Enter the heart of 30 Avenue Montaigne, this “packed little beehive” where the Christian Dior legend was born 75 years ago!

30 Avenue Montaigne

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The painter Christian Bérard (1902-1949), who he had met in the 1920s, devised a fabulous portico lined with Toile de Jouy, housing shelves and sales counters. The boutique was called “Colifichets,” a term meaning “ornaments” reflecting the “small fantasy objects”, “frivolities,” and ladies’ accessories that it purveyed.

Christian Bérard's toile de Jouy

The toile de Jouy's ornament chosen by Christian Bérard to decorate the Christian Dior's Colifichets boutique.

The huge success of the “Colifichets” boutique led Christian Dior to design a “Boutique” collection, the production of which was supervised by Andrée Linzeler. Its space grew rapidly, acquiring a small salon on the same floor, as well as a studio and three workshops to respond to the demand from customers.

Label of a nightgown designed for the Colifichets collection, circa 1957.

The boutique offered, in a most modern manner, a constant flow of new products including gloves, perfumes, but also items for men. Each Haute Couture collection became an excuse to redecorate the boutique entirely, unveiling the new look at its own private view.

A large choice

The growth of the couture House, just a few years after its opening, led to the closure of the little “Colifichets” boutique that had so entranced Christian Dior. Starting June 1955, a huge boutique truer to the scale of the Maison’s ambitions opened at 15, rue François Ier.

The year after launching his couture House, in 1947, Christian Dior opened a tiny boutique on the ground floor, at the foot of the grand staircase, which was directed by his friend Carmen Colle.

Colifichets boutique

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Countless people worked on each collection. The Grand Staircase was the backbone of the couture house. A busy thoroughfare linking all the floors, it also provided a marvelous backdrop for photographs.

When the collections were shown, the presentation salons proved too small to hold all the guests, who spilled out into the landing and the steps of the staircase that led to the next floor.

The grand staircase was the backbone of the couture house. A busy thoroughfare linking all the floors, it also provided a marvelous backdrop for photographs.

The grand staircase

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In 1946, Christian Dior appointed Madame Suzanne Luling, who hailed from Granville, like himself, and had made a career in advertising as his sales director. Whatever the time of day, according to the couturier, she was in a “good mood and bristling with energy. She motivates the saleswomen, stimulates the clients and infects everyone with the enthusiasm and health of her bright countenance.” A tiny office was fitted out under the entrance arch to house her two assistants, her files and her telephones.

Suzanne Luling

The days immediately following the presentation of the collections were reserved for professional buyers, who took priority, to order the prototypes that they would reproduce and show all over the world. Next, for several weeks, Madame Luling and her “army of saleswomen,” all dressed in black, would welcome the private clients, for whom fashion shows were organized daily in the salons.

The latter became “a place to be entertained” by the procession of new designs, before the clients were led to the fitting rooms for their frenzied selection of the suits, dresses and coats that would be made for them that season.

From the salon to the cabine

Madame Linzeler, who had an excellent knowledge of couture, assisted the technical director, Marguerite Carré. She supervised all the fittings and ensured the quality and faithfulness of the reproductions. “With her calm appearance and silvery hair, she has the premières under her thumb, and inspires confidence in the most hesitant client,” Christian Dior recounted.

Madame Linzeler

Haute Couture creations are made to measure. The ateliers worked on mannequins adapted to the clients’ morphology. Each prototype involved three fittings and took up to two months to make. This is why the Spring-Summer collections are presented in January and the Fall-Winter collections in July.

From this mezzanine floor, a small staircase descended to the large boutique that opened in 1955 on the corner of avenue Montaigne and rue François Ier. A hall also led to the salon des modes, displaying an array of hats, and to the furs salon.

Fashion Salon

On the mezzanine floor was the reception, which opened onto the fitting rooms. A first series of six cubicles decorated with gray curtains served to receive the clients after the fashion shows.

