Dior by Christian Dior (1947–1957)

The Library Essay

A Decade Measured in Collections

Christian Dior showed his first collection on 12 February 1947, and the cinched waists and extravagant skirts, christened the New Look by the editor Carmel Snow, ended wartime austerity in a single morning. He had ten years at the head of his house before his death in 1957, and this volume, the first in Assouline's series on Dior's designers, follows that decade collection by collection.

The fashion historian Olivier Saillard supplies the commentary, and the discipline of the format suits the subject, since Dior thought in collections, each with its declared line. The book shows a founder building, in ten years, a house solid enough to carry his name for the seventy that followed.