Christian Dior’s

most famous
design, ‘Bar,’ from
his inaugural
collection was
not the bestseller,
but is an icon of
20th century
fashion, as is
this photograph
taken by Dior’s
Photos: TK

friend, photo­
grapher Willy
Maywald, in 1955.

24 ROM Magazine Spring 2010

 DIOR’S
SCANDALOUS
NEW LOOK

When Christian Dior’s

extravagantly feminine New Look burst upon
the fashion-starved post-World War II scene,
not everyone accepted it—French saleswomen literally
tore the dresses apart, spawning numerous
anti-New Look protests. A glimpse into the rise of—and
Photograph by Willy Maywald © DACS 2009.

shock waves caused by—a fashion icon.

By Alexandra Palmer

ROM Magazine Spring 2010 25

 In 1935, at the age of 30,
Dior entered the world of
fashion as a freelance designer.
Three years later, he landed
a job at the couture salon of
Robert Piguet, who hired him
as a modéliste, or designer
working under the head of
the house. After the war, Dior
joined couturier Lucien Lelong,

C
who served as president of
the Chambre Syndicale de
la Couture Parisienne, repre-
senting Parisian haute couture
during the war years.

hristian Dior had expected to work for Lelong

for the rest of his life because he valued his
secure job and was worried about the ‘risks of
going into business’. Then, unexpectedly, the
dream of his own couture house was realized
by France’s ‘cotton king’, Marcel Boussac, the
richest man in France.1 Boussac, who had opened
his first textile company in 1911, had profited
from the First World War and now the Second,
making Groupe Boussac the largest French
textile manufacturer, with 15,000 employees. In
July 1946 he proposed that Dior revitalize one
of his businesses, the haute couture house of
Philippe et Gaston.2 Dior turned down the offer
because the idea of battling entrenched hierar-
chies and extricating an old-fashioned and run- 
down house from its early twentieth-century By the summer of 1946 word was out that Boussac was backing
roots was exactly what he was tired of at Lelong. Christian Dior and ‘the smell of fame was strong’.5 The opening
Instead, Dior very clearly articulated a pro- of the new house was announced in the US in the winter of 1946
posal for an entirely new establishment. His in Women’s Wear Daily, and in French Elle in January 1947.6 Dior
ideas were fuelled by his experience at Piguet had a respected reputation as a modéliste, but the news that he was
and Lelong, by Balmain’s success and perhaps opening his own establishment and was backed by Marcel Boussac
too by his close friend, Christian Bérard. In generated enormous excitement. Christian Dior did not disappoint.
1946 Bérard was in New York and learned that The house of Christian Dior was installed at 30 Avenue
American dress designers considered Paris Montaigne. Dior was a perfectionist and wanted decor that would
‘washed up’ as a fashion centre. Reportedly, he ‘not distract the eye from my clothes, which after all were to
told Dior to sketch a plan of action, saying: ‘There be the focal point of the proceedings’. . . The immaculate, fresh-
is no other way. You must be Joan of Arc!’3 Dior painted rooms with a patina of French history created by the
had two objectives, artistic and nationalistic. neo-Louis XVI décor excited buyers, press and public alike. They
His house would be small and very exclusive, were fascinated to experience a new mood that could blow away
attracting the most elegant women in the world. the wartime cobwebs.
It would be a temple for upholding and dem- On 12 February 1947 Dior unveiled his extravagant first col-
Christian Dior onstrating the centuries-old French traditions lection in an atmosphere of supreme elegance. Invitations for
linked the artistic
Paris couturier
of luxury textiles, beading, embroidery, dress- the opening were coveted and even sold on the black market.
with a professional making techniques and design, and prove that Jacques Rouët recalled that an hour before the show ‘a ladder,
businessman, Paris was the most technically superb, luxurious, pinched from a nearby construction site, was placed against the
Photo: © Bettman/CORBIS

quickly becoming
a celebrity coutur- artistic and dominant source for fashion in the ground floor window and several young people happily climbed
­ier. His private world. By doing this, the city would reassert its up and tried to force themselves inside’.11 Guests were greeted on
and public life
attracted much cultural importance for fashion and demonstrate the stairs by formidable staff dressed in chic black uniforms. The
interest and that France – and particularly not America – was aboyeuse or barker called out the name and number of the model
from 1947–57 he
was constantly
the source of creative fashion as it had been since entering the room, in English and French. The presentation was
photographed. the late seventeenth century. dramatic, as one reporter recalled:

26 ROM Magazine Spring 2010

 B
The first girl came out, stepping fast, switching with a
provocative swinging movement, whirling in the close-
ut when Christian Dior’s New Look burst upon Christian Dior’s
fashion-starved post-war women, his image of first presentation
packed room, knocking over ashtrays with the strong astonished in
flare of her pleated skirt, and bringing everyone to the femininity, which reigned supreme during the the new smart
edges of their seats in a desire not to miss a thread of 1950s, did not make them blush. It was a salon with his
mannequins
this momentous occasion . . . We were given a polished revelation of beauty and luxury, with long, full, wearing full,
theatrical performance such as we had never seen in a fluid skirts, cinched-in waists and soft shoulders – long skirts that
couture house before. We were witness to a revolution in brushed the
the antithesis of militaristic wartime fashions. audience during
fashion and to a revolution in showing fashion as well.12
But not everyone accepted the New Look. A few days after the the fast-paced
theatrical
The New York Times called the collection first showings of Dior’s collection, while American photographers presentation.
‘youthful’ and ‘graceful’. British Vogue credited were shooting the designs in Montmartre, sales ladies from the
Dior with reviving interest in ‘a somewhat unin- Quatre Saisons ‘leapt forward and tore apart the dresses’. This was
spired season . . . his ideas were fresh and put the first protest, and photographs of women ripping at the model’s
over with great authority, his clothes beautifully skirt published in Paris Match began the start of organized
made, essentially Parisienne, deeply feminine’.13 anti-New Look protests.19
Album du Figaro noted that ‘for the first time Christian Dior himself encountered negative reactions to
in years there is finally a style!’ and published the New Look later in 1947. On his first American trip, he was
a guide to the hemlines, busts and shoulders. promptly whisked away from Chicago train station as ‘embattled
Carmel Snow’s detailed and euphoric reports housewives brandishing placards bearing the words: “Down
for Harper’s Bazaar were enormously influen- with the New Look,” “Burn Monsieur Dior,” “Christian Dior Go
tial. It was she who dubbed the style the ‘New Home” advanced’. Chicago was not unique. In Louisville, 1,265
Look’, sending American buyers rushing to Paris women believed that the New Look was not only impractical but
to see what they had missed, since only 18 had also anti-feminist, and signed an anti-Dior petition as members
attended the Paris collections. One commented: of The Little Below the Knee Club. In Oildale, California, Mrs
‘God help the buyers who bought before they saw Louise Horn gave a timely demonstration of the dangers lurking in
Dior!’ In November, when Pierre Gaxotte of the the New Look. As she alighted from a bus, her new long, full skirt
Académie Française returned to Paris from New caught in the door. The bus started up and she had to run a block
York, he announced: ‘Do you know that the two alongside it before she was freed. In Georgia, a group of outraged
most famous Frenchmen in the United States are men formed the League of Broke Husbands, hoping to get ‘30,000
General de Gaulle and Christian Dior?’15 American husbands to hold that hemline’.
Photo: Dior Heritage

