For last week’s Style File Friday, I shared some of my favourite Balenciaga highlights in honour of Cristobal Balenciaga’s birthday. However, if you didn’t know, Balenciaga also shared a birthday with Christian Dior. They were born a decade apart (Balenciaga in 1895, Dior in 1905) but both left their mark on fashion. This week I wanted to share some of my favourite Christian Dior highlights to belatedly celebrate his birthday. However, given that I have shared many of his garments on the blog already, I wanted to delve into Dior’s highlights beyond clothing!
Christian Dior Parfum Bottles
In the twenty-first century, fragrance to go with a clothing house seems to be a no-brainer. (In fact, it is difficult to find a house that hasn’t licensed its name to a fragrance.) However, in the 1950s, it wasn’t as much of a given.
Dior grew up around gardens, and loving flowers- a love inspired by his mother. Floral prints feature heavily in his designs, and it should be no surprise that they feature in his fragrances. Both the bottle in the centre and the set on the right-hand side are for the Diorissimo scent. The original Diorissimo was released in 1956, a year before Dior’s death. It features one of his favourite flowers, the lily-of-the-valley, as a middle note. The elaborate bottle in the middle was actually created by Baccarat for Dior, which explains why it is so gorgeous. The set is actually for travel; the rectangular bottle design is still used for Dior perfumes today!
If you are interested in Dior and flowers, I would recommend reading Miss Dior; his sister Catherine played a large role in his perfumes.
Christian Dior Sang Artificiel
Again, luxury makeup is nothing unique these days. However, you do not tend to see a lot of luxury stage make-up floating around. This bottle is actually Christian Dior fake blood! As the bottle states, it is movie and television make up, not a division you see of the house now. I found this particularly interesting because many designers moonlighted as theatre and movie costume designers, but you see far less about make up. There are absolutely some renowned and famous pieces from the house, but the sang artificiel takes the prize as the most unique Dior artefact for me. 
Christian Dior Advice Columns
I was more than stunned when I was going through the exhibition to see that Christian Dior actually wrote advice columns in women’s magazines in the 1950s. These days designers seem fairly secretive and closed off; if they aren’t overly forthcoming on social media, we really don’t get much from designers at all. However, Dior did make himself available to clients (and potential clients) in several different ways, including advice columns.
This issue of Woman’s Illustrated from 1952 features “Christian Dior’s Fashion Advice for You”. According to the exhibition information, “Christian Dior contributed guest features to two British women’s magazines, Woman’s Illustrated and Modern Woman. His encouraging advice, supposedly straight from the mouth of the couturier, guided readers on fashion matters and promoted a wider awareness of Dior among British women.”
This particular feature has advice on “the young girl”, “the older woman”, and “costume jewellery”. It is a brilliant piece of marketing for the 1950s, and paired with society favourites like Princess Margaret wearing Dior would have made a strong statement to women reading this.
Looking for more Dior?
Dior, Designer of Dreams, Part I- The New Look, The Dior Line, Dior in Britain
Dior, Designer of Dreams, Part II– Historicism, Travels, The Garden
Dior, Designer of Dreams, Part III – Designers for Dior, The Atelier
Dior, Designer of Dreams, Part IV– The Ballroom
What are your Christian Dior highlights?
Cheers,
The Historian
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