Christian Dior, the rising star of French fashion – archive, 1947

A new star has risen in the fashion sky. This past week Paris wholeheartedly acclaimed a young Frenchman who, at the most difficult time in the history of fashion, opened a couture house on which thirty million francs are said to have been spent.

The money could have been used for vulgar or passingly witty clothes. Instead it has produced a flowering elegance of line which the fashion critics believe has not been equalled in the last quarter-century.

For the last five years Christian Dior, the new couture star, was one of M. Lucien Lelong’s designers. The house of M. Lelong, who is president of the Paris fashion syndicate, has become a recognised graduating school for French fashion talent, and it was pleasant to see le maitre Lelong attending the opening of this newest collection and being received with high honours.

View image in fullscreen

Coats: No Change Of Silhouette
Paris calls the line for the mature woman the “Boldini line,” as we would call it the Edwardian, with its boned collars, bosom-accentuating bodices, curved waists, the capes and the boa-like scarves, all of which would need an immense amount of modification before they could get a foot-hold in the practical and active life of to-day. But Dior’s much younger-looking clothes need less modification.

In coats there is shown no change of silhouette, only the addition of pleasing detail such as bright velvet touches on collar backs and linked cuffs. The waist-accentuating redingote coat with fuller skirt is still rivalled by the straightcut, practical topcoat, sometimes by greatcoats with swinging backs. But the greatcoat is rivalled now by the “shortcoat,” straight and sturdy cut to the exact level of the jacket of the suit with which it is worn.

Drapery highlight of evening dress
Your new day dress is here in various versions. There is the same knife-pleating set low on the skirt, combined with the neatest body section cut deeply in front to show a vestee of embroidered muslin.

There is also a bodice section made like a jersey sweater, body gripping. (Jacques Fath, whose collection is greatly commended, uses this line freely above a skirt lightly draped on the hips.) And the skirt, which is sure of popularity, has three or more graduated tucks on a bias cut. Dior shows these topped by a deep, ruckled corselet belt in contrasting colour. Balenciaga (also showing a superb collection) uses miniature boleros, back buttoning.

This is an edited extract. Read the full article.