ROM Magazine Spring 2010 27

E
ven in 1948 the style was While reporters were kept busy explaining Footnotes
1
Pochna, Bonjour, Monsieur Boussac, pp,17.9;
still controversial. New how and why women could or would not adopt Dior, Talking about Fashion, p.27.
Liberty magazine ran an the New Look, others considered the financial 2
Pochna, Christian Dior, p.88, emphasizes that
it was Dior’s artistic ambitions and frustra-
article entitled ‘What’s implications. In spring 1948 French Elle showed tions, rather than a quest for fame or interest
Happened to the New dresses by Dior, Balmain and Balenciaga and in business that interested him. Philippe et
Gaston was founded in 1925.
Look?’ It stated that ‘In compared the price of each in terms of what 3
Bébé, Time (9 May 1949). The article notes
style-conscious Paris France could purchase from abroad with their that Bérard’s friends believed he was the real
only models and wealthy sales: 9,800 bags of wheat, 3,000,000 kilograms begetter of the ‘New Look’.
5
Ballard, In My Fashion, p.233.
society women could of wool and 789,000 kilograms of meat. Haute 6
Scrapbook, Christian Dior Heritage.
afford to wear it. The couture was thus clearly shown as an important 11
Quoted in Réthy, Christian Dior, p.8.
12
Ballard, In My Fashion, p.237.
average woman pre- financial export, whilst also promoting French 13
New York Times (15 February 1947), p.8;
ferred to buy food’, and culture and an image of national femininity.25 British Vogue (April 1947), p.47
14
Snow, The World of Carmel Snow, p.117.
that ‘In Russia, it was Regardless of controversy, the fact remained 15
Time (4 March 1957), p.34; Réthy,
banned as “an example of the deterioration of that from its inception the New Look dominated Christian Dior, p.8.
American capitalism”.’ This was accompanied post-war fashion design at all prices. Réthy, Christian Dior, p.8. It has been sug-
19

gested that this protest was a clever press

by photographs showing local reactions to

stunt by the house.
models wearing the New Look on Paris streets, 22
New Liberty (28 February 1948), p. 8
23
Audience comment at the Textile
and included a Paris housewife in a vegetable The New Look firmly secured the name of the Endowment Fun lecture by Palmer in 1997
queue giving the New Look ‘a dirty look’, while house of Christian Dior in the mind of the public, at the Royal Ontario Museum; author’s
interview with Clayton Burton (1991) The
another told the model wearing a Christian Dior as well as the fashion world. In fact, all Paris centerpiece of the autumn 1947 collection
that it was ‘impractical’.22 collections were measured and revitalized by it. ‘Diorama’ had a circumference of 40 metres.
Dior, Christian Dior and I, p.71.
Fashion manufacturers in Europe and North . . . As Carmel Snow so famously quipped: ‘Dior 24
Harper’s Bazaar (August 1947), p.95
America were not ready for Christian Dior’s saved Paris as Paris was saved by the Battle of 25
Quoted in Weiner, Les Enfants Terribles, p. 31
vision and were left with outdated fashions; the Marne.’28 28
Snow, The World of Carmel Snow, p.58

they were furious because the New Look was

not being replicated quickly. Wartime restric- 
tions were still in place in Europe, and the styles Excerpted from the book Dior: A New Look, a New
required too much material, new patterns and Enterprise (1945–57) by Alexandra Palmer (V&A Below: Christian Dior’s visit to
Chicago in autumn 1947 galvanized
a reassessment of production and costs. Publishing: 2009) available in the ROM’s Museum feminists, who demonstrated
Customers could not readily transform the Store and online. against the New Look.
slim-fitting, knee-length, wartime skirt into a
New Look one, though women were
resourceful. Some added a yoke to an existing
skirt in order to drop it to the hips. One found
the required fabric in bed sheets that she dyed
black for her ankle-length skirt. But, as another
pointed out, the implications went beyond just
the amount of textile, and she was shocked at
the price of the alterations for her first New
Look-style purchase because it took so much
time. Even if a woman managed to create the
New Look successfully, it was not always
recognized as the height of fashion. As one
woman recalled, when she was in a department
store wearing her home-made version of a long
New Look skirt, a gentleman wryly remarked:
‘Excuse me for not wearing my dinner jacket!’23
Women read articles that answered questions
such as ‘What is the New Look? What about
shoulder padding?’, or announced that ‘You
Can’t be a Last-Year Girl’ because,
Fashion is shaken at the foundation. Visualize yourself
Photo: © Bettmann/CORBIS.

as you looked on a beautiful autumn day last year.

There’s not much of the picture that survives. Not the
hemline, waistline or the shoulderline . . . If you’re not a
Last-Year Girl. You’ll like the feel of a longer, fuller skirt
flowing around you as you move . . . You’ll enjoy having
hips again – without apologies; and the satisfaction of
a small, rounded, tapering waist and of having it show
in the snug bodice tops. You can have it all.24

28 ROM Magazine Spring 2010