Dior’s ‘New Look’ in the Everyday American Closet
An exhibition focusing on the revolutionary silhouette of Dior’s New Look, and the increased access that ready-to-wear apparel and home sewing patterns gave the everyday woman in Colorado and across the United States.
The Man and His House
French haute couture designer Christian Dior (1905-1957) only headed the House of Dior for ten years (1947-57), dying of a heart attack while planning his next line. However, his impact on fashion history looms large, with his premiere 1947 design lines causing quite a stir and having a lasting effect on women’s clothing into the twenty-first century.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Dior worked in Paris for couturiers (designers of high fashion) Robert Piguet and Lucien Lelong. His career at Lelong spanned the occupation of Paris by Nazi Germany during World War II (1939-45). While working at Lelong, Dior designed for high-level Nazi officials’ wives, but he also supported his French Resistance fighting sister and helped to prevent the relocation of couture fashion from Paris to Berlin. After the restoration of Paris beginning in 1945, Dior was approached by a financier to help reestablish the capital city’s couture industry as part of the economic and social recovery of France. His design expertise combined with his marketing skills led to the establishment of a wildly successful fashion enterprise beginning with a signature inaugural statement: the New Look.
From 1947 to 1957, the House of Dior dictated fashion across Europe and the United States. The legacy of Christian Dior and his New Look continue to be honored and reinterpreted by his successors at Dior, from Yves Saint Laurent and Marc Bohan during the late 1950s through the 1980s, to the current creative director at Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri. Perhaps more importantly, the revolutionary silhouette of Dior’s New Look was made more attainable for the everyday woman in Colorado and across the United States through ready-to-wear apparel and home sewing patterns.
Flower Women and Figure Eights
Each fashion line Dior debuted was named, often for the silhouette he sought to achieve. The two lines that premiered in February 1947 were named Corolle (flower petals) and En 8 (eight). Both were similar, featuring what we might call an hourglass silhouette with emphasis on the full bust and exaggerated hips made to stand out through cinching in the waist. Longer hemlines and fuller skirts in both lines helped to round out the bottom of the silhouette. Large picture hats were often worn, creating the wide curve of the top of a figure eight on the head. His unique combination of draping and tailoring garments made for dramatic and sometimes unexpected shapes.
With luxuriously and extremely full skirts and shaping that emphasized feminine curves, Dior’s 1947 designs were dubbed the New Look by the fashion press because of their radical departure from World War II styles that were inspired by military uniforms and had stressed economy of fabric. Dior’s inspiration for his new silhouette came from combining several old styles. The pannier-supported skirts of the Baroque period (c. 1600 – c.1750), the low necklines and elevated bust of the Victorian era (1837 – 1901), and the heavily corseted waists of the Edwardian years (1901 – 1910) all contributed elements to the New Look. The Bar suit pictured in life size to the right is from the 1947 Corolle line and is often referenced as the truest interpretation of Dior’s design aesthetic for his premiere show. The shoulders, waist, hips, and hemline of the Bar suit are highlighted as the main areas of the garments Dior focused on throughout his career. In the ten years he spent designing before his death in 1957, Dior continued to play with the basic silhouette and historic inspiration. Hemlines shortened and lengthened, waistlines rose and fell, fullness sometimes moved from the bust up to the shoulders, but the 1947 lines were always apparent.
The clothing and accessories in this exhibition all have elements of Dior’s New Look silhouette, but none of them are Dior brand. Each item reflects the ability of ready-to-wear designers and marketers at using clever construction methods to achieve the New Look. They came from the closets of everyday American women without haute couture budgets who still kept up with the latest fashions from Paris.