The fitting rooms

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Victor Grandpierre decorated and furnished 30 Avenue Montaigne in neutral colors that would set off the models presented: “He created the [Paul César] Helleu salon of my dreams,” said Christian Dior, “all in white and pearl gray, very Parisian with its shaded wall lights, crystal chandeliers and a profusion of Kentia palms.”

Victor Grandpierre

Several days before the presentation of the collection, “rehearsals” were organized in these salons, during which a first series of 60 or so prototypes, illustrating the major theme of the collection, was reviewed amidst the light and luxury of the decor, and adjusted accordingly. Over the course of the fittings and rehearsals, some prototypes were added and others set aside until the collection acquired a unified whole. Finally, three days before the show, the dress rehearsal was held. The jewelry, scarves, gloves, and shoes that would lend the final touch to the silhouette were chosen at this time, while the hats, created by Mizza Bricard at the same time as the collection, were finally matched with each outfit.

The fashion show followed an order to which much thought was given during the rehearsals. It had to have a certain “sense of drama.” For this reason, the prototypes that would embody the new fashion were placed in the middle of the show. Known as “Trafalgars,” they would soon grace the covers of fashion magazines!

Trafalgar

The Chérie dress was intended for success, this little shirt-dress has been one of the most sold looks of the first collection.

The order of the show is also indicated on the charts; this obeys certain fixed laws of precedence. First come the suits, then the formal town dresses, then the more formal outfits, the cocktail dresses, the short evening dresses, and finally the long evening dresses and the ball gowns, which are generally spectacularly embroidered. The wedding dress ends the show.

The presentation

During these final moments, the entire House worked in an atmosphere buzzing with excitement. On the day of the fashion show, the salons were filled with flowers, perfumed with Miss Dior, and lit by the grand chandeliers. The chairs were arranged, and each given a small card bearing a number, ready to receive the guests.

Final moments

The drawing of 30, avenue Montaigne – offered by Christian Bérard to Christian Dior on the day of the presentation of his first collection – is a lucky charm. It now remains on the Grand Salon's mantelpiece.

The morning show, organized for 10:30 a.m., was for the press. The attendees received a program featuring the name of each prototype accompanied by a brief description. An excited crowd filled the great salon, then the landing and the staircase, peopled by the last guests and a lucky few members of the House’s employees. At the last minute, right at the top, the apprentices slipped in for a glimpse of the spectacle.

Morning show

Some last guests attending the fashion show on the staircase.

At the entrance to the salon, a first announcer, often a second seller, called out the name of the prototype and its number, in French and in English, which were next repeated at the second salon and then to the audience on the landing. At the time, the fashion show was a two-hour stage production, “with no plot and no interval,” which took place in silence, punctuated only by bursts of applause.

Announcers

After the show, all the guests would get up and gather excitedly in the grand salon. Kisses and congratulations abounded. Later on, Christian Dior would go back to the fitting rooms to celebrate the event with the models and the premières.

Congratulations

At 3 p.m., the second presentation took place, for professional buyers from around the world. The most important were the representatives of the large American department stores, who had paid dearly for their places by leaving a down payment on their future purchases. In charge of the American buyers, Madame Luling and Madame Yvonne Minassian had carefully prepared their room. In the salons, three or four people hired by the House were assigned to detect the slightest attempt at sketching the designs.
Before this “gathering of specialists” with their “photographic eye” the atmosphere of the show was calmer. When it was over, the buyers would make appointments with their saleswoman to place orders. The prototypes were looked at, measured, turned around, for hours on end! Only the following day could the salons welcome the private clients.

Professional buyers

Invitation card for Miss E. Stanley, buyer for the department store William Filene's Son Co. at Boston, invited by Mrs. Minassian to assist to the Haute Couture Fall-Winter 1949 collection show.

The salons where the collections were presented, situated on the 2nd floor overlooking avenue Montaigne, were real staterooms.

