriad versions of the Lady Dior to mirror her seasonal ready- to-wear collections. This spring, Chiuri researched Dior’s sister Catherine. A World War II resistance fighter as a France-stationed member of the Polish intelligence, Catherine survived the Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp and became a celebrated botanist and gardener. Chiuri’s tribute to Catherine Dior includes a calfskin Lady Dior bag, its pale outer printed and embroidered with the Jardin Naturel pattern of wild flowers, thistles and grasses.

Contemporary artists, too, have previously designed Lady Dior bags. There have been versions by American photographer Nan Goldin, Swiss creative Olympia Scarry and British sculptor Kate MccGwire – all three took part in the 80-piece travelling exhibition Lady Dior As Seen By, which has stopped in Seoul, Milan and Hong Kong – and by Marc Quinn. The British artist, who painted some of his Lady Diors with macro takes of orchids, joined fellow YBAs Mat Collishaw and Ian Davenport as one of 11 blue-chip names commissioned to take part in the inaugural Lady Dior Art initiative.

Since its 2016 kick-off, Lady Dior Art has given carte blanche to a list of international talents that includes Manhattan painter Spencer Sweeney and Friedrich Kunath; at his studio in Los Angeles, the German artist added a golden sunset to his Lady Dior. The third edition of Lady Dior Art – which focussed on an all-female group of creatives – saw Burçak Bingöl fashion a Lady Dior from fluffy white silk faux fur, which was then hand-embroidered with emerald blue acrylic flowers.

A balance between artistic freedom and artisanal probability lies at the heart of Lady Dior Art. Artists’ designs are turned from sketches to three-dimensional bags at a specialised atelier staffed by Dior’s master artisans. It is here in Italy’s central Tuscany region, a short drive from the city of Florence, that, in addition to one-off bespoke orders, the team finishes all the brand’s bag prototypes. Once perfected, the prototypes are sent to Dior’s network of ateliers to launch serial production.

Today, the team – here, all members of staff are dressed in immaculate white lab coats – are busy crafting a number of Lady Diors. Chiuri’s Marrakech-set Cruise 2020 collection included designs fashioned from a new toile du jouy pattern dreamt up by Ivory Coast-headquartered Uniwax; a matching Lady Dior is emblazoned with a proud big cat rendered in carnelian and white bead embroidery and set against an impressionistic jungle scene. The team tells me that in an ode to North African techniques, the intricate scene is embroidered using traditional pure cotton threads instead of a more modern cotton and nylon mix. Here, attention to detail is clearly paramount.

Nearby, a grey metal shelving unit holds prototypes of Marguerite Humeau’s work for Dior. For the fourth instalment of Lady Dior, the French artist researched biology and palaeontology; the result is an all-white cloud- like version of the Lady Dior, formed from a solid organic compound using 3D printing techniques. “The possibilities that arise from this collaboration are what impresses me the most,” South-African multimedia artist Athi-Patra Ruga tells me. “I was very impressed by [their] ability to translate the sculptural elements and craftsmanship that have come to signify my own studio.”

When invited by Dior to present his take on the Lady Dior, Ruga drafted two designs. One is fronted by a thickly embroidered self-portrait of the artist in lustrous white pearls, set against iridescent metal flowers and beads. With his second iteration of the classic, Ruga paid tribute to Christian Dior’s 1949 Junon ballgown, referencing the dress’ many-layered scalloped skirt with an undulating wave-like patchwork.

At the Florence site, realising designs such as Ruga’s begins with the pattern making, where a model maker translates a sketch into a technical blueprint. Next, materials are selected to fit with individual models. Nappa leather – the luxurious hide is a Dior speciality – is difficult to work with, due to its movement when being sewn. Chosen leathers are then cut according to the pattern. Working on long workbenches, the artisans cut solely from the central part of each hide, to yield the best quality of raw material.

Before an artisan collects all components of one bag, individual segments are finished to design, with surface treatment including embroideries and printing. The bag then slowly takes shape on a solid wooden mount built by an external group of specialised wood artisans. Sets of handles are built up by enveloping a squishy padding shaped from a residual leather compound in precisely cut leather, which is then hand-sewn.

Any new recruits to Dior’s Tuscan ateliers must possess a steady hand. In addition to hand-stitching, one of the final production steps lies in colouring the slim edges where two pieces of leather have been joined. I watch as an artisan dots a small droplet of inky blue acrylic paint, which is then dispersed by pushing the dye along the seam using a wooden tool.

Nearby, leather is stamped with metal lettering spelling ‘Christian Dior’. The brand reserves particular metal tones for each of its best-selling bags: the Lady Dior is stamped mostly with white-gold lettering, while the Saddle bag’s stamp is rendered in antique gold. Lastly, each Lady Dior is decorated with a quartet of metal charms, each one spelling ‘Dior’ to crown the princess’ favourite bag.

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The True Story of Catherine Dior, Christian Dior’s Renegade Younger Sister

In the first episode of The New Look , Todd A. Kessler’s glossy new Apple TV+ period drama charting the epic rivalry between Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, we meet not only the feuding designers (as played by a grizzled Ben Mendelsohn and a glamorous Juliette Binoche) but also those in their illustrious circle, including couturier Lucien Lelong (John Malkovich), his then design assistant Pierre Balmain (Thomas Poitevin), and Chanel’s German lover, the Nazi-affiliated Hans Günther von Dincklage (Claes Bang). But, there’s one character who quickly emerges as one of the most fascinating: Christian Dior’s heroic younger sister, Catherine Dior.

We meet her in 1943, three years into the Nazi occupation of Paris, as she, embodied by Maisie Williams, is accosted by officers who demand to see her papers. When she flees, they chase her and pin her against a wall—only for her to then turn the tables on them. Two members of the French Resistance suddenly appear and shoot the soldiers, and Catherine, startlingly composed, escapes with them. You realize that she was never the damsel in distress—she’d simply set a trap that the Nazis walked into. She is a woman who, despite all the chaos around her, seems to be fully in control of her own destiny.

But who was the real Catherine Dior? What was her life actually like during the Second World War? And how did she go on to influence the work of her brother? As the show continues to air, we present a full breakdown below.

Born in 1917 in Granville, in northwestern France, Catherine grew up the youngest of five children born to industrialist Maurice Dior and his wife, Madeleine. Maurice managed a firm which specialized in producing fertilizer, and grew the business into a success, soon moving his growing family into a grand villa. (Their candy-colored mansion now houses the Musée Christian Dior.) However, tragedy was just around the corner: Madeleine died in 1931 and, soon after, an economic downturn and failed real estate ventures decimated the family’s fortune. Maurice’s remaining assets were liquidated, the company sold, and the family forced to vacate their stately home in favor of a dilapidated farmhouse in Provence. There, Catherine supported the family by growing green beans and peas; she would remain green-fingered her whole life.

By the late 1930s, both Catherine and Christian were living in Paris, but when the Second World War broke out, they returned to the south of France and grew vegetables that they sold in Cannes. It was then that Catherine’s life changed forever—she met Hervé des Charbonneries, a passionate member of the French resistance. Despite him being a married father of three, as well as more than a decade older than her, Catherine fell in love with Hervé, and soon joined the Resistance herself.

Hugo Becker as Hervé des Charbonneries and Maisie Williams as Catherine Dior in The New Look.

She used her brother’s Paris apartment to host underground Resistance meetings, and things went well for a time, but then, in 1944, she was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo. Remarkably, she never betrayed any of her comrades. The Nazis then dispatched her to a French prison and, later, a series of concentration camps: Ravensbrück, Torgau, Abteroda, and, finally, Markkleeberg in 1945. Christian repeatedly tried but failed to arrange her release. As the Allies approached, remaining prisoners were sent on a death march but, somehow, Catherine managed to escape and eventually returned to Paris. She later testified against her torturers and was awarded several medals for her bravery, including the Legion of Honour, the Croix de Guerre, the Combatant’s Cross, and the King’s Medal for Courage in the Cause of Freedom.

