Christian Dior Haute Couture Gown by John Galliano
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Christian Dior Haute Couture Gown by John Galliano
About the Item
This is early Galliano for Dior at his best, when his dresses were cut on the bias and created a dramatic silhouette, often with historical references. This dress could be at home in an Edwardian dining room, on the red carpet, or trailing down the stairs at an important gala. The gown is a flattering combination of midnight navy, with a contrasting cowl of mink-colored fabric revealed at the dramatically draped back. So subtle, sophisticated and super sexy! The specially woven fantasy fabric is like a boucle knit which captures the light and softly shimmers.
In front, the bodice sits just barely off the shoulders and finishes down to slim stovepipe sleeves with a slight slit at the thumb. The bodice finishes at the natural waist, and then curves down, skimming the hips and draping to a narrow skirt in the front.
From the gorgeous, back-baring cowl, the dress skims the hips and narrows to an inverted fishtail pleat in the back, finishing with a narrow but dramatic sweeping train.
The inner boned corset in navy silk belies the soft exterior look of this gown, but it is highly constructed; there are five sets of zippers providing great support and keeping everything in its place. The Christian Dior Haute Couture label and item number are clearly visible.
Talk about an exit maker! Think Hilary Swank at the Oscars --in this spectacular number, it's all about the back. Put your hair in a french twist, clasp a diamond choker to your neck and get ready to be the talk of the town.
Bust 35"
Waist 26" (yes 26")
Hips 40"
Length 58"
Sleeve 23"
Pristine condition
- Designer:
- Brand:
- Dimensions:Marked Size: 6-8 (US)
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Material Notes:Silk lined Fantasy Fabric
- Condition:Excellent.
- Seller Location:Cloverdale, CA
- Reference Number:1stDibs: AU11012758582
Christian Dior Haute Couture
When Christian Dior launched his haute couture house, in 1946, he wanted nothing less than to make “an elegant woman more beautiful and a beautiful woman more elegant.” He succeeded, and in doing so the visionary designer altered the landscape of 20th century fashion. Vintage Dior bags, shoes, evening dresses, shirts and other garments and accessories are known today for their feminine and sophisticated sensibility.
Dior was born in Granville, on the Normandy coast, in 1905. His prosperous haute bourgeois parents wanted him to become a diplomat despite his interest in art and architecture. However, they agreed to bankroll an art gallery, which Dior opened in 1928 in Paris with a friend.
This was the start of Dior’s rise in the city’s creative milieu, where he befriended Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau. After seven years as an art dealer, Dior retrained as a fashion illustrator, eventually landing a job as a fashion designer for Robert Piguet, and in 1941, following a year of military service, he joined the house of Lucien Lelong. Just five years later, with the backing of industrialist Marcel Boussac, the ascendant Dior established his