Presentation salons

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Fashion is defined by its constant need for renewal. Each season invariably renders the previous one unfashionable. In those days, couture houses did not conserve the prototypes presented in their shows, unlike today. Six months after the collection was presented, they were either offered to the models at extremely reduced prices or discounted for certain clients.

In 1987, following the Christian Dior exhibition organized by the Musée des Arts de la Mode, an archive service was established. It has continued to grow and today employs a dozen people who ensure the preservation and the circulation of this heritage. All the clothes and accessories, as well as the photographs and documents, are preciously conserved, while an active acquisition policy contributes to enhancing the collection, building an ever more complete record of the work of Christian Dior and his successors.

Dior Héritage

Two large spaces dedicated to sales “occupy the whole surface area of the presentation rooms on the floor below.” Here, displayed on hangers, were dresses from previous collections, or prototypes that were incomplete at the time of the presentation.

Sales room

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Jacques Rouët was supported by Jacques Chastel, director of the Paris operation. By 1951, the House of Dior had an impressive administrative and commercial department located on the 5th floor of 32, avenue Montaigne, where 46 employees precisely processed the purchases, client by client. The production and sales of each prototype were also recorded in a file, enabling the House to follow its evolution using statistical charts put in place by Jacques Rouët.

Administrative department

After a long trip to the United States in the fall of 1947, Christian Dior decided that the following year he would create his first American company, Christian Dior – New York, which “presents twice a year, in June and in November, a collection of around 130 prototypes, created specially in Paris by Christian Dior,” but executed by specialized ateliers in the United States as “ready to wear,” in standardized American sizes. The success of these collections was due to the fact that they were adapted to the tastes of the American clientele and to the requirements of “ready-to-wear” manufacturing, which called for a simplification of the designs. In addition, American partner firms reproduced and distributed Christian Dior jewelry, gloves, shoes, and ties.

Christian Dior – New York

In 1953, a branch was also established in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, while, in Great Britain, “C.D. Models”, founded in 1952, reproduced the prototypes created for Paris and New York. Licensing agreements extended to Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Japan, where exclusive contracts were signed with department stores and local manufacturers. And so, in 1953, the House of Christian Dior had “achieved international status: eight companies and 16 concessionary firms spread the name of Christian Dior on five continents,” as the financial statement released by the House in that year attested. From 1950, the House of Dior alone was responsible for almost 50% of French Haute Couture exports.

Christian Dior was the director of the couture house from the beginning. He entrusted the business side to a managing director, however, to Jacques Rouët, whom the couturier held in great esteem.

Offices of the direction

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In the three days that separated the dress rehearsal from the presentation, Christian Dior composed the “press summary” that, in a few sentences, explained the name of the line. By reducing the most striking designs to their essence, the season was defined. The accessories, hats, belts, jewelry, gloves, umbrellas, etc., were also described in these four pages, which gave a precise idea of the style of fashion that Christian Dior was offering.

Press summary

Robert de Maussabré and Jean-Claude Donati were in charge of public relations. A few weeks before the fashion show, the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture sent the list of 600 accredited French and international journalists. The press office handled the invitations, but also the seating of the guests, which could change up until the last minute.

Robert de Maussabré and Jean-Claude Donati

A large map of the salon, showing the placing of the numbered chairs, was filled with the names of the guests. Two hundred and fifty people had to be divided between two salons and a landing, while still leaving room for the models to pass through. The placing of each guest was a delicate matter of hierarchy that had to take into account the importance of the newspaper or magazine, the fame of the journalist, and the friendships and rivalries between them.

Plan of the salons

A few days before the show, the press office moved to a small room overlooking the courtyard on the mezzanine floor, to be closer to the presentation salons. By order of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, the press was under an embargo not to publish drawings or photographs of the new designs for a month, to avoid the risk of copies and to protect the buyers, who paid dearly for the exclusive right to reproduce them.