Not long after Catherine and Christian were reunited, the latter presented his era-defining New Look collection in 1947. As attendees took in the wasp-waisted jackets and frothy skirts, they could also detect a sweet scent in the air—Miss Dior, the maison’s new fragrance, which had been diffused around the room. It’s believed that it was named after Catherine—the story goes that while Christian was in a meeting with his colleague, Mizza Bricard, Catherine entered the room and Bricard exclaimed, “Ah, here! Miss Dior!”

Catherine, however, had little interest in fame or fortune. She lived the rest of her life away from the spotlight on a farm in Provence, and sold blooms alongside Hervé des Charbonneries at the flower market in Paris’s Les Halles. Upon her brother’s untimely death in 1957 at the age of 52, she devoted herself to preserving his legacy, carefully cataloging the contents of his home and serving as the honorary president of the Musée Christian Dior until her own passing in 2008, aged 90.

While many Christian Dior devotees may still not know Catherine’s name, the house of Dior has not forgotten the impact she had on him; she remains a frequent muse for the maison’s creative director, Maria Grazia Chiuri, who references both her fierce modernity and rebelliousness, as well as her love of flowers across the brand’s designs, campaigns, and runway shows. With the release of The New Look , Catherine is sure to win more fans—and it feels like only a matter of time before a standalone big-screen biopic is given the green light.

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The designer set the template for the modern fashion business.

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The birth of the house of Dior is the focus of the new Apple TV+ period drama “The New Look,” which focuses on how Christian Dior and his contemporaries navigated the horrors of World War II and resuscitated French haute couture .

“Monsieur Christian Dior , the stout and startled-looking grand vizier of the high-fashion Paris dressmakers, is the main reason most women look the way they do today,” Collier’s Weekly reported in 1955, eight years after the couturier set the fashion world spinning with his waist-cinching, fan-skirted New Look dresses.

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By 1953, the business grossed a whopping $15 million annually, employed 1,500 people and accounted for 55 percent of all Paris couture exports.

Today, the brand is a jewel in the crown of luxury magnate Bernard Arnault, the founder of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton , who has owned Dior since 1984. Though LVMH does not break down revenues by brand, Bernstein analyst Luca Solca estimates that Dior brings in annual revenues of 15 billion euros from fashion and beauty, making it one of the world’s most powerful luxury brands.

Although his trajectory was cut short with his death in 1957, Dior cut a wide swath in fashion history, thanks to memorable designs that glorified female beauty and invoked desire around the world. For him, fashion was feeling. “It cannot be reasoned,” he once said.

But his leap to the forefront of global fashion was not a given. He was born in 1905 in Granville, a provincial coastal town in the Normandy region of France, to an industrialist father, Maurice, and a housewife mother, Madeleine Martine.

Maurice Dior and family members ran a group of chemical companies, which landed the Dior name on such products as fertilizers.

Dior’s mother, transfixed by the refined traditions of the bourgeoisie, was known for her elegant outfits and dedication to a beautiful lifestyle, reflected in her furniture, interior decoration and flowers. That affected her five children, notably Christian, who loved gardening and fancy parties, and designed costumes for local events and carnivals. But he was frequently described as a moody, taciturn child, prone to solitude.

The family moved to Paris in time for Dior’s higher education, and his parents initially envisioned a diplomatic career for their son upon his graduation from the Institute of Political Sciences. But Dior’s interests were artistic, principally architecture, music, drawing and painting.

He opened a gallery in 1928 with an antique dealer friend, working with avant-garde artists such as Salvador Dalí, Alberto Giacometti, Pablo Picasso and Man Ray.

In 1938, he was hired by Robert Piguet as a draftsman, playing a role in the romantic fashions that dominated until World War II. Dior’s career was interrupted by the conflict, during which he served as a private first class in the engineering corps. He returned to Paris in 1941 and joined Lucien Lelong, then a leading French fashion house, where he worked with Pierre Balmain.

In his biography, “Christian Dior and I,” the designer recalled that he enjoyed his work at Lelong immensely. “I had neither the responsibility of putting my designs into production nor that of selling them,” he wrote.

Then came a chance encounter with a childhood friend and a director of the house of Philippe & Gaston, a dressmaker owned by Marcel Boussac, the French textile mogul known as the cotton king, who was looking for a designer to infuse new life into the business.

Initially stumped for suggestions, Dior ultimately proposed himself as a potential candidate. That was, until he inspected the business from top to bottom and decided Boussac would be wasting his time trying to restore Philippe & Gaston to its former heights.

“So many others before me had tried to resurrect once-famous names without success; the existence of a dressmaking house is burdened with uncertainties, and its lifespan is often far shorter than the men who run it,” Dior wrote. “I decided that I was not meant by nature to revive the dead.”

Ultimately, Dior found himself suggesting the creation of his own house, new from top to bottom, and built on the principles of luxury and craftsmanship — a proposition that piqued Boussac’s interest. “After the prolonged stagnation of the war years, I believed there was a genuine unsatisfied desire throughout the world for something new in fashion,” Dior wrote.

Later that same evening, in March 1946, while walking down the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Dior stumbled over something. It was a metal star with a hole in the middle. He took it as a sign. The next day he marched into Boussac’s office and the two were in business.

Boussac ponied up $500,000 to launch the brand and Dior took up residence at 28 Avenue Montaigne, which was being vacated by a hat shop.

Seeking to relieve women from wartime frugality and shapeless clothes, Dior devised ways to enhance feminine beauty. His proposition was greeted with rapturous applause and immediately embraced by such disparate women as singer Juliette Greco and stage actress Dominique Blanchard, who had a long skirt made of 80 yards of pleated white faille.

Carmel Snow, the editor of Harper’s Bazaar, baptized Dior’s first collection “New Look,” and it precipitated a stampede back to Paris for fashion — and, as noted, outcry in the city’s streets over what many, still struggling after the war, considered an extravagant use of precious cloth.

The business quickly expanded to neighboring buildings, the one at 30 Avenue Montaigne housing what in the early ’50s was the biggest luxury boutique in Paris. Many of the founder’s decorating codes — medallions, ribbons, cane work, houndstooth and panther prints — remain today.

He was the only Paris couturier to maintain significant licenses in foreign countries, acquiring 41 of them during his time at the house. He had operations in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, England and even Syria, to name a few. Besides his couture and ready-to-wear, he also created gloves, jewelry and men’s ties.

Despite a gentle and shy nature, Dior was a natural provocateur, whose drastic changes in silhouette often invoked controversy, outrage and numerous headlines, fanning his notoriety. “Gossip, even malicious rumors, are worth more than the most expensive publicity campaign in the world,” he figured.

In Paris, market women tried to attack models wearing lavish Dior dresses while they were being photographed. “I never guessed what an explosive quality my modest formula would prove to have in an age of compromise and laissez-faire,” the designer said. “I designed flower women — soft shoulders, full busts, waists as narrow lines and skirts as corollas.”

His famous customers included the Duchess of Windsor, Gloria Swanson, Marlene Dietrich and Zsa Zsa Gabor, and among his intimate social circle were artists Jean Cocteau, Sir Francis Rose and Christian Bérard, and composers Darius Milhaud and Francis Poulenc.

Dior was known for his impeccable taste. An invitation to his home was a coveted social coup. A famous gourmet, he would lay out lavish feasts while visitors marveled at the surroundings. Dior asked his interior decorator friends, including Victor Grandpierre and Georges Geffroy, to decorate his homes and boutiques.

