Christian Dior

Christian Ernest Dior (21 January 1905 – 24 October 1957) was a French fashion designer and founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, Christian Dior SE. His fashion house is known all around the world, having gained prominence "on five continents in only a decade."

Dior's skills led to his employment and design for various fashion icons in attempts to preserve the fashion industry during World War II. After the war, he founded and established the Dior fashion house, with his collection of the "New Look". In 1947, the collection debuted featuring rounded shoulders, a cinched waist, and very full skirt. The New Look celebrated ultra-femininity and opulence in women's fashion.

Throughout his lifetime, he won numerous awards for Best Costume Design. Upon his death in 1957, contemporary icons paid tribute to his life and work.

Early life
Dior was born in Granville, a seaside town on the coast of Normandy, France. He was the second of five children born to Maurice Dior, a wealthy fertilizer manufacturer (the family firm was Dior Frères), and his wife, formerly Madeleine Martin. He had four siblings: Raymond (father of Françoise Dior), Jacqueline, Bernard, and Catherine Dior. When Christian was about five years old, the family moved to Paris.

Dior's family had hoped he would become a diplomat, but Dior was interested in art. To make money, he sold his fashion sketches outside his house for about 10 cents each ($0 in dollars ). In 1928, he left school and received money from his father to finance a small art gallery, where he and a friend sold art by the likes of Pablo Picasso. The gallery closed three years later, following the deaths of Dior's mother and brother, as well as financial trouble during the Great Depression that resulted in his father losing control of the family business. Dior had no choice but to find another source of income to support himself.

In search of work, Dior again created and sold fashion sketches. Those sketches were discovered by Robert Piguet. From 1937, Dior was employed by fashion designer Piguet, who gave him the opportunity to design for three collections. Dior later said that "Robert Piguet taught me the virtues of simplicity through which true elegance must come." One of his original designs for Piguet, a day dress with a short, full skirt that was in his collection called "Cafe Anglais", was particularly well-received. Whilst at Piguet, Dior worked alongside Pierre Balmain, and was succeeded as house designer by Marc Bohan – who would, in 1960, become head of design for Christian Dior Paris. Dior left Piguet when he was called up for military service.

In 1942, when Dior left the army, he joined the fashion house of Lucien Lelong, where he and Balmain were the primary designers. For the duration of World War II, Dior, as an employee of Lelong, designed dresses for the wives of Nazi officers and French collaborators, as did other fashion houses that remained in business during the war, including Jean Patou, Jeanne Lanvin, and Nina Ricci. His sister, Catherine (1917–2008), a member of the French Resistance, was captured by the Gestapo and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she was incarcerated until her liberation in May 1945. In 1947, Dior named his debut fragrance Miss Dior in tribute to her.

Dior was known for being superstitious. He often consulted his astrologer before making decisions, and his collections frequently featured talismanic symbols. He also carried a cluster of lucky charms with him, believing they brought him good fortune.

The Dior fashion house
In 1946, Marcel Boussac, a successful entrepreneur, invited Dior to design for Philippe et Gaston, a Paris fashion house launched in 1925. Dior refused, wishing to make a fresh start under his own name rather than reviving an old brand. In 1946, with Boussac's backing, Dior founded his fashion house. The name of the line of his first collection, presented on 12 February 1947, was Corolle (literally the botanical term corolla or circlet of flower petals in English). Dior's debut collection included a launch of 90 garments displayed in outfits. The phrase New Look was coined for it by Carmel Snow, the editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar.

Dior's designs were more voluptuous than the boxy, fabric-conserving shapes of the recent World War II styles that had been influenced by the wartime rationing of fabric. Despite being called "New," the Corolle line was clearly drawn from styles of the Edwardian era,  refining and crystallizing trends in skirt shape and waistline that had been burgeoning in high fashion since the late 1930s. The house employed Pierre Cardin as head of its tailoring atelier for the first three years of its existence, and it was Cardin who designed one of the most popular of the Corolle ensembles, the 1947 Bar suit.

The "New Look" revolutionized women's dress, reestablished Paris as the centre of the fashion world after World War II, and made Dior a virtual arbiter of fashion for much of the following decade. Dior's collection was an inspiration to many women post-war and helped them regain their love for fashion. Each season featured a newly titled Dior "line," in the manner of 1947's "Corolle" line, that would be trumpeted in the fashion press: the Envol and Cyclone/Zigzag lines in 1948; the Trompe l'Oeil  and Mid-Century lines in 1949; the Vertical  and Oblique lines  in 1950; the Oval and Longue/Princesse  lines in 1951; the Sinueuse and Profilėe  lines in 1952; the Tulipe  and Vivante/Cupola lines  in 1953; the Muguet/Lily of the Valley line and H-Line in 1954; the A-Line   and Y-Line in 1955; the Flèche/Arrow and Aimant/Magnet lines in 1956; and the Libre/Free and Fuseau/Spindle lines  in 1957, followed by successor Yves Saint Laurent's Trapeze line in 1958.

In 1955, 19-year-old Yves Saint Laurent became Dior's design assistant. Dior told Saint Laurent's mother in 1957 that he had chosen Saint Laurent to succeed him at Dior. She indicated later that she was confused by the remark, as Dior was only 52 at the time.

Death
Dior died of a sudden heart attack while on vacation in Montecatini, Italy, on 24 October 1957 in the late afternoon while playing a game of cards. He was survived by Jacques Benita, a North African singer three decades his junior, the last of a number of discreet male lovers.

Awards and honors
Dior was nominated for the 1955 Academy Award for Best Costume Design in black and white for the Terminal Station directed by Vittorio De Sica (1953). He was also nominated in 1967 for a BAFTA for Best British Costume (Colour) for the Arabesque directed by Stanley Donen (1966). For the 11th César Awards in 1986, he was nominated for Best Costume Design (Meilleurs costumes) for the 1985 film Bras de fer.