The magazines also requested access to the prototypes for their photographic reportages. The photoshoots often had to be done at night, when the prototypes were neither in the hands of the buyers nor of the private clients. A few weeks later, they would be found illustrating the pages of national and international publications, styled by the great photographers of the day.

Magazines

The press office handled the invitations, but also the seating of the guests, which could change up until the last minute.

Press office

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In particular, they were used by the saleswomen, who selected a group of drawings to send to their clients when the latter were unable to attend the fashion show. A swatch of the fabric would be pinned to the drawing, sometimes accompanied by one or two alternative colors adapted to the taste of the client.

Clients' drawings

The house of Dior employed several illustrators, who produced a series of drawings representing the finished prototypes. These drawings showed the designs in all their detail, sometimes in color, at a time when photographs were taken in black and white.

Illustrators’ office

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A few days before the fashion show, his desk filled up with little pink record slips, filled in as the prototypes were completed, from which Christian Dior himself determined the price of each one. They recorded the time that had been spent on each prototype, as well as the costs of labor and of the materials necessary to make it. To this were added general costs, social security charges and mark-up costs. However, above all, the price of a garment had to correspond to its type, so a little woolen dress could not be sold for the price of an evening dress, even if it required a great number of hours of work.

Little pink record slips

Twice a year, Christian Dior designed the Haute Couture collections from which everything was constructed, and he supervised the impeccable management of the House, down to the smallest detail. He wrote that Haute Couture was, above all, “a laboratory, and the dress prototypes” that would travel far and wide. On his initiative, the House rapidly built commercial links abroad, through the establishment of branches or by granting production licenses.

Laboratory of ideas

Interview of Christian Dior

In the initial years, Christian Dior occupied a modest office overlooking the courtyard, near that of his secretary, Madame Vidmer. When the studio moved to 13, rue François Ier, in 1951, his office moved to a small adjoining room.

Christian Dior’s office (1946)

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The models’ dressing room was close to the two presentation salons, to which it was connected by a small vestibule. It had replaced the former dining room of the hôtel particulier, and was fitted with a mezzanine to accommodate the 180 or so different outfits that would be shown.

Backstage

One of the particularities of Haute Couture, when it first emerged in the 1860s, was the “girls”, who would model the designs to present them to the clients. Known as “sosies”, or look-alikes, these ancestors of the fashion model were chosen to represent different female body types. Christian Dior’s “cabine” – his team of models – was composed of 12 models chosen by the couturier, whose personalities matched the silhouette that they had to bring to life. “Each cabine must bring together different types of women, who together compose the ideal image we have formed of the client,” Christian Dior explained in his memoirs.

"Sosies"

During “la pose” – the fitting period, which happened in the month leading up to the show – the models, dressed in white shifts, were constantly called into the workshops to try on the toiles, and then the prototypes made in fabric.

The "pose"

On the day of the show, this small space was crammed with “Madame Marguerite, ten dressers, all the head seamstresses and the tailors, three hairdressers, my two closest colleagues, and, naturally, the ‘girls’ themselves,” as well as the cheffe de cabine, Yvonne de Turckheim, the couturier recalled. The prototypes – some arriving at the very last minute – were hung in the wardrobes attributed to each of the 12 models. The references and descriptions of the 18 to 20 outfits they were to wear were inscribed on a card for the benefit of the dresser, as well as details of the relevant accessories.

The show

The models were the best ambassadors for the collection. While retaining an air of mystery, “they must vanquish and convince, present and impress with the new fashion,” Christian Dior pronounced. They were also the center of attention for the photographers, who took shots of the designs for the House itself or for the prestigious fashion magazines.

Ambassadors

Once or twice a year, the sales director, Madame Luling, organized presentations of the collection all over the world. Eight models would set off for Japan, Greece, England, or South America, accompanied by four dressers.

All over the world

Christian Dior’s “cabine” – his team of models – was composed of 12 models chosen by the couturier, whose personalities matched the silhouette that they had to bring to life.