The American market was a key priority, so Dior boarded the Queen Elizabeth, setting sail with Vogue’s Alexander Liberman. Upon winning the prestigious Neiman Marcus Award in Dallas in 1947, he toured Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Chicago, where he had a brush with angry women brandishing “Down With the New Look” placards.

Dior’s willingness to adapt his look to international markets was an innovation and is a key part of his legacy. “Thanks to both the encouragement and criticism of the buyers from abroad, I was soon designing prints for California and cottons for Rio de Janeiro in an effort to give women of different climates and different ways of life the clothes they wanted,” he wrote in his memoirs.

In 1948, the brand established a shop on Fifth Avenue in New York.

Designs were closely guarded secrets and a threat of jail hung over employees if they leaked information about the next collection. The company was vigilant in tracking down and prosecuting copyists, averaging some 40 lawsuits a year.

Dior didn’t reap huge profits on the sale of individual models. In 1953, WWD, in a series of articles devoted to the house’s innovative business practices, pegged the margin at less than 10 percent. Dior himself elucidated his expenses in a talk with graduate students. He said that, assuming the average cost of a garment was $360, he cleared only around $30, after paying for materials, labor, social insurance, taxes and saleswomen’s commissions and overhead.

But international expansion remained brisk. Some assumed Dior, with his growing empire, would loosen his creative grip. But he refused to enter any venture in which he couldn’t wield creative influence and control distribution.

In 1950, Dior received the French Legion of Honor award for his role in the fashion and textile industry and presented a collection in London to Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret.

As his responsibilities grew, he remained constant in his unwavering dedication to his craft. Before every collection, he would isolate himself for three weeks to a month and emerge with as many as 500 sketches for the new collection.

Dior had his critics. Some found his ribbed and wired creations overly complex, rigid and as unwearable as architecture. His H-line, or flat line, was controversial, as was his switch to the A-line, which some lamented for wiping out curves. In the mid-’50s, he once remarked upon the unsightliness of women’s knees and was “castigated on the front pages of five continents,” according to Collier’s.

Dior’s career encompassed only 22 collections, but the ideas behind the New Look’s body-enhancing structure reverberated for years.

“To manufacture emotion, a man must have a working agreement with madness,” he said.

Pierre Bergé recalled that Dior often instructed his chauffeur to continue circling the company’s headquarters in the black Citroën until he mustered the courage to enter. Faced with imperfections, Dior could go into a rage, poking imperfect stitches with a long stick. Withdrawn and introverted as an adult, he was said to prefer solitaire to canasta. He was also said to continue to be deeply superstitious, pessimistic and prone to consulting mediums for assurance.

By 1957, his global reputation was such that he was featured on the cover of Time magazine. The designer typically sought rest and relaxation after each collection, and in October of that year, he headed for a favorite Italian spa town, Montecatini, reportedly to lose some weight. He fell ill after dinner one night and ultimately suffered heart failure.

“His death was completely out of the blue,” said Jeanne Doutreleau, aka Victoire, one of Dior’s star models. Doutreleau was with Yves Saint Laurent at the Dior headquarters when she heard the news. “It was a big shock for [Saint Laurent], with the house suddenly heralding him Dior’s successor, and I remember suddenly feeling very orphaned, like the end of an era had come about,” she said.

Dior’s funeral at the Chapelle Saint Honoré d’Eylau was so packed that it took more than an hour for the congregation to pass his bier and to pay respects to family members and Dior executives. “Dior’s passing ends a brilliant career that gave the French couture and the world garment industries an impetus rarely, if ever, known before,” Balmain said in tribute.

With his inaugural Trapèze line in 1958, Saint Laurent pushed the house in a new direction. Over the years, the couturier’s successors would include Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons and Maria Grazia Chiuri, who in 2016 became the first female creative director in the history of the house.

1905: Christian Dior is born in the French seaside town of Granville to an affluent family of agricultural industrialists.

1919: Dior meets a fortune-teller, who says he will find success through women.

1923: Dior enters a prestigious political science university in Paris.

1932: Dior and Pierre Colle open a gallery on Rue Cambacérès on the Right Bank in Paris, where they later display Surrealist works by Salvador Dalí, Alberto Giacometti, Pablo Picasso and Man Ray.

1934: Struck with tuberculosis, Dior retreats to the Pyrenees mountains and decides to turn to fashion.

1935: Dior does illustrations for the daily Le Figaro and fashion magazine Le Jardin des Modes and begins to sell drawings to couture houses including Jean Patou, Nina Ricci, Maggy Rouff and Balenciaga.

1938: Dior is hired by couturier Robert Piguet, where he creates the Café Anglais dress.

1941: Dior becomes a designer for Lucien Lelong, where he plays with pencil skirts and rounded pleats.

1946: Supported by industrialist Marcel Boussac, Christian Dior establishes the Christian Dior Couture house and opens workshops at 30 Avenue Montaigne, employing 85 people.

1947: Dior presents his first collection under his own name. Winning the Neiman Marcus “fashion Oscar” in Dallas, he tours Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and New York.

1948: Christian Dior establishes a shop on Fifth Avenue in New York.

1950: Dior receives the French Legion of Honor award for his role in the fashion and textile industry and presents a collection in London to Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret.

Marlene Dietrich wears a Christian Dior wardrobe in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “Stage Fright.”

1951: Staff levels at Christian Dior swell to around 900 people.

1953: Christian Dior opens a store in Caracas, Venezuela, and travels in South and Central America.

1955: Yves Saint Laurent becomes Dior’s design assistant.

The house opens a Victor Grandpierre-decorated boutique on the corner of Avenue Montaigne and Rue François I-er in Paris.

1957:  Dior appears on the cover of Time magazine. The designer dies of a heart attack in Montecatini Terme, Italy.

1958: The Trapèze line of Yves Saint Laurent’s first collection marks a shift for the house. Roger Vivier launches a shoe brand under the Dior label.

1960: Marc Bohan becomes creative director of Christian Dior and later introduces the Slim Look.

1967: Philippe Guibourgé creates the Miss Dior ready-to-wear line.

Princess Grace of Monaco inaugurates the Baby Dior boutique at 28 Avenue Montaigne.

1970: Marc Bohan creates Christian Dior Monsieur.

1983: Marc Bohan wins the Golden Thimble for his spring haute couture collection.

Dominique Morlotti becomes creative director of Christian Dior Monsieur.

Bernard Arnault buys the Financière Agache group, owner of Christian Dior Couture.

1985: Bernard Arnault becomes chief executive officer of Christian Dior Couture.

1987: François Mitterrand inaugurates a retrospective exhibit at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs for the house’s 40th anniversary.

1989: Italian couturier Gianfranco Ferré becomes the designer for Christian Dior and wins the Golden Thimble for his first fall haute couture collection.

Bernard Arnault takes over the LVMH group, owner of Parfums Christian Dior, bringing couture and perfumery back under the same roof.

1992: Patrick Lavoix becomes creative director of Christian Dior Monsieur.

1995: Bernadette Chirac presents Diana, Princess of Wales, with a brand new Dior bag named Lady Dior.

1996: John Galliano succeeds Gianfranco Ferré as designer for Christian Dior.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York celebrates the 50th anniversary of the house of Dior with an exhibit. At the Met Gala, Lady Diana wears the first Dior dress designed by Galliano.

1997: John Galliano presents his first haute couture collection for Dior. Nicole Kidman wears a dress from his collection at the Oscar ceremony.

The Christian Dior museum opens in Christian Dior’s family home, the Villa Les Rhumbs in Granville.

1998: Dior Joaillerie is founded with Victoire de Castellane as creative director.

2000: Hedi Slimane becomes creative director of Christian Dior Monsieur and changes its name to Dior Homme.

2007: Kris Van Assche becomes creative director of Dior Homme.

2012: Raf Simons is appointed creative director of womenswear for Christian Dior and presents his first haute couture collection.

