70 AWW.COM.AU AUGUST 2017
GETTY IMAGES.A decade on from Dior’s unveiling of
the New Look, the 1957 parades reflected
the changing moods of fashion, featuring
his sumptuous signature
evening gowns, but also a new
day dress – the loose-fitting,
unwaisted chemise – that was
the polar opposite of his
original fitted designs.
“The bosom is both
exaggerated and ignored,” reported The Weekly,
“the waist both fitted and bypassed.”
The chemise (or sack) was a younger, less
formal alternative to his New Look designs,
a harbinger of future styles that would take
their cues from youth and popular culture.
Paris couture was about to lose its iron grip on
international fashion, but Christian Dior had
already secured his place as one of the most
influential designers of the 20th century.
Indeed, the New Look continues to resonate
70 years on, proving perhaps that glamour and
femininity will never go out of fashion. As Dior
once said, “Deep in every heart slumbers a dream
and the couturier knows it: every woman is
a princess.” AWWSee many of the dresses from The Weekly’s parades
in The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture
at the NGV, Melbourne, August 27 to November 7.exclusive, bespoke business catering to
wealthy private clients, Parisian design
houses increasingly sold their garments
to the mass market in the
postwar period. In fact, Dior
courted international buyers
so successfully that by the time
he died in 1957, his brand
accounted for 5 per cent of
France’s gross domestic product.
Mary Hordern ended her 11-year reign as
Fashion Editor in 1957, but not before pulling
off a final Christian Dior coup, organising The
Weekly’s exclusive parades in Melbourne and
Sydney of what would become his last collection.
Dior died suddenly, aged 52, of a heart attack
that October, but 83 of the designer’s exquisite
creations were dispatched from Paris the next
month and the Australian parades went on.
Seven of Dior’s house mannequins took a
punishing 60-hour flight from France to model
the designs and were feted like movie stars on
arrival. The Weekly splashed the seven glamorous
imports across its front page, providing a guide
to each of the mannequins inside: Odile, it
revealed, “plans tempting menus for her husband”
in her spare time, while Dior’s favourite model,
a Hollywood blonde named France, apparently
“likes the good things of life – antiques, clothes,
travel, parties and being admired”.
“They were all dressed
well. Women had
style in those days.”
FROM TOP LEFT:
Shapes were
exquisite and a
hat was a must;
Christian Dior
at his peak; the
designer oversaw
every detail;
French soprano
Denise Duval
dressed by Dior,
Paris, 1947.