Layman’s High Fashion: Dior

The House of Dior can be described to be many things; elegant, classic, modern and timeless spring to mind personally. Having been technically founded in 1946, but celebrating its founding to have been in 1947, Christian Dior is a pedigree French luxury goods company through and through. With names such as Raf Simons, Yves Saint Laurent, John Galliano, Gianfranco Ferre, and it’s namesake founder Christian Dior as creative directors at different points of time, House Dior boasts a creative legacy relatively unmatched by most fashion houses despite it’s comparatively young age for a fashion house.

Credited with revolutionizing women’s fashion at the time with it’s “Corolle” collection (coined “the New Look” by fashion editors), Dior’s influence on the silhouettes and trends of women’s fashion can still be seen today in dresses with narrow waists and full, mid-calf length skirts, made to accentuate the bust and hips. To understand why the New Look was such a fashion revolution, you have to understand the context in time that it was released in, namely that of post-war era Europe. Hot off the heels of WWII, any industry that did not have significant wartime relevance had more or less fallen to the wayside, with the haute couture fashion industry being no exception. Austerity, masculinity and frugality reigned supreme at the time, so Dior’s breaking up of those boxy silhouettes with decidedly feminine curves was nothing short of ground-breaking at the time, despite the controversy around its influence. Coco Chanel is quoted to have remarked about Dior and his Corolle collection that, “Only a man who never was intimate with a woman could design something that uncomfortable.”

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Nevertheless, the New Look served as inspiration for a great deal of designers both old and new, with Thom Browne, Alexander McQueen, Miuccia Prada and Vivienne Westwood having drawn inspiration from one or many aspects of the look, with the underlying reason being the surprising amount of modernity Dior had infused into each and every one of their designs. In fact, the success of Dior can be just as much credited to it’s marketing communication strategy as it’s actual products, with its efforts to reach out to and collaborate closely with pop-culture influential, celebrity icons such as Jennifer Lawrence, Lupita Nyong’o and Rihanna allowing it to position its brand as relevant towards a younger audience.

While most known for its womenswear, I’d be remiss to not mention it’s more recent collections from Dior Homme under Kim Jones, namely the Dior Homme x Kaws collection released for Dior Homme SS 2019. Ditching it’s classic Dior font and traditional color palette for a more streetwear-inspired, (what a shocker) pink, black and pastels aesthetic, the collection exudes a peculiar take on streetwear that legitimately appeals to me personally. Whether it’s the light pinks featured in select pieces, the tasteful use of branding and graphics with a sense of restraint, or just the sneaker fire that is the B23 obliques in white and black, Dior’s venture into streetwear certainly stands as one of my personal favorites, and that’s not even mentioning their most recent collaboration with Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama, known for illustrating the album art for Aerosmith’s “Just Push Play”. To me, it’s the first incorporation of the streetwear style to a luxury fashion house that isn’t obnoxiously garish (I’m looking at you Louis Vuitton x Supreme), successfully incorporating it’s design ethos with the streetwear aesthetic in a way that feels like a natural extension of the brand’s design language and legacy.

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