2013: The Museum of Contemporary Art stages an exhibit called “The Dior Spirit” in Shanghai with over a hundred pieces from 1947 to 2013.

2016: Maria Grazia Chiuri becomes Dior’s first female creative director.

2017: The House of Dior celebrates its 70th anniversary with major exhibits in Paris and Granville, France; Melbourne, Australia; and Toronto, Canada.

2018: Kim Jones becomes artistic director of menswear at Dior.

2022: Dior reopens its historic flagship at 30 Avenue Montaigne after two years of renovations with a restaurant, a pastry café, an exhibition space, couture ateliers, a high jewelry workshop and a private apartment.

– With contributions from WWD staff.

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The story behind one of Dior’s most iconic handbags: the Lady Dior

The Lady Dior was the late Princess Diana’s favourite handbag. Today, the bag has transformed into a symbol of elegance.

From humble beginnings to the evolution of a classic design and its translation into modern times, we dig a little deeper into his history below.

The ‘cannage’ motif

The first Lady Dior handbag materialised in 1994, when Dior was helmed by Gianfranco Ferré. But it didn’t go by that name yet; it was instead referred to as “Chouchou”, a French term of affection. Indeed, there was plenty to love about the top-handle handbag.

Its dangling alphabet charms, for instance, were not just mere adornments meant to spell “Dior”. They were a nod to mystical nature of Christian Dior, who surrounded himself with talismans that continue to inspire his Maison today.

There was also that distinctively quilted façade, a design detail borrowed from the Napolean III-style chairs that lined Dior’s haute couture salons. These featured a “cannage” patten, a lightweight weave made with materials like cane and raffia that was later mirrored in the signature stitching of the Dior bag.

Lady Diana meets Lady Dior

What’s in a name? In the case of the Lady Dior, quite a bit. The handbag had its Cinderella moment on 25 September, 1995, when a Paul Cézanne exhibition opened in Paris. It was there that France’s First Lady Bernadette Chirac presented her guest Diana, Princess of Wales, with the bag. It came in leather for the first time and, according to legend, was made in a single night. And Diana loved it.

She would later collect the bag in all of its colours and flaunt them at the countless events on her social calendar, be it an official visit to Liverpool in 1995, or the 1996 Met Gala . In the public eye, both Princess Diana and Dior’s handbag blossomed into fashion icons. The latter was finally rechristened to “Lady Dior” in 1996, in homage to its most adoring fan.

Dior Lady Art

Over the last two decades, the Lady Dior has taken many forms. While staying true to it classic silhouette (why change a good thing?), the Maison’s craftsmen have reworked the handbag with various types of leather, fabrics and colours. The most imaginative interpretations, however, were birthed in the Dior Lady Art project .

Spearheaded by the Maison’s Artistic Director, Maria Grazia Chiuri, the project invites artists to use the signature Dior bag as their canvas. The results are always spectacular: to date, the bag has been reinvented with intricate embroidery , layers of paint and even 3-D printing .

Lady D-Lite

Under the creative direction of Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior has also given us the latest incarnation of the Lady Dior: the Lady D-Lite. First unveiled at the Maison’s S/S 2020 show , the Lady D-Lite bears the same classic form of its predecessor while embracing a minimalist look fit for the modern times.

The signature cannage motif is recreated with 3-D embroidery instead, spelling out “Christian Dior” on the Lady D-Lite’s façade. The frills-free design, which comes with an embroidered strap to match, has already found fans in celebrities such as Nina Dobrev and Larsen Thompson.

Once again, the Lady Dior has proven its ability to shape-shift with the times, while keeping its essence intact — just like a true icon.

Discover the Lady D-Lite and Lady Dior handbags on www.dior.com .

This article first appeared on Lifestyle Asia Singapore .

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There's a Reason Everyone Still Loves Dior

The brand has a rich history, full of impressive creatives and classic designs.

Hedy Phillips is a freelance lifestyle and entertainment writer. Her work has appeared in HelloGiggles, POPSUGAR, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29, and more. She devotes 99% of her time to snuggling with her cats and 100% of her money to following Harry Styles around on tour.

• The Beginning

Dior’s New Look

Dior goes global, the introduction of yves saint laurent.

• Christian Dior's Death
• Creative Leaders and the LVMH Purchase

John Galliano and the Dior Saddle Bag

Raf simons takes over, maria grazia chiuri joins dior.

Though the Dior brand was founded on ideals of feminine beauty and classic, timeless fashion, over decades, it has evolved into bold, feminist, and powerful designs. Ahead, learn about the history of Dior and how the brand grew into what it is today.

The French brand , which dates back to the 1940s, has been providing customers all over the world with some of the most beautiful garments, whether it's a ready-to-wear dress fit for a cocktail party, or a haute couture, red carpet gown that will command the attention of everyone in the room.

Christian Dior's eponymous brand is also one that has stood the test of time, evolving with each creative leader that has walked through its doors. The fashion house has hosted some of the most incredible talent in the industry and will surely continue to do so for years to come.

Where and When Christian Dior Began

Despite being created in 1946, the Dior brand claims 1947 as its beginning year because that's when the fashion house's first collection debuted. Christian Dior started the brand in Paris at 30 Avenue Montaigne. It took less than three months from the brand's creation to show its first collection on Feb. 12, 1947.

Dior had a deep love of art and ran an art gallery in France before going into fashion. After closing his gallery during the Great Depression, he worked under fashion designer Robert Piguet and then-couturier Lucien Lelong. Dior was ready for his own work to be showcased though, which is what brought him to create his own fashion house in 1946 , and Christian Dior was born.

It was at Dior's very first show that he coined the "New Look." The thought behind the collection was to showcase the end of World War II , according to Culture Trip , and it came with structured silhouettes, cinched waists, and shorter, billowy skirts. The garments were opulent, each dress using an average of 20 yards of fabric. Dior's designs were revolutionary for the time period and quickly put the fashion house on the map as one of the most sought after and adored.

Stars flocked to Christian Dior; everyone from Rita Hayworth to Margot Fonteyn wanted outfit themselves in this New Look that was ahead of its time. With such high-profile women donning his clothes, the brand grew quickly and cemented itself as one of the most iconic in sartorial history.

Soon, Dior went global. A store on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street in New York City was opened in 1948, bringing Dior stateside for the first time. With the global launch came an expanded collection as well. Dior started with fragrance, introducing Miss Dior, which he dedicated to his sister. It was also around this time that Dior realized that to continue his New Look, his brand needed to provide the entire fashion experience. That meant licensing the Dior name for accessories. Now, the Dior customer could have the coats, shoes, hats, and every other piece necessary to fully capture the New Look from head to toe.

The Dior brand continued to grow and Dior himself continued to dress the biggest stars of the time. He even outfitted Marlene Dietrich for her 1950 role in Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright . His designs remained a fixture in her closet, as well as plenty of other starlets in the late '40s and early '50s.

A fresh-faced and eager Yves Saint Laurent started working with Christian Dior in 1955 when he was just 19 years old. He began at the fashion house as Dior's assistant, but it didn't take long for the creative genius behind the label to spot the potential in the young Frenchman. According to Vogue , Dior met with Saint Laurent's mother in 1957 to tell her that he'd chosen her son to succeed him at the brand when the time comes. Though he was a mere 21 years old at the time, Dior was able to quickly recognize his eye for fashion and talent for creation.

Christian Dior's Death

Dior died in 1957 of a massive heart attack at the age of 52. The entire fashion world grieved the loss of the industry icon gone too soon. To maintain the soul of the brand after Dior's death, Saint Laurent was given the role of artistic director.

The 21-year-old carried on Dior's legacy, largely keeping the original creative vision intact. However, he sought to bring the brand into a softer silhouette, loosening the cinched waists and letting out some of the structure. The collections were hit or miss as the industry tried to reconcile someone else leading the Christian Dior brand. When Saint Laurent was called to serve in the French army in 1960, he was released from the brand.

