Presents:
Christian Dior’s Collection “New Look”
“It’s such a New Look!”
1947 Spring/ Summer Collection
The New Look is the brainchild of the ever fabulous Christian Dior and was part of a post-war attempt to revive France’s internationally acclaimed fashion industry. The collection was launched in 1947 and was actually Dior’s first. He had been invited by a friend, Marcel Boussac, to breathe new life into his struggling clothing company. Boussac also had investments in textile mills so Dior’s vision of billowing skirts and excess use of fabric appealed to him. Boussac invested an unprecedented 60million Francs in launching Dior’s couture house which went on to be one of, if not the, biggest influence on post-war fashion. The 1947 spring/summer collection was originally made up of two lines, ‘Corolle’ and ‘Huit’ however the term ‘New Look’ is said to have came about after Harper’s Bazaar’s editor-in-chief, Carmel Snow, exclaimed “It’s such a new look!”.
The signature style was made up of certain key elements; full-skirts, waspy waists and soft shoulders. After wartime rationing the yards and yards of fabric used in the designs was a refreshing change. As we all know, after the war women were encouraged to become homemakers once again, moving out of the workplace, and therefore the feminine, flowery and certainly impractical nature of this fashion was positively encouraged in Western countries. Although Dior used a slightly masculine edge, as it was popular in the 1940s, he wanted to veer away from this and encourage women to embrace more feminine styles again – he was particularly fond of the 1930s version of femininity in fashion. He claimed that he wanted ‘to bring back beauty, feminine clothing, soft rounded shapes and full flowing skirts’.
Bar Suit Made in Paris 1947 Plain woven silk tussore, pleated wool crĂŞpe, stiffened taffeta, lined with silk, padded
This Bar Suit is one of the iconic images from the collection as it encompasses the central themes of the style. The suit delicately displays the feminine body however the tailored jacket adds just the perfect touch of structure to the overall look.
We can see a couple of examples from this collection which incorporates softer touches such as the ruffling at the collar of the jacket. The white dress puts emphasis on the bust and hips, another trademark of this collection which enhances the hourglass form beyond the mere nipping in of waists. After his initial 1947 collection, Dior became much more extreme in his designs as rationing and the war became a distant memory he used fabric in excess and his styles oozed opulence. He put particular emphasis on further highlighting the waspy waist byexcess layering of materials so as the exaggerate the hourglass curves. He also used in-built padding to create the silhouette.
Dior particularly loved to be flamboyant when it came to his evening dresses where he could really experiment with mass quantities of fabric. He was particularly fond of strapless evening dresses and used built-in feather boning to hold the dresses up which was a feat of engineering in itself as they were rather on the large side. Tulle was often the fabric of choice for his evening wear skirts as it naturally creates light-weight volume. (left)
Venus
Made in French 1949 Silk, sequins, rhinestones, simulated pearls (Facing page)
Black Dress
soft shoulder with ruffling on jacket.
White Dress
emphasis on bust/hips trademark hourgrass look