Christian Dior: The Man Who Made the World Look New [Anglais] [Relié]

First published in 1993 in France, this English translation of Marie-France Pochna's biography of Christian Dior appears in time for the 50th anniversary of Dior's debut in the world of fashion and coincides with a retrospective of Dior's design work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As a biography of the designer, Pochna's book is complete and telling, perhaps not swept up high enough in the airy realms of fashion to please devoted couture mavens but highly informative and interesting for general readers interested in Dior and his impact on the fashion industry. The business of fashion rather than the artistry of Dior's designs is where Pochna directs much of her attention. After all, the marketing and branding that Dior helped initiate was innovative, so discussions of licensing agreements and the development of designer accessories, along with Dior's youthful development and inspirations, blend into a provocative profile of this fashion great.

A superstitious man who collected amulets and followed astrology, Christian Dior (1905-1957) established his couture house in Paris in 1946 upon the advice of a fortune-teller who had correctly predicted that Dior's sister, a member of the French resistance deported by the Gestapo, would survive. Dior's "New Look," with its corolla skirts and narrow waists?a welcome change from drab wartime fashions and from the minimalism of Chanel and Lanvin?was an instant success. Son of a wealthy fertilizer manufacturer who went broke in the Depression, Dior, a discreet homosexual, had rebelled against his bourgeois father by embracing the artistic world of his mother, a horticulturist and expert on flowers. He opened a Parisian art gallery, exhibiting cubist and dadaist works in the 1930s. His decision to become a fashion designer came after a soul-searching trip on the island of Ibiza. An elegantly written, sparkling portrait of a pioneering arbiter of style, this candid biography reveals Dior as a spendthrift and tax evader, a tough, at times imperious boss, a captive of his own success?tormented by anxieties even in his sleep?who wasted himself in the frenzied pursuit of living like a lord to make up for years of struggle. Pochna's previous books include bios of billionaire Gianni Agnelli and fashion designer Nina Ricci. Photos.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gone are the days when a single fashion designer's dictate could evoke as much adulation?and condemnation?as did Dior's tiny-waisted, bouffant-skirted New Look in 1947. Almost single-handedly, Dior revived the postwar French fashion industry, and he was the first fashion designer to be accepted by high society. Pochna interviewed over 90 people who recalled the sensational popularity of the plain, shy, bourgeois boy who only discovered his life's work when he was 40. "Dior was a gentle, kind man who had concern about the aesthetics of the world in which he lived," notes Stanley Marcus. This book deals more frankly?though still reverently?with Dior's personal life than either the autobiographical Christian Dior and I (LJ 8/57) or Francoise Giroud's sumptuous Dior (LJ 1/88), both out of print. Although only 32 pages of black and white photographs are planned, this is highly recommended for all fashion and biography collections.?Therese Duzinkiewicz Baker, Western Kentucky Univ. Libs., Bowling Green
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The author of biographies of Gianni Agnelli and Nina Ricci, Ms. Pochna brings to her subject a reporter's doggedness and a mechanic's knack for assembling a whole from dozens of parts.... Ms. Pochna does her best to document the domestic landscape of Dior's early childhood, the impressions that must have contributed to his formation ...

Although somewhat diluted by time, competition, and a proliferation of both good and bad licensees, the name Christian Dior still manages to retain its cachet of high couturier-dom. Journalist Pochna, who has biographies of Nina Ricci and Gianni Agnelli also in her portfolio, documents with almost a fictional style Dior's all-too-brief tenure (10 years) as the head of the House of Dior. Much interior gazing extends beyond the details of his life: the attachment to his mother; the discreet liaisons with young men who turn into friends, not lovers; and the mercurial temperament yet shy demeanor that made him fashion's (and the press') darling. A bohemian life in Paris after World War I led initially to a stint as an art gallery owner and finally to his lifelong dream of fashion design. A preface from famed retailer Stanley Marcus simply underscores Dior's charisma as the "merchant of ideas." Just translated from the French in time for New York City's Metropolitan Museum's 50-year retrospective. Barbara Jacobs

European-celeb biographer Pochna writes a serviceable history of Christian Dior on the 50th anniversary of the ``New Look.'' In February 1947 Dior launched a postwar fashion revolution, dubbed the New Look by Harper's Bazaar. Dior, 42 when the first collection was shown, was a late bloomer. Not fashionable-looking at all, he was a chubby, bald man (he once escaped a Chicago train station filled with angry demonstrators awaiting his arrival because he didn't resemble anyone's idea of a fashion arbiter). He was born in Normandy to upper-middle-class parents who made their fortune manufacturing fertilizer. He disappointed his family by having no aptitude for their business, and sadly, they did not live to see him become the first couturier to make millions licensing his name. Dior spent an exhilarating youth mixing with the revolutionary artists of 1920s Paris. During the Depression, when his father lost his entire fortune, Christian began to work as a fashion illustrator and designer. After the war, he was bankrolled in his own house by the textiles billionaire Marcel Boussac. Dior envisioned ``a very small, very exclusive house . . . going back to the great traditions of luxury in French couture.'' He wanted to design for a few elegant, exquisite women, and after the deprivations of war, he wanted to make women beautiful again. Pochna uses the present-tense and lots of exclamation points to re-create the excitement of the debut showing, when the world first saw his tight bodices, wasp waists, and skirts made of 40 yards of material. The book is marred by repetitions and some contradictions (e learn three times, for example, that Dior's mother would have hated to see his name in front of a shop). Pochna exhibits a personal charm that must have helped win her some difficult interviews, but the bio often seems disjointed and unpolished. (32 pages b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In 1947 Dior's first fashion show appeared in Paris and won him instant acclaim as the "king of fashion". Pochna's biography of Dior presents a fine, in-depth examination of the figure whose New Look entered Paris at just the right moment. Personal biographical notes blend with artistic and design observations in a well-rounded coverage.

Chronicles the rise to fame of the world-renowned designer, beginning in 1947 with the introduction of his "New Look," the reestablishment of Paris as the center of the fashion world as a result, and his continuing influence on fashion today.