Dior's Impressive Creative Leaders and the LVMH Purchase

After Yves Saint Laurent's departure, Marc Bohan took over, making the label's designs more aligned with Christian Dior's classic vision. He took Christian Dior's concept and brought it into the 1960s by streamlining it slightly, which gave it a more modern twist while staying true to the Christian Dior look. With Bohan at the helm, Dior reclaimed its place as the brand beloved the world over.

Bohan stayed with Dior for more than a decade, continuing to build the brand and make it even more internationally successful. He launched ready-to-wear and baby clothes, making Dior more accessible than ever. Stores started popping up in more cities like London and Hong Kong, and the Dior brand was catapulted to the top of the fashion world.

In 1978 however, Dior's parent company, the Boussac Group filed for bankruptcy . Christian Dior was purchased by Bernard Arnault, the billionaire behind LVMH Moët Hennessy. When Arnault took charge of Christian Dior , he assumed the roles of chairman, CEO, and managing director. Despite being folded into LVMH, Christian Dior continued to be its own impressive standalone brand.

With the new direction, Gianfranco Ferre was hired as stylistic director in 1989, who formally founded Dior Haute Couture, a vital arm of the Christian Dior brand. Ferre elevated the brand to new heights, injecting his own creative vision, which included a more refined look than the brand was known for.

Dior Homme, otherwise known as Dior's menswear division, also came about in 2001, with Hedi Slimane serving as its creative director.

After Ferre's tenure, John Galliano took over as creative director, who led Dior into the new millennium, outfitting every star you can imagine — including Princess Diana of Wales. Not only did the princess wear Galliano's couture, but she was partial to his handbags as well. Though Galliano's saddle bags, which have become a staple for the Dior brand, became immensely popular, Princess Diana's go-to was a bag that Galliano later dubbed Lady Dior , with Diana's blessing. She carried her black handbag with her everywhere, helping to expand Dior's leather goods.

Galliano's vision for Dior was a dramatic departure from the creatives who came before him. Though it was embraced by some, it wasn't universally loved. When he exited the brand in 2011, Raf Simons assumed creative directorship and sought to bring Dior closer to its roots. Simons designs were more understated and feminine, reminiscent of the classic Dior.

Dior made history in 2016 when the fashion house hired its first female artistic director: Maria Grazia Chiuri , formerly of Valentino. While it certainly turned heads when she was hired — being the first woman at the helm of the luxury brand — she didn't love that it was the focus. She told Vogue in 2018, "I think, in a way, when people point it out, they're not recognizing that I have a talent. I'm not here because I'm a woman, but because I'm good at what I do."

Chiuri added a woman's touch to the style at Christian Dior, famously creating her feminist-centric line, yet her direction still felt in line with what Dior created all those years ago. Although all the male creative directors who came before her were all in their own way instrumental for the brand, Chiuri brought bold, social consciousness to the label, taking the brand from feminine to feminist. In doing so, she seized an important place for Dior in fashion that is modern, relevant, and classic, all at the same time.

Related Articles

The real Christian Dior: who was the man behind The New Look , and did he make dresses for Nazi wives?

From his father’s ruin in the Wall Street Crash to the launch of his fashion house, discover the life of Christian Dior…

• Jonny Wilkes
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The name Dior has been synonymous with haute couture for nearly 80 years. Out of the ruins of post-war France emerged a contender for the top fashion house in the fashion capital of Paris, dressing movie stars and royalty, and still going strong today. But who was the man behind the name?

This question is explored in Apple TV+’s series The New Look , released on 14 February. Set against the backdrop of occupied France, it explores how Dior responded to the challenges of the Second World War and rose to be the fashion titan he is known as today.

• Read more | Is The New Look a true story? The real history behind the period drama

Who was Christian Dior before his fashion career?

Christian Ernest Dior was born on 21 January 1905, the second son of a wealthy family in Normandy.

His father Maurice, an industrialist specialising in fertiliser, and mother, Madeleine, had five children in all, and lived in a clifftop villa called Les Rhumbs in the seaside town of Granville.

This setting inspired Christian as a fashion designer in later life, especially his mother’s superbly kept garden that instilled in him a love of flowers.

The Granville house became a haven for the Dior family during the First World War, apart from the eldest, Raymond, who fought in the trenches. He survived, although with severe shell shock.

As for Christian, he followed his parents’ wishes and began training for a career as a diplomat, even though his true interests were in more artistic exploits.

Leaving school in the late 1920s, he took over a small gallery – possible only with his father’s financial help – where he exhibited artists including Pablo Picasso.

What was Christian Dior’s early career like?

Everything changed for Dior after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed. His father was ruined, and, in 1931, his mother passed away.

Due to the family business folding, Dior was forced to close the gallery he’d opened in Paris with his father’s financial backing. He then got his first taste of the fashion industry by selling sketches. This got him an illustrator job at the magazine, Figaro Illustre , in 1935. Three years later, he became an assistant designer for the Swiss-born designer Robert Piguet.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, Dior entered military service that ended not long afterwards with the armistice between France and Germany in June 1940.

By 1941, he found himself in a different Paris, under Nazi occupation , and with a different designer, Lucien Lelong.

Timeline: the fashion career of Christian Dior

What is christian dior’s relationship with lucien lelong.

One of the biggest names in the fashion world, Lelong had an upbringing steeped in couture, as his parents owned a fashion house. His own business took off after the First World War, around the same time as another famous French designer, Coco Chanel.

Lelon hired Christian Dior and Pierre Balmain, – another young, up-and-coming name – to be his main designers. The two collaborated on a number of collections during the war.

Is it true Christian Dior made dresses for Nazi wives?

The only way that Parisian fashion houses remained open in the war was by a degree of cooperation – although not collaboration – with the occupation.

Lelong, Dior and Balmain did indeed make dresses for the wives of Nazi officers or French collaborators, but they were far from the only ones. In fact, Lelong proved instrumental in preventing the Germans moving the fashion industry out of Paris entirely and setting up in Berlin.

The Nazis planned to make couture German rather than French, and Lelong pointed out that without the thousands of artisans in France – with skills that took decades to perfect – a transfer would never be that simple.

The Nazis conceded, and Lelong managed to negotiate for fabric to maintain production.

When did Christian Dior start his own fashion house?

As the Second World War ended, Dior’s reputation blossomed. So, when the textile magnate and entrepreneur Marcel Boussac approached him with a job offer, Dior decided that this was instead the time to strike out on his own. On 16 December 1946, his fashion house opened at 30 Avenue Montaigne in Paris.

Then on 12 February 1947, he launched his first collection: Carolle. A radical shift from the austere and restricted looks of wartime Europe, his 90 unapologetically lavish garments accentuated the feminine form with rounded shoulders, full busts, cinched waists, pronounced hips and big flowing skirts.

The editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar , Carmel Snow, dubbed it the ‘New Look’.

Dior launched his first perfume in December 1947. He named this floral scent Miss Dior in honour of his sister Catherine , who during the war had been arrested, tortured and shipped to concentration camps as a member of the French Resistance.

How did people react to Christian Dior’s New Look?

Not everyone welcomed the New Look. This was a time of rationing, so critics lambasted the wasteful use of materials.

The corseted waists were also maligned as oppressive, with Coco Chanel remarking, “Only a man who never was intimate with a woman could design something that uncomfortable.” It’s worth noting that Dior was a closet homosexual.

What was Christian Dior’s life like after the war?

Despite the critics – and even protests among those resentful at ongoing rationing – the New Look was a fabulous success. Dior became the brand of choice for celebrities and dignitaries around the world, like the movie star Marlene Dietrich, ballerina Margot Fonteyn and even royalty, with Princess Margaret an enthusiastic patron.

