DIOR – A New Look

Timeless, trailblazing, elegant and influential – the designs of Christian Dior (1905-1957) are all of these. Just after the Second World War, he established his own house in Paris, which soon became famous, and he quickly took the fashion world by storm. His ‘New Look’, with its full skirts, changed fashion, and his silhouettes were worn from Paris to London, New York, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro. His successors – Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons and Maria Grazia Chiuri – have continuously perpetuated his visionary boldness. Their talent and boundless creativity have left an indelible mark on the unique history of the House of Dior. “The ideas of the founding-couturier are still very much alive”, says curator Madelief Hohé. “His designs will be shown in Kunstmuseum Den Haag in dialogue with those of Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior’s current – and first female – Creative Director.”

Dior is one of the world’s greatest and most alluring couture houses, established at a time when Paris was recovering from the Second World War, and had yet to regain its status as a fashion capital. Christian Dior grew up on the Normandy coast, in a pink villa with a colourful flower garden that he planted with his mother. He had intended to become an architect, and before the war had a career running a gallery and then working for other fashion houses. In 1946, he boldly opened his House on Avenue Montaigne and presented his first, ultra-feminine collection in 1947. It was interpreted as an audacious revolution. He dispensed with the strong, square shoulder lines that had dominated the wartime look, introducing the full skirts, tiny waists and sloping shoulders of the Corolle line and sophistication and precision tailoring in his figure hugging En Huit line. Upon seeing this captivating spectacle, Carmel Snow, the editor-in-chief of the American magazine Harper’s Bazaar, exclaimed, “It’s quite a revolution, dear Christian, your dresses have such a New Look!”.

The name Dior was soon widely known, his creations worn around the world. Christian Dior died at a young age. But although he stood at the helm of the House of Dior for only ten years, his work still has great impact to this day. 

The Dior Spirit
Christian Diors New Look is one of the most imitated fashion silhouettes of all time, but Dior continued to surprise the world with new shapes, like the Zigzag line (1948), the H line (1954) or the A line (1955). The founding couturier presented 22 successful and influential collections. His House grew, opened branches in New York and London, and signed licensing agreements with houses in several countries. It was not only couture clients who loved Dior’s designs. Across the globe, his lines defined the wardrobes of millions of women. His unique, inspirational legacy is the focus of DIOR – A New Look.

Dior Women
The title of this exhibition not only refers to the iconic, feminine New Look, but also to the present, where the founding-couturier’s ideas live on. Maria Grazia Chiuri has thoroughly explored Christian Dior’s vision and the DNA of the House, but she designs for today’s women. “If Dior is about femininity, then it is about women. And not about what it was to be a woman 50 years ago, but to be a woman today.” Her first ready-to-wear collection in 2016 was highly significant, based on the New Look, but combined with a simple T-shirt bearing the slogans ‘(Dio)Revolution’ or ‘We should all be feminists’, inspired by the eponymous essay written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The Creative Director likes to work with female artists. To tie in with this, Kunstmuseum Den Haag invited Dutch photographer and artist Viviane Sassen to produce a series of photographs specially for the exhibition, in collaboration with Dior.