Dior's New Look
The 1947 collection that changed fashion. On 12 February 1947 Christian Dior showed his first collection, soon called the New Look. The Bar suit, the Corolle line and why it caused a stir.
Dior's Bar suit, 1947: SpiritedMichelle, CC BY-SA 4.0
A new house
Christian Dior was born in 1905 in Granville, a seaside town in Normandy. After working for other couturiers, he was backed by the textile industrialist Marcel Boussac, who gave him ten million francs to start his own house.
The House of Dior opened on 8 October 1946 at 30 Avenue Montaigne in Paris, with 85 staff, seven models and a salon decorated in grey, white and black.
12 February 1947
Dior presented his first collection on 12 February 1947: 90 looks in two lines, Corolle and En 8, or Figure of Eight. He said he had designed flower women, with soft shoulders, full busts, tiny waists and skirts that opened like the petals of a flower.
Carmel Snow, editor of Harper's Bazaar, told him that his dresses had a new look. The phrase stuck, and New Look came to describe Dior's style and much of fashion for years afterwards.
The Bar suit
The most famous outfit was the Bar suit: a fitted cream silk jacket with padded hips and a nipped waist, worn over a full, pleated black wool skirt. Pierre Cardin, then head of tailoring at Dior, worked on it, and buyers from around the world ordered copies.
Examples of the Bar suit are now in museum collections, including the Denver Art Museum, where the suit pictured above was displayed. Its silhouette is still used by the house today.
To create the shape, Dior used structure hidden inside the clothes: padding, boning and stiff linings such as tulle and taffeta under the skirts. Some skirts used many metres of fabric. The waist was drawn in sharply, and accessories such as gloves, hats and heels completed the silhouette.
Why it caused a stir
The New Look used far more fabric than people had grown used to during years of rationing, and long full skirts struck some as extravagant. That contrast is exactly why it felt so new, and it helped bring buyers and attention back to Paris couture.
Dior went on to present a new line every season, including the A-line and H-line, until his death in October 1957. His 21-year-old assistant, who later founded a famous house of his own, then took over as designer. The house remains on Avenue Montaigne.
- Dior's Bar suit, 1947: SpiritedMichelle, CC BY-SA 4.0
- The Bar suit on display: shakko, CC BY-SA 3.0
Text written by Greatest Prestige.