For the next decade, each year brought a new collection, all with their own daring and popular styles.

With a small cadre of trusted colleagues, Jacques Rouet, Raymonde Zehnacker, Marguerite Carre and his muse Mitzah Bricard, Dior turned his name into a global brand. He showed astute business savvy, pioneering license agreements so that ‘Dior’ appeared on a host of clothing accessories, like furs, stockings and perfumes.

How did Christian Dior die?

At the age of just 52, Dior died while on holiday in Italy on 24 October 1957, of a heart attack. It was his third.

Dior left a thriving fashion house – taken over by his 21-year-old assistant, a bright talent by the name of Yves Saint Laurent – but not only that; he had re-established Paris’s place as the beating heart of global fashion, a position it holds to this day.

Period drama podcast episodes

The first three episodes of The New Look are available to stream on Apple TV+ from 14 February, with new episodes airing weekly until 3 April.

Jonny Wilkes is a former staff writer for BBC History Revealed, and he continues to write for both the magazine and HistoryExtra. He has BA in History from the University of York.

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Dior      Handbag History

The History of the Lady Dior Bag

From the first time it was carried to present day iterations, here is a look at one of the most iconic bags of all time

Megs Mahoney Dusil

21 Comments

May 15, 2020

Before that moment, this Dior bag did not have a name but because of the historic moment snapped with this bag on her arm, it received the perfect name: the Lady Dior.

That wasn’t the only time Lady Diana would be pictured with this bag. She was spotted many times carrying the Lady Dior which quickly became synonymous with her personal style.

From that moment 25 years ago, the Lady Dior catapulted to a spot in handbag history and quickly became an iconic symbol. The bag itself is classic in its design, with clean, architectural lines which are dressed up with metallic charms. As with many cornerstone designs, this bags pays homage to elements of the House.

The charms are reflective of the lucky charms Christian Dior always kept with him. Another house staple is the Cannage motif, which dates back to the Napoleon III seats the couturier set up for guests at his fashion shows.

The Lady Dior Bag has been re-imagined, season after season for the past two and a half decades, which makes it a bag easy to love. A timeless elegance exudes from the soft lambskin and rounded handles, along with the topstitched Cannage motif. Today’s versions of the Lady Dior bag offer playful charms to personalize the bag to your liking along with a wide shoulder strap which gives a more effortlessly wearable vibe. There are plenty of sizes, different hardware options, and materials differ from leather to embroidery.

Playing into the House’s close link with the arts, Dior has enlisted artists to partake in its Dior Lady Art project which allowed artists varying from sculptors to designers to painters, to reinterpret this bag with their own creative twist. This has been a 4 part series, allowing the understated Lady Dior to be re-imagined in entirely new and interesting ways. Dior has created its “Lady Dior As Seen By” traveling exhibition as a way for us to view these masterpieces up close and personal.

This season, Dior introduced its newest iteration of the Lady Dior Bag: the Lady D-Lite (pictured below). This minimalist version still features the Cannage motif, but this time it’s created with 3-D embroideries. The tone-on-tone coloring is subtle and modern with five colorways offered: Bois De Rose, beige, black, and gray all with pale gold hardware or a white option with silver hardware. The Lady D-Lite epitomizes elegance and beauty while offering a casual and wearable finish. You can shop all current Lady Dior items on Dior.com here.

Few bags are able to last multiple seasons let alone a few decades, yet the Lady Dior Bag certainly holds one of the few coveted seats in the handbag world: that of a timeless iconic staple. If you want to learn more about the Lady Dior Bag, check out our Ultimate Guide to the Lady Dior Bag .

I believe it was called the chouchou (favourite) before being renamed the Lady Dior in honour of Lady Di. Cannily timed article, I’m currently waiting very impatiently for my, new to me, vintage nylon Lady Dior to arrive. I was delighted to nab this version for a great price for my birthday! I think it will be casual and carefree. It also brought this dream bag into a very accessible price point for me!

I love this bag and thank you for the history! Now I want this new d-lite one, it’s so incredible!!

I love it too and own three of them. I covet another, but it’s an artist interpretative bag and currently out of my limited budget.

Great article!! I just got my first last year and it’s my favorite bag. I can definitely see myself with more than one in the very near future.

I have always loved this bag and now after this article I love it even more. The D-Lite bag has been on my list for months now as it’s so perfectly cute. Plus I am vegan and this is a fantastic non-leather bag which I am always on the lookout for. (I am sure there is some on it somewhere, but it’s mostly non-leather which makes me super happy.)

Still to this day seeing pictures of Princess Di makes me so sad. What a tragic loss.

As always, thank you PB for the great article!

It’s a classic and I’d love to add one to my collection one day. It doesn’t quite suit my usual casual look, but I tried on the mini and got hooked. Neeeeeeeeeed.

I love this bag and plan on adding it to my collection eventually. Thank you for sharing its lovely history!

IMHO Dior is still one of the few brands out there that IS luxury despite also making some great edgy streetwear. The quality is high, the customer service is phenomenal, and the prices are still *reasonable* because it’s not the most front-and-center in-demand house although its following is loyal and steady. MGC has accomplished adding some much needed edge after Raf left (I was not a fan) to the LD’s, and of course she’s added her own spin to the saddle and launched the book tote. Although I appreciate a lot she has done, I think the “I am woman hear me roar”, huge Dior logo plastered all over everything, and all the tarot crap is old news. Other than that Dior remains pretty conflict free which I do appreciate (here’s looking at you Chanel, LV). The fall collection is tdf!

I mostly agree with you, but I do love my blue large monogram Dior tote. I can put all of my purchases in when I shop (or when I shopped when the malls were opened), but it’s also a work horse. I have 5 grandchildren and it carries all of their stuff in one bag. I also think it’s stylish and fun, but admittedly it’s not for everyone. On the other hand I love my Lady Dior bags. I own several and it always elevates any outfit I wear. It’s simple, elegant, timeless and not everyone carries it, which makes me appreciate it more. And the quality is amazing! However, the appeal of the saddle bag is lost on me. It looks awkward and lopsided and from what I understand doesn’t carry much. I think the price point is too high, since it was reintroduced, but I guess it has its following.

Ok totally I think the book tote is AMAZING, and I have a few myself!! I guess what I was saying (like the saddle) is that it got so popular that they just drowned us in it. Does that make sense? Too much of a good thing…and also in doing so, maybe made me miss seeing or looking forward to some newer designs? The Montaigne is kind of ok, but too small for me to be practical.

I didn’t like the saddle bag the first time around and don’t like it now. Several years go, Dior had a store at the Foxtown designer discount mall in Switzerland (the store is no longer there). Most of their bag stock at the time was saddle bags. That design was not, and still isn’t, anything close to a standout item from their portfolio.

Just curious if anyone that owns the Lady D-Lite, finds it difficult to keep clean, since it’s made of embroidered fabric.

Another fun bit of trivia about this bag: the shape of the handles when folded outward from the body of the bag form the “C” and “D” of designer Christian Dior’s name. I own three Lady Dior bags; it is by far my most favorite handbag style in my collection.

Thanks for sharing that, had not noticed! It reflects what close attention the brand pays to the details that elevate it above the norm.

Any comments on the zipper vs the flap opening?

Good question! I prefer the zipper for the large version, can go either way for the medium size.

I am blown away with the timing of this article. The Lady Dior was on my list for this year’s purchase. The COVID mess we are all living in has pushed that purchase our to late this year hopefully.

Such a classic bag & I am looking forward to being able to purchase it fingers crossed in 2020z

My top three bags are my Birkin 30, my Chanel classic flap, and my lady Dior. My holy grail, trinity. I have them all now, but my Lady Dior was the bag I pined for the longest. I seriously went to visit it for about 10 years at Bergdorf’s ha ha. Then I tighten up my collection, let go of a bunch of bags I didn’t love, and finally pulled the trigger on the classic lady Dior. The price tag seemed so hefty at the time, but it taught me to buy less and only focus on the bags I really love. I would love to add more Dior eventually.