The models’ dressing room

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Located in the courtyard of 32, avenue Montaigne, the stockroom was the “wonderland” of the couture house, containing rolls of the most exquisite fabrics that would be used to make the prototypes, as well as unfinished garments for buyers and clients between fittings, and all the haberdashery items, such as elastic, zip fasteners, and buttons.
The “fabric adventure”, as Christian Dior called it, started two months before the presentation of the collection, when the manufacturers arrived at Avenue Montaigne to present their wares for the next season.

The "fabric adventure", to repeat Christian Dior's words, begin two months before the presentation of the collection. The manufacturers have an appointment on avenue Montaigne to introduce the fabrics that they want to propose for the next season.

Over the course of a few days, more than 12,000 swatches would pass under the eyes of the couturier, Madame Raymonde, his two designers and the stockroom personnel. The 500 types of fabric for each collection, some of them exclusive, were chosen on instinct, based solely on what appealed to Christian Dior – who at that point had no idea what the next line was to be like.
A few weeks later, a five-meter length of each fabric would be delivered to the studio. As soon as the precious sketches had been given to the ateliers and work had begun on the toiles, Christian Dior would make a first choice, then a second for the fantasy fabrics. They were then “labeled, and ordered by category, color, and, if possible, by supplier,” the couturier recalled. “They filled my studio and lit it up.”

Located in the courtyard of 32, avenue Montaigne, the stockroom was the “wonderland” of the couture house.

The stockroom

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Mizza Bricard was a close friend of Christian Dior who had worked for the house of Molyneux. A lover of flowers and the embodiment of “chic,” “Madame Bricard is one of those increasingly rare people who quite simply live for elegance,” wrote the couturier in his memoirs.

Madame Bricard, Madame Raymonde, and Madame Marguerite formed the studio’s military high command, without whom Christian Dior could not function. They were the first to see the hundreds of sketches that the designer brought back from his country retreat, which formed the seeds of the collection.

Military high command

In 1947, the hats were designed by Maud Roser, but, the following year, an in-house hat workshop was established, overseen by Mizza Bricard. Christian Dior’s sketches often included a hint of their form, for he considered hats the element that “achieves proportion” in the silhouette. So, the designer who had started out in 1935 as a hat illustrator believed that a collection could not be presented without them.

Long conversations unfolded with Madame Bricard in front of the “sparteries,” which, like the toiles for the dresses, served to create the initial shape of the hats, before the details were defined.

In 1947, the hats were designed by Maud Roser, but, the following year, an in-house hat workshop was established, overseen by Mizza Bricard.

The hat atelier

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Through his friend, the decorator Georges Geoffroy, Christian Dior met Marguerite Carré, who had been a designer at Patou for 18 years. “Dame Couture,” as he named her, “whose passion for dresses could equal mine,” joined the House at the time of its launch, as technical director. She provided the essential link between the studio and the ateliers, which she directed. In the two fitting rooms adjoining the studio, Madame Marguerite saw all the prototypes before they were presented to Christian Dior.

Technical Director of the Ateliers, Madame Marguerite, nicknamed "Dame Couture" by Christian Dior, had a small fitting salon next to the studio.

Madame Marguerite’s fitting rooms

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The studio that Christian Dior had fitted out in 1951 on the 3rd floor of 13, rue François Ier was a huge, light-filled space in which nine people worked. Raymonde Zehnacker, whom he had met at Lucien Lelong’s, was “my second self, or, to be more accurate, my exact complement,” in the couturier’s words. With her “blue eyes that express everything and miss nothing,” she was the organizational pillar of the studio, but also an intimate friend of Christian Dior.

Christian Dior was accustomed to retiring to the countryside to design his collection two months before it was to be presented early December and June. He started by covering numerous pads of paper with a multitude of small sketches.

Once he had his idea, Christian Dior produced hundreds of drawings as variations on the silhouettes of the future fashion.

