"Dior is that nimble genius unique to our age with that magical name- Combining God and gold( dieu et or)" - Jean Cocteau
Christian Dior never married, and there were and continue to be rumors and speculation about his sexuality. When he first moved to Paris in the 1920s Dior was drawn to the artistic bohemian life of the city and became friends with the artist Jean Cocteau. Jean Cocteau, the most underrated artist of the 20th century. Dior's friendship with Cocteau is significant.
Christian Dior was an artist before he was a couturier. Jean Cocteau was the leading avant-garde artist of the '20s, his look, his style, predated the haute couture aesthetic of everyone else who followed. Elsa Schiaparelli, Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, they were all influenced by Jean Cocteau, yet Jean Cocteau is never acknowledged. His style is the most developed individualistic style ever conceived. He lived and died for his Art. Nothing else mattered, but style, visual representation, and composition. His life was Art. He is a God.
In 1921, Jean Cocteau was at the height of his career. A child prodigy at 16, the darling of 'le tout Paris' was now 32, and had just staged his third ballet- Les Maries de la tour Eiffel. He was the media darling, in Paris, at the time. He was basking in glory, surrounded by an entourage of young admirers, who flocked each morning to his home on Rue d'Angou to see him rise from his bed as if he were the Sun King. It was at this point, that Christian Dior entered the picture. He was just one of the entourage of this sensational man, who with others were just content to provide an audience for the supreme enigma that was the Artist known as Jean Cocteau.
See my previous article on Jean Cocteau
One among this artistic, creative set, was the most bold, who was named Maurice Sachs, a charming, scheming young man, who followed every fashion launched by Cocteau. Artists were much sought after by the Grand Dames of the Paris salons, such as the Vicountess Marie-Laure de Noialles, Princess Dolly Radziwell, Marie-Blanche de Polignac. They stepped over each other for Jean Cocteau, to attend their salons. (What more could Maurice Sachs ask for than to be picked up by Marie-Laure de Noialles chauffeur outside his lodging on Place Cambronne, where he lived with his lover Boris Kochno, and be driven to dine at her home on Place des Etats-Unis). Scheming opportunists everywhere. Christian Dior, no exception didn't miss a single one of Cocteau's theatrical creations, that were staged with the most incredible set designs, costumes, music, in the years that followed; he was captivated by Jean Cocteau's visual inventions for the stage.
Christian Dior wanted to work in the arts his whole life. In 1928, his father gave him enough money to open an art gallery on condition that the family name did not appear above the door. They were a very strict, conservative Bourgeois family. At the time, artists, actors,dress designers, and the such were not considered respectable professions. Galerie Jacques Bonjean soon became an avant garde haunt, with paintings by Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and Max Jacob hanging on walls decorated by Christian Bérard. In 1931, tragedy struck the life of Dior. His older brother and his mother, died, and the Depression wiped out the family's fortune. The gallery closed. For the next few years Dior scraped a living by selling fashion sketches to haute couture houses. Finally he found a job as an assistant to the couturier, Robert Piquet.
Jean Cocteau with Mask-1927 (photo: Berenice Abbott)
Christian Dior was very much influenced by Paul Poiret. Paul Poiret revolutionized fashion, by showing dress designers that they could be more than just dress designers. Up until that time dress makers were on the status of tradesmen, to polite society. It was a very class based society .Poiret was a pioneer, in promoting new ideas.
See my previous article on Paul Poiret.
Paul Poiret's role as a catalyst in the new ideas, and trends of the day, is what he so admired about Cocteau. It is these artists, with their concept of high art/fashion, that haute couture came from; the almost theatre like costumes of the avant-garde plays & ballets by Jean Cocteau were ultimately the inspiration for Dior's New Look, dress in 1947.
(Photo credit: Dwight Godwin)Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on 18th May 1917 . Diaghilev commissioned Ballets Russe production of Cocteau's ballet "Parade". Costumes designed by Pablo Picasso, in conjunction with Jean Cocteau. Score by Erik Satie. Leonide Massine was the choreographer. The musical score caused riots in its opening night. The music included the sounds of a typewriter, sirens and a lottery wheel, and Picasso's costumes included some in the shape of American sky-scrapers. It was bold and revolutionary, and it was an attack on conventional notions. Again, it is this type of bold, innovative artistic statement, that Christian Dior was influenced by in the creation of his New Look couture of 1947. It is fearless.
Christian Dior's reputation as one of the most important couturiers of the twentieth century was launched in 1947 with his very first collection, in which he introduced the "New Look." Featuring rounded shoulders, a cinched waist, and very full skirt, the "New Look " celebrated unabashed femininity and opulence in women's fashion. After years of military and civilian uniforms, restrictions and shortages, Dior offered not merely a new look but a new outlook.
The first Christian Dior couture show was scheduled for 12 February 1947. Clothes were still scarce in Europe, after the war, and women wore the sharp-shouldered suits with knee-length skirts that they had put together as wartime versions of Elsa Schiaparelli’s slinky 1930s silhouette. The Paris couture trade, which had dominated international fashion since the late 18th century, was in dire state. What it needed was excitement and Christian Dior delivered it in a collection " of luxurious clothes with soft shoulders, waspy waists and full flowing skirts intended for what he called “flower women”. “It’s quite a revelation dear Christian,” pronounced Carmel Snow, the editor of Harper’s Bazaar, the US magazine. “Your dresses have such a new look.” Yes, just like the new theater, and ballets, and other spectacular, plays/ballets, that Dior was influnced by previously as a young man, in Paris in the '20s.
After World War II ended, Dior persuaded the industrialist Marcel Boussac to back him in the opening of his own couture house to be managed by the civil servant Jacques Rouët.
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