But——- I would agree with other posters that I HATED Dior’s marketing of the saddle bag and 30 Montaigne. Gifting them to every blogger takes away from all my interest in those bags.

These brands spend so much on marketing and gifting bags and then it’s on us the bag lovers, to cover those costs in ridiculous price increases.

I hope going forward Dior focuses on customers, craftsmanship, and elegance. Their bags are truly works of art.

The Lady Dior was perfectly named after Princess Di. She exuded elegance and her look was timeless! IMO she led the fashion world!

The Lady Bag is a time-tested and time-honoured classic that looks set to remain popular in the years to come. IMO, the classic large version is on a par with the Birkin, only much less expensive and you can purchase it without spending a fortune elsewhere on the brand or doing a song and dance for the SAs. Dior has wisely opted to continue the classic design while still offering creative variations on a regular basis. And they have kept to their high quality standards, something that is sadly not always the case with Chanel classic bags. Finally, the staff at the Dior boutiques I have been to have been consistently welcoming and helpful. Kudos!

I love these articles. Its nice to hear about the history of the handbags we love.

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Christian Dior

(1905-1957)

Who Was Christian Dior?

Legendary fashion designer Christian Dior exploded onto the Paris fashion scene with designs that flew in the face of wartime restrictions and reintroduced a femininity and focus on luxury to women's fashion. His resulting success, based on the innovation of both his designs and his business practices, made him the most successful fashion designer in the world. His designs have been worn by film stars and royalty alike, and his company continues to operate at the forefront of the fashion industry.

Dior was born on January 21, 1905, in Granville, a seaside town in the north of France. He was the second of five children born to Alexandre Louis Maurice Dior, the owner of a highly successful fertilizer manufacturer, and his wife, Isabelle. When he was a boy, Dior's family moved to Paris, where he would spend his youth. Although Dior was passionate about art and expressed an interest in becoming an architect, he submitted to pressure from his father and, in 1925, enrolled at the École des Sciences Politiques to begin his studies in political science, with the understanding that he would eventually find work as a diplomat.

After his graduation in 1928, however, Dior opened a small art gallery with money he received from his father, who had agreed to lend his son his financial support on the condition that the family name would not appear above the gallery door. In the few years it was open, Dior's gallery handled the works of such notable artists as Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso , Jean Cocteau and Max Jacob. He was forced to close the gallery in 1931, a year that included the deaths of both his older brother and mother and the financial collapse of his father's business.

Early Work in Fashion

Following the closing of his gallery, Dior began to make ends meet by selling his fashion sketches, and in 1935, landed a job illustrating the magazine Figaro Illustré . Several years later, Dior was hired as a design assistant by Paris couturier Robert Piguet. However, when World War II began the following year, Dior served in the south of France as an officer in the French army.

Following France's surrender to Germany in 1940, Dior returned to Paris, where he was soon hired by couturier Lucien Lelong. Throughout the remaining years of the war, Lelong's design house would consistently dress the women of both Nazis and French collaborators. During this same time, Dior's younger sister, Catherine, was working for the French Resistance. (She was captured and sent to a concentration camp, but survived; she was eventually released in 1945.)

In 1957, several months after appearing on the cover of Time magazine, Dior traveled to Italy to vacation in the town of Montecatini. While there, on October 23, 1957, he suffered what was his third heart attack and died, at the age of 52.

Marcel Boussac sent his private plane to Montecatini to bring Dior's body back to Paris, and Dior's funeral was attended by an estimated 2,500 people, including all of his staff and many of his most famous clients. He was buried in Cimetière de Callian, in Var, France. At the time of his death, Dior's house was earning more than $20 million annually.

In celebration of the 70th anniversary of the designer's first presentation, the National Gallery of Victoria in 2017 published The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture . The 256-page coffee table book, through a series of breathtaking photographs, provides an in-depth look at the evolution of the French fashion house over the years.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Christian Dior
• Birth Year: 1905
• Birth date: January 21, 1905
• Birth City: Granville
• Birth Country: France
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Christian Dior was a French fashion designer whose post–World War II creations were wildly popular, and whose legacy continues to influence the fashion industry.
• Astrological Sign: Aquarius
• École des Sciences Politiques
• Nacionalities
• Death Year: 1957
• Death date: October 23, 1957
• Death City: Montecatini
• Death Country: Italy

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Christian Dior Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/history-culture/christian-dior
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: May 3, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
• A woman's perfume tells more about her than her handwriting.
• My dream is to save women from nature.

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Catherine Dior, the Namesake of ‘Miss Dior,’ Finally Gets Her Spotlight in The New Look

The World War II heroine inspired so much more than a floral fragrance.

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Of the many names dropped like lightning bolts into the first episode of Apple TV+’s prestige historical drama The New Look— among them Christian Dior, Coco Chanel, Pierre Balmain, Cristóbal Balenciaga, and, yes, Heinrich Himmler — perhaps the one that seems most peculiar is Catherine Dior. Her relevance is, of course, identifiable, if only for her adjacency to Christian (Ben Mendelsohn), her brother 12 years her senior. But while even viewers who’ve never set foot in an atelier will recognize this man, the namesake behind a true titan of the fashion industry, far fewer will know anything about his little sister. If they do, it might only be thanks to her own namesake: the Miss Dior perfume , still a staple of the Dior fragrance brand more than 75 years after its conception.

As Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture author Justine Picardie writes in her biography of the late Catherine, she was “more or less invisible to Christian’s acolytes,” in spite of her enormous importance not only to Christian as family but to Paris itself, the home of his atelier. As The New Look depicts, Catherine became a Resistance operative during World War II, having fallen in love with a fellow Resistance member named Hervé des Charbonneries, whom she’d met while shopping in Cannes. By 1941, she was throughly embedded in their shared cause: She’d adopted the code name “Caro,” and was vital to the underground intelligence network until her sudden arrest in 1944, when the Gestapo captured and tortured her in an attempt to secure the secrets she carried. She never gave them up. Shuttled from a French prison to the women’s concentration camp Ravensbrück (and beyond, to camps and factories including Torgau, Abteroda, and Markkleeberg), Catherine was finally freed amid Allied invasion in April 1945, and she returned to Paris—and her brother—in May 1945, the same month as Germany’s surrender.

By the time Christian debuted his first haute couture collection, christened “The New Look” by Harper’s BAZAAR editor-in-chief Carmel Snow, the year was 1947; he’d opened the House of Dior in Paris; and Catherine had immersed herself not in fabric but in flowers. She and Hervé had launched a fresh-flower business in the wake of the war, a job Catherine would continue even as her brother’s name became not simply synonymous with Paris couture but with fashion the world over. After his death in 1957, she continued to run a rose farm in Provence, even as she safeguarded the Dior brand into a new millennium.

Catherine might have admired her brother’s designs (and inspired his first fragrance), but she never did become the face of either. Picardie writes in Miss Dior that she believes this distance between Catherine the woman and Dior the luxury house was intentional: “I have come to believe that Catherine was possessed of a rare grace and inner strength that would have protected her from the jostling fashion crowd, with their sharp elbows, narrowed eyes, and stiletto heels. Catherine knew who she was. She had walked to hell and back. She loved her brother, and applauded his success, but she did not need the protection or disguise of his clothes. In the images that show Catherine wearing a Dior dress—for example, in the garden at Les Naÿssès, a glass of wine in her hand, or at the christening of her godson Nicolas, cradling him close—she still looks entirely herself.”