The couturier brought his sketches to Avenue Montaigne and looked at them again in the light of the studio, surrounded by Madame Marguerite, Madame Raymonde, and Madame Bricard. The impression conveyed by the sketch was the most important thing, because “to excite the enthusiasm of a head seamstress – or mine, for that matter – a sketch must suggest both attack and allure; it must already suggest a living line; it must be redolent with movement.”

These sketches, also referred to as “little engravings,” were accompanied by technical indications. Next, these “impressions” were handed to the heads of the ateliers, with Madame Marguerite, “this magic hand who transforms my thoughts into dresses” (Talking About Fashion), distributing them according to their preferences.

The first step was the creation of a toile, in the ecru cotton canvas reserved for this purpose, as a 3-D expression of the sketch. All at once, the studio came alive, filling up with trolleys of fabrics, accessories, sparteries, and hats. The names of the models were written on a blackboard and different designs were attributed to each one.

The toiles were shown to Christian Dior on two or three models. This allowed him to reduce the designs to “silhouettes, cuts, lines,” from which the whole collection would be built. It also avoided cutting them out in difficult fabrics even before the prototype had been definitively chosen. The toile was the focus of much decision-making: the neckline, the sleeve, the length, were adjusted to better match the couturier’s idea. This is what is called “creating impressions.” These initial choices established the major lines of the collection.

As this was going on, the chart of the collection was prepared by Madame Raymonde on large sheets of paper. Each one corresponded to a line and had a limited number of boxes for a pre-determined number of day dresses, suits, coats or evening dresses. The chart also enabled a vision of the collection as a whole, from which the fashion show would be organized, ensuring that it was balanced.

Once the toiles had been selected it was time to choose the fabric in which the prototype would be made, as well as the model who would wear it on the catwalk.

Now the fabrics invaded the studio. For Christian Dior, the quality of the fabric was more important than its color, because this is what would enable it to adapt to the desired shape. “Its suppleness or rigidity, weight or thickness” were the characteristics to take into account. Several fabrics were therefore draped, one after the other, on the model still dressed in the toile, to judge how it would fall. Often it took a long time to make a choice. Then “Madame Raymonde returns to her seat,” Christian Dior wrote, “registers the fabric in her book, makes a note that she must tell the manufacturer, and passes the docket to Frontine, who will send it down to the stockroom.”

It was time for the first fittings. The prototype, worn by the chosen model, was presented to Christian Dior by the head seamstress, accompanied by the worker who had produced it. The couturier “watches the dress come alive.” He would examine it at length in the large mirror mounted on one of the studio walls, which enabled him to take a step back and size it up. He might then move the seams, adjust the length of a sleeve or a hem, the width of the neckline. “Little by little, the fitting takes direction,” Christian Dior wrote. “Alignments are rectified, proportions brought into balance. Finally, bristling with pins, studded with pieces of cotton toile, fluttering with those bias-cut strips of material that indicate the position of the principal seams, or the site of alterations, the dress leaves the studio.”

Several fittings were to follow. Some prototypes may not make it into the final selection, but once the 60 or so that were to form the heart of the collection were ready, a first rehearsal was held in the salons, followed by several more. The evening before the show was called “La veillée d’armes” – the night before battle. Christian Dior would invite several friends into his studio. The dresses added during the dress rehearsal were given a final check, while some pieces of embroidery might arrive at the very last minute and have to be sewn on overnight…

The studio that Christian Dior had fitted out in 1951 on the 3rd floor of 13, rue François Ier was a huge, light-filled space in which nine people worked.

Christian Dior’s studio

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Christian Dior wrote a lot about the profession of couturier, which he reinvented with his couture House in the modern, post-War era. In 1951, Editions du Conquistador published his book, Je suis couturier, which had been serialized at the end of the summer in the magazine ELLE. The reader of this book can follow the steps involved in creating an Haute Couture collection in the greatest detail, from the sketches to the sale of the prototypes.

In 1954, Christian Dior published The Little Dictionary of Fashion in the United States, in which he gave all manner of advice to his American readers – already familiar with the couturier’s pronouncements on fashion from the pages of the magazines Mode and Woman and Woman’s Illustrated.

On 3 August 1955, Christian Dior also participated in a conference in the Sorbonne’s Grand Amphithéâtre on “The aesthetics of fashion,” as part of a course on history and French civilization. A fashion show featuring several of his most beautiful designs, including the iconic Bar suit of 1947, followed his speech.

In 1956, he started writing his memoir, in which he talks more about his fashion house and his vocation than he does about Christian, the discreet man who detested the limelight. Christian Dior et moi (Dior by Dior) was published by Amiot-Dumont and translated into several languages. It is, first and foremost, an impressive record of the history of the House and how it was run.

Even though Christian Dior had been among the five most internationally known personalities since 1949, it was not until 1957 – ten years after he presented his first collection – that he became the first French fashion designer to appear on the cover of TIME magazine, which devoted a major article to him.

In 1952, Christian Dior moved his office to a small room adjoining his studio, from which he could supervise the administrative affairs of the House, which he knew inside out.

Christian Dior’s office (1951)

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In these Ateliers, each of which had between 20 and 40 people working, but sharing no more than three sewing machines, hierarchy was very important. In an article devoted to the House of Dior, L’Express explained in 1956 that they were composed “of a première seamstress and two secondes, of qualified premières mains, qualified secondes mains, beginner secondes mains, petites mains and, finally, apprentices. Apprenticeships would last three and a half years, during which the apprentices would learn the profession through sewing, but also by being the ‘corridor rabbit,’ running errands between the different departments, and, particularly, back and forth to the stockroom.

The quality of workmanship was also what gave Paris its superiority over the rest of the world. Christian Dior was fully aware of this when he wrote that “we must keep up these traditions to pass them down to future generations, […] these traditions which are our luxury and the flower of our civilization.”

The ateliers of a couture house are divided into two types: on the one hand, the “flou” create the more flowing designs in lightweight fabrics, such as fine blouses or dresses; on the other hand, the “tailoring,” devoted to more structure garments, essentially suits and coats. This technical distinction is one of the foundations of Haute Couture.

“Flou” and “tailoring”

Preparation of the Haute Couture Fall-Winter 1948 collection in Christian Dior ateliers.

The ateliers were true “code decipherers,” to borrow Christian Dior’s description, experts in the exacting work of interpreting the intentions expressed in the designer’s sketches in toile and then in fabric. The House was abuzz with activity. A collection of around 180 prototypes had to be created in little less than a month and a half to be shown on the dates fixed by the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture.

From sketch to dress

This is how the “thousand hands that mold, cut, assemble, fit, sew, topstitch, everything that I have felt and desired,” plied their trade, as Christian Dior wrote. Faithful to his wishes, the House’s Ateliers, to this day, are the custodians and practitioners of an extraordinary savoir-faire.

A thousand hands

“Fairy tales are full of dresses: dresses the color of time; a dress in the hue of the moon. French Haute Couture has never forgotten this,” wrote the journalist Louise de Vilmorin in 1945, in an article entitled Modes nouvelles, bonnes Nouvelles (“Good News, Good Fashion”). “And is it not natural that the workers have fairy fingers to create these fairy-tale inventions? It’s thanks to their striving, their sensitivity, and their courage that our dreams come true.”

Fairy tale dresses

When it opened in 1946, the House of Christian Dior had only three workshops – two “flou” and one “tailoring”, nestled under the eaves.

The Ateliers

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The four collections that were released each year – two for France and two for international markets – each required three months of preparation. To offer its employees the best working conditions, the House of Christian Dior was one of the first to have its own infirmary, inaugurated by the French health minister, Bernard Lafay, with the daily presence of a doctor. A large rest home at Vaire-le-Grand, in the Jura, and a holiday camp in Dinard, completed the House’s offer to its employees.

To offer its employees the best working conditions, the House of Christian Dior was one of the first to have its own infirmary.

Nurses' station and social services

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A department entirely devoted to stockings was created a few years after the House was launched. Abroad, the manufacturing of stockings was quickly licensed to high-end manufacturers, first in the United States in 1949, and then in Great Britain, Italy, and Mexico. Each season, in spring and fall, the range of colors changed to match the prototypes of the new couture collection. The Paris department controlled the quality and the publicity, such as the way they were to be presented in window displays, which had to be identical for all the licensees anywhere in the world.

Excerpt from an article in The Dior Story series published in Women’s Wear Daily from 13 to 20 July 1953.

A department entirely devoted to stockings was created a few years after the House was launched.

The stocking and glove departments

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The Miss Dior bottle in the shape of an amphora, and the Diorama obelisk, launched in 1949, became symbols of refinement and inspired the cap of the first lipstick sold in 1953 and exclusively sold at 30, avenue Montaigne. Eight colors were offered, in line with the colors of the fabrics chosen by Christian Dior. Two years later, 22 shades of lipstick were launched, while, the following year, a new perfume, Diorissimo, featured as its core note lily of the valley – Christian Dior’s lucky flower.

By 1953, “Parfums Christian Dior-Paris,” occupying the main floor of 13, rue François Ier, was responsible for producing and distributing perfumes in 86 countries, with the exception of the United States, where “Parfums Christian Dior New York, Inc.,” created in 1948, sold the imported perfumes and beauty products.

Christian Dior commissioned the illustrator René Gruau, a friend since the 1930s, to create the perfume advertisements from 1947.

From the beginning, “Parfums Christian Dior” was directed by Serge Heftler-Louiche, a childhood friend of the founding couturier, whose experience with François Coty made him the ideal person. He had already proposed starting the company before the opening of the couture House.

Parfums Christian Dior

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For the very first time, a woman could be dressed entirely head to toe, thanks to all the products now grouped under the couturier's magical name: stockings, gloves, perfumes, and shoes designed by Roger Vivier, made by Charles Delman. There was also for the first time an area dedicated to men and another to tableware.

Today, the Avenue Montaigne boutique has reinvented itself and become a reflection of “this mysterious thing called life,” as the couturier had wished.

One day in 1955, the little Colifichets boutique closed at 30 Avenue Montaigne to open the very next day at 15, rue François Ier, under the supervision of its director, Marie-Hélène de Ganay.

The boutique

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“It had to be 30, avenue Montaigne,” wrote Christian Dior in his memoir, published in 1956. In this small hôtel particulier, “as modest in scale as my dream was ambitious,” as he said, his couture house opened in 1946. At the time, it only had three workshops – two for flowing designs known as couture flou, one for more structured, tailored one, tailleur – and employed 85 people. But within a few years it had expanded to the neighboring buildings.

In 1949, Christian Dior’s House was once again feeling cramped. A lease was taken on 13, rue François Ier. Starting in 1951, this building housed Parfums Christian Dior, the studio, and the archives, before it was annexed in 1952. Two years later, the House of Dior spread over five buildings, employed 1,000 people, and had 28 workshops at its disposal. “Growing up in age, stature and size, overflowing into the neighboring Parisian buildings, Maison Christian Dior was making its way in the world,” wrote the couturier in 1956.

13 rue François 1er

“These juxtapositions of buildings, these staircases, these openings, this footbridge, this world where you are constantly climbing or descending, in a way suck all air from the house,” wrote Christian Dior. In 1955, he finally took over 15, rue François Ier as well as 32, avenue Montaigne, where he installed Paris’s most elegant boutique.

15 rue François 1er et 32 Avenue Montaigne

Enter the heart of 30 Avenue Montaigne, this “packed little beehive” where the Christian Dior legend was born 75 years ago!