Christian Dior

Christian Dior

Christian Dior (1905-1957) was a French fashion designer famous for creating the "New Look" of the late 1940s and for founding the House of Dior, which remains an influential fashion house today.  

Dior was not supposed to be a fashion designer; his wealthy family wanted him to be a diplomat. But after the small art gallery he'd opened in 1928 closed during the Great Depression, he began designing hats, selling dress sketches to designers, and eventually designing for Robert Piguet. He served in the French Army during World War II and then worked for French designer Lucien Lelong. In 1946 he opened the House of Dior with financial assistance from the financier Marcel Boussac.  

A two piece ensemble (Object ID #2004.03.283.ab) from 1953 with a very defined waistline, as was common among New Look garments, in contrast to boxier military attire during World War II

Introduced in 1947, Dior's "New Look" designs, with their voluptuous femininity and their use of far more fabric than had been allowed during the war, proved immensely popular in the post-war era. Movie stars, socialites, and other celebrities adored the cinched waists, long hems, and full skirts of his dresses and the radical shift away from austerity measures necessitated by the war. The popularity of his designs over the next decade helped re-cement the prominence of Paris within the fashion world.

He also launched perfumes in 1947, and the next year opened Christian Dior-New York, a luxury ready-to-wear boutique, as part of a very successful effort to diversify beyond haute couture and into international markets. Soon Dior made a great deal of money by licensing clothes, stockings, furs, ties, and more – a new way of doing fashion business at the time. (See below for a selection of Christian Dior-New York garments and hats and an example from the Christian Dior Separates licensed line.) Shoes were the only items he didn't design himself, though the House of Dior produced custom-made shoes designed by Roger Vivier and others.

After Dior died in Italy in 1957, the House of Dior appointed Yves Saint Laurent as head designer, and the Dior collections promoted a more youthful, unrestricted style. In 1960 Saint Laurent was replaced with Marc Bohan, who remained head designer for almost thirty years and created modern silhouettes with an elegant simplicity. Miss Dior, a ready-to-wear line, was launched in 1967, the same year the first Baby Dior boutique opened.  

Hat (Object ID #1989.119) from the "Miss Dior" ready-to-wear line

The fashion house maintained its prestige and its famous clients even as decades passed and new artistic directors took charge, including Italian designer Gianfranco Ferré (1989-1996, known for his profusion of organza and large bows), British designer John Galliano (1996-2011, fired for antisemitic remarks), Belgian designer Raf Simons (2012-2015, who reinterpreted the New Look in a contemporary, minimalist way), Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri (2016-2025, Dior's first female Creative Director and one with a feminist commitment), and Northern Irish designer Jonathan Anderson (2025-, the first designer since Christian Dior to work on all House collections: Women's, Men's, and Haute Couture).  

Mount Mary University's Haggerty Library holds numerous books by or about Christian Dior, including his books Talking about Fashion (1954) and Christian Dior and I (1957), biographies from 1990 and 1996, and collections of photographs of many of his designs from 1996 and 2011. The Library also has materials about the House of Dior more broadly, including the 1987 Dior, the 2007 Dior, and the 2015 Girl in Dior, as well as about more recent Dior designers, including Raf Simons (DVD) and Maria Grazia Chiuri. Check them out to learn more! 

The garments and hats below are grouped in sections based on their labels or lack thereof. Sections indicate which items may have been designed by Christian Dior himself.