This is the “Miss Dior” The New Look aims to spotlight—in some respects, for the first time ever—as embodied by former Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams. The actress, 26, is the same age as Catherine was when the Gestapo first arrested her in 1944, and she lost approximately 26 pounds in order to embody the emaciated Catherine who escaped years later. As Williams told Harper’s BAZAAR UK , “Every day of filming was a reminder that we were portraying a story of the horrors that humans are capable of inflicting on one another, but also the magic and the hope and the love... Ultimately, we wanted to make a show that was uplifting.” Perhaps this message, more than any iconography of the Dior brand, is what Catherine would have most sought to communicate. As reported in a Vogue article on the younger Dior’s “quiet” influence, she spoke only rarely about how she survived the war, preferring instead to focus on the singular belief that kept her going: “Love life.”

Lauren Puckett-Pope is a staff culture writer at ELLE, where she primarily covers film, television and books. She was previously an associate editor at ELLE. 

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Early life and art career

House of dior, death and legacy.

Christian Dior

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• The Guardian - Christian Dior, the rising star of French fashion – archive, 1947
• The Met - Biography of Christian Dior
• Christian Dior - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

Christian Dior (born January 21, 1905, Granville , France—died October 24, 1957, Montecatini, Italy) was a French fashion designer whose New Look style—characterized by ultrafeminine and highly sculptured clothing—dominated fashion in the decade following World War II . His eponymous fashion house is one of the most iconic in the world.

Dior was one of five children born to Marie-Madeleine Dior (née Martin) and Alexandre Louis Maurice Dior, who owned a lucrative manufacturing business. The family later divided its time between Paris and a villa in Granville, France. His parents wanted him to become a diplomat, and Christian Dior studied political science at the University of Paris . However, his true passion was art, and, while in his early 20s, he began selling illustrations on the street.

Later, with financial help from his father, Dior opened a small art gallery. There he showed works by such artists as Salvador Dalí , Man Ray , and Jean Cocteau . However, in the midst of the Great Depression (1929–39), his father’s business folded, and the younger Dior was forced to close the gallery. He subsequently found work as a fashion illustrator, hired by various designers as well as the magazine Figaro Illustré .

In 1938 Dior became an assistant designer for the leading couturier of Paris, Robert Piguet. Dior later said, “At last, I would get to know the mysterious means by which an idea is transformed into a dress.” During World War II (1939–45) he served in the army until France fell to Germany in 1940. The following year he joined the house of designer Lucien Lelong .

“In an epoch as somber as ours, luxury must be defended inch by inch.”

Backed by French entrepreneur Marcel Boussac , Dior founded his own fashion house in 1946. The following year he introduced the revolutionary New Look, spurring international controversy over its radically lowered hemline. The look featured small shoulders, a cinched waist, and a voluminous skirt—a drastic change from the World War II trend of padded shoulders and short skirts. One of the most defining pieces was the Bar Jacket: a fitted collared jacket that slightly flared below the waist. It was often paired with a full skirt. The name of Dior’s style was based on a quote by Harper’s Bazaar ’s editor in chief Carmel Snow, who said that Dior had created a “New Look.”

The overnight sensation of the New Look was followed by 10 years of outstanding success. In the 1950s Dior introduced a variety of new silhouettes , including the H-line, the A-line, and the Y-line. Dior was instrumental in commercializing Parisian fashion on a worldwide basis and in regaining for Parisian couturiers the ground that had temporarily been lost to American designers. His devoted following included socialites, celebrities, and royalty. However, not everyone was fond of his work. Legendary French designer Coco Chanel , who was known for simple clothing , claimed that Dior “doesn’t dress women, he upholsters them.”

When designing new collections, Dior often spent long stretches of time soaking in his green-marble bathtub and sketching ideas.

Dior also branched out into other areas. Notably, in 1947 he released his first perfume, Miss Dior, which was inspired by his youngest sister, Catherine Dior. A member of the French Resistance during World War II, she was captured, tortured, and then imprisoned in Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany. She was ultimately liberated by Soviet troops in 1945. In addition to perfume, Christian Dior also added shoes, makeup, and accessories to his label.

In 1956 Dior published the autobiography Christian Dior et moi ( Dior by Dior ). The following year he suffered a fatal heart attack while vacationing in Italy . His assistant, Yves Saint Laurent , took over the couture house. Saint Laurent held this position until 1960, when he was drafted into the French army. Subsequent creative directors at the House of Dior have included Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, and John Galliano . Christian Dior was the subject of the TV series The New Look (2024– ).

• About PurseBop

The Tale of a Lady: The Lady Dior

The Lady Dior bag, also known as the “Princess Bag” is undoubtedly Dior’s most iconic bag. The bag is named after Princess Diana who skyrocketed its popularity. In September 1995, the First Lady of France, Bernadette Chirac gifted this bag to Lady Diana. Princess Di was photographed at countless events with the bag including volunteer work and official visits. Naturally, the world became enamored with the bag’s timeless and feminine charm endorsed by Lady Diana.

The signature stitched leather and cannage pattern on the bag was inspired by the Napoleon III chairs that appeared in the first Dior fashion show in 1947. The crafting of the bag is impeccable and reflects Dior’s true mission for luxury. A single Lady Dior bag can take a minimum of 8 hours to make and includes seven craftsmen in the process. 130 pieces of leather are needed to craft the bag and several steps are required to get the iconic Dior hardware just right.

The Lady Dior is a tote bag in the most traditional sense. The bag has a highly structured square shape with a zippered opening on the top. While the frame of the bag may be simplistic, the Lady Dior can be adorned with many options to give the bag flair. Smaller versions come with chains or straps for ease of use. Some versions even come with outside pockets for decoration and added function. One of the most prominent features of the bag is the charm D.I.O.R letters that dangle off the side. The jewelry-like charms add an air of elegance to the bag.

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The Lady Dior family is truly diverse. The line comes in a variety of sizes from micro to XL. Each size up offers substantially more room. Below are comparison pictures and dimensions for better visualization:

Micro Lady Dior – 6 in x 5 in x 3 in Small/Mini Lady Dior – 6.7 in x 5.9 in x 3 in Medium Lady Dior – 9 in x 8 in x 4 in Large Lady Dior –12.5 in x 10 in x 4 in Large Shopping Tote Lady Dior –16.5 in x 12 in x 5 in

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@madi_moiselle__13

The color, design, and fabric possibilities for the Lady Dior are almost limitless. Each season, Dior realizes new textures from tweeds, florals to exotics to make unique Lady Dior bags. Neutral and tricolor options remain available consistently. The Lady Dior comes in many leathers and materials including:

• Cannage Quilted Grained Calfskin
• Cannage Quilted Lambskin
• Cannage Quilted Patent
• Cannage Quilted Nubuck
• Perforated Calfskin
• Embroidered Leather

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The Takeaway

We all seem to be in consensus that the Lady Dior is a really pretty bag. Even though the bag is luxurious and fashionably beautiful, above all, it perfectly complements any woman’s style without overwhelming her look. More importantly, the bag is both aesthetic and functional. The Lady Dior can easily serve as the perfect classic tote!

Lady Dior in Action

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After all this Lady Dior business, have you caught the Dior fever yet?! Join us HERE on BopTalk for more Lady Dior conversation.

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More trending Dior stories below for your exploration:

Rihanna is the NEW face of Dior SwedishandStylish Takes on Dior Dior Haute Couture 2016 Dior Takes Over Versailles

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4 Responses to “The Tale of a Lady: The Lady Dior”

Great article! Thank you for featuring my pics among all these beautiful fashionistas!

Yay!!! Thank you for focusing an article on the Lady Dior!! I’m beyond obsessed with this bag, it’s such a classic and so unique as the style is rarely copied.

most welcome, thanks for your comment :) I have the DIOR bug myself…

For the My Lady Dior bags, how durable is the silver tone grained leather compared to the lambskin leather used in like the red, pink etc. bags? Thank you

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