Simply Abu Dhabi XXII

Dior Spring Summer 2016 Womenswear C hristian Dior was a visionary. Beginning with his first collection in 1947 he rewrote the rules of modern elegance and imposed his style on the entire world. He brought women his vision of beauty and happiness, showing unprecedented creative originality. His ethos when designing was to create clothes that would make each and every woman the most beautiful. Christian Dior was born in Granville, a seaside town on the coast of Normandy in France and moved to Paris when he was five. His family had hopes he would become a diplomat, but Dior was creative and wished to be involved in art. To make money, he sold his fashion sketches outside his house for about ten cents each. In 1928, Dior left school and received money from his father to finance a small art gallery, where he and a friend sold works by the likes of Pablo Picasso. Three years later, after the death of Dior's mother and brother and a financial disaster in the family’s fertiliser business during the Great Depression, the gallery had to be closed. Dior then went on to design three collections for the fashion designer Robert Piguet and would later say, “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 called Cafe Anglais, was particularly well received. 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 Pierre Balmain were the primary designers. For the duration of the Second World War they designed dresses for the wives of Nazi officers and French collaborators. In 1946Marcel Boussac, a successful entrepreneur known as the richest man in France, 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. Later that year, with Boussac's backing, Dior founded his fashion house. Dior's designs were more voluptuous than the boxy, fabric-conserving shapes of the recent World War II styles, influenced by the rations on fabric. He was a master at creating shapes and silhouettes and is quoted as saying "I have designed flower women." His look employed fabrics lined predominantly with percale, boned, bustier-style bodices, hip padding, wasp-waisted corsets and petticoats that made his dresses flare out from the 2 6 8 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I