The Son Of A Manufacturer Who Invented Christian Dior

christian dior lived a life full of unexpected changes from extreme wealth and abundance to dire poverty and homelessness and back again want to know how this unusual visionary managed to establish one of the most powerful brands on the planet then keep watching christian dior was born on the 21st of january 1905 in granville a seaside town in the north of france his family later moved to the bustling city of paris and this is where christian would spend his youth he was the second of five children born to madeleine and alexandra dior and his father alexandra was the owner of a highly successful fertilizer manufacturer it was thanks to this that the dior family lived such a comfortable bourgeois life at least for some time as a boy little christian lived in his own world he was amused by anything that was sparkling or frivolous but his greatest love was for flowers and plants he was also passionate about art and he hoped to someday become an architect his father however had other plans for him alexandra didn't think his son would be able to make a living for himself as an artist and instead he wanted him to become a diplomat although it didn't interest young dior at all he eventually caved to his father's wishes and in 1925 he enrolled at the prestigious ecole des sciences politics his major political science this way he would surely find work as a diplomat later on after his graduation in 1928 23 year old dior found his way back to the creative world he opened a small art gallery with his father's money and in exchange for the financial support his father's only demand was that the family name should not appear above the gallery or be used in connection with it happy to finally be able to get into art again christian quickly accepted and in a short time the gallery was open he sold art by the likes of pablo picasso georgia brock jean cocteau and max jacob but in 1931 the unimaginable happened both christian's mother and older brother passed away and due to the great depression his father lost control of the family business just three years after setting the place up christian was forced to close it again and financial troubles were looming losing his mother and brother deeply affected the young christian and without financial help from his father he was now forced to find creative ways to earn a living to make ends meet he sold all the stocks of the gallery but this wasn't enough he lost his apartment and had to sleep on a friend's floor but his darkest days were yet to come due to his poor diet and subpar living conditions christian contacted tuberculosis and he spent a year in recovery so far so failed you might think but dior was a survivor and once healed he found new ways to make money he started out by selling his fashion sketches for about 10 cents each and not much later he also began selling sketches of hat designs to newspapers dior clearly had a talent and he was offered a job as a design assistant with swiss-born but paraspace courtier robert peugeot dior later said that robert peugeot taught me the virtues of simplicity through which true elegance must come working with robert was dior's first step towards a serious involvement in fashion and it opened many doors for him too however he would only get to explore those some years later because now the second world war began and dior was called up for military service by the french army while some sources say that he served as an officer others state that he did compulsory farm work but one thing is certain dior did not stay until the very end of the war instead he opted out returned to paris and began working in haute couture for lucian lelong lucian was more a businessman than a designer but he cleverly employed young talents to produce ideas which he then edited into a collection throughout the remaining years of the war lelong's design house dressed the women of both nazis and french collaborators and dior's ambition slowly but surely began to sprout into his own ideas for a business at the end of the war millionaire marcel busak noticed that he had factories standing idle to keep the machines running he wanted to buy a new fashion house and seeing dior's potential he invited him over he offered him the opportunity to receive a defunct fashion house called felipe egeston but dior refused by now christian was no longer interested in simply working for others and he surely wasn't going to try and raise a failed company from the dead either no what he wanted was to make a fresh start under his own name forget trying to revive other people's brands he wanted to create his own and luckily for him busak agreed the millionaire handed him a large sum of money and with his financial banking a 41 year old dior could now launch his true career that same year he opened up his very own boutique at the famous local 30 avenue montane and the christian dior brand was finally created dior's father died in december of that year but i guess we can assume that this time he didn't have a problem with his son using the family name in the following months christian began working harder than ever before and while he may have achieved a degree in political science it quickly became clear that his true education came from somewhere else associating with so many of the world's greatest artists had instilled a unique eye for fashion in him and his privileged early years truly shown through during the previous two decades a pragmatic trend had taken over the entire fashion industry this trend had reached its pinnacle during the second world war when clothing was rationed but dior had never been a fan of it he wasn't interested in pragmatism he wanted dreams and glamour and now that the war was over he felt that it was time for a change he wanted to reintroduce femininity and a focus on luxury and what better way to do that than by creating a collection that was unashamedly decadent spurred on by his inspiration it took less than three months from the brand's creation to launch its first couture collection the big flower lover that he was dior named the collection corolla and the pieces were truly groundbreaking at the time the look harked back to an earlier bella poke silhouette and it was romantic lavish and feminine all at the same time think lifted busts softly sloped shoulders clinched in corseted waists and puffy long skirts with taffeta and tulle the garments were opulent and each dress had an average of 20 yards of fabric as you can guess this didn't necessarily make them easy to wear but the designs were revolutionary and the collection was a huge success however not everyone was pleased and one person in particular made some snarky remarks coco chanel you see at that time dior style was dubbed the new york the reason for this is that his look was so different from the androgynous styles which had been all the rage until then more specifically the androgynous style which chanel had been a pioneer coco was the patron saint of pants and to her dior's pieces seemed too stiff too fussy and most importantly too hard to breathe in she accused him of dragging women back to the 19th century ideals of femininity and she once even growled dior doesn't dress women he upholsters them of course dior himself saw it differently and he once said i think of my work as ephemeral architecture dedicated to the beauty of the female body in the united states however many women agreed with coco and when dior visited in the autumn of 1947 demonstrators welcomed him with placards urging him to go home despite the backlash in the u.s dior persevered by now he was already a major player in the revival of couture in france but he wanted to expand even further and this globalization went rather quickly one year after launching his collection he opened a store in new york city and with the global launch came an expanded collection as well dior understood that to continue his legacy he needed to provide the entire fashion experience so like many other fashion houses he began with creating a fragrance he called it miss dior and it served as an ode to his sister catherine later he also licensed the dior name for accessories now dior lovers could fully capture the new york look from head to toe by buying the clothes the jewelry and the smell in the following years the brand continued to flourish dior went on to dress the biggest stars of the time and by the mid-1950s the house of dior was a highly respected fashion empire it was also around this time that the now world famous yves saint laurent entered the picture the fresh-faced 19-year-old initially began working as dior's assistant but it didn't take long for dior to notice his potential in fact he admired the young boy's eye for fashion so much that he wanted him to be his successor when the time would come little did anyone know that time would come sooner than expected in 1957 dior traveled to italy to vacation in the town of monte catini but while there he suffered his third heart attack and died at the age of 52. the entire fashion world felt the loss deeply and to keep the brand from veering off course eve was given the role of artistic director the young talent kept christian's legacy and create a vision alive by using the same fabrics and proportions but he also introduced a softer silhouette and pieces that were lighter and easier to wear while many collections were a hit the industry struggled to accept someone else leading the brand and when eve was drafted into the french army in 1960 dior's management didn't object to him leaving following eve's departure mark bohan was appointed creative head in the late 1960s he instilled a more conservative style and brought the label's designs back to follow more closely what christian dior himself had done he took the classic concept and brought it into the 1960s by streamlining it slightly this gave it a more modern twist while still sticking to the christian dior look with mark at the helm dior once again became the feminine brand beloved by so many and the subsequent collections were a hit mark was quickly credited as the man who kept the dior label at the forefront of fashion and women's wear daily even went as far as to claim that he rescued the firm for over a decade mark continued to build the brand making it even more internationally successful than ever before stores started popping up in more cities like london and hong kong and the dior fashion house was catapulted to the top of the industry by the late 1970s dior had created a worldwide brand recognition but it had unfortunately also become a hidden asset inside a failing conglomerate called busak samfrere in 1978 the busac group filed for bankruptcy and that also included its assets someone was very happy with this news though bernard arno the billionaire who's currently running the lvmh empire ever since he was a young boy bernard had been obsessed with dior and the idea of buying up its parent company was music to his ears when arnaud took charge of dior he assumed the roles of chairman ceo and managing director over the years a slew of impressive creative directors also added their own little twists to the brand's looks and despite later being folded into lvmh dior continued to be its own impressive stand-alone brand today dior is doing well it recorded a revenue of 28.7 billion euros in the first half of 2021 and the brand can rightly be titled as the epitome of the fashion industry the luxurious fashion house has always strived to create an enduring image of itself and it has become known for its meticulous attention to detail it imbues its wearers with an innate sense of style no matter the season or the time of day and it doesn't seem like that'll change anytime soon this was the story of christian dior the revolutionary visionary who almost ended up as a diplomat just to please his father it took him four decades to put on a show but when his first collection finally launched the whole world took note and although he passed away over a half century ago his dior legacy has continued to rule the high seas of fashion ever since i hope you enjoyed this video let us know what you learned from it and don't forget to check out our channel for more inspiring business videos

Channel: Business Stories

Views: 655,450

Keywords: Business Stories, Christian Dior, Dior, Christian Dior documentary, christian dior founder, how christian dior was made, how christian dior invented fashion, christian dior biography, christian dior fashion, dior clothing, dior brand, dior history, christian dior history

Id: qeElKsFeZ2Y

Length: 15min 37sec (937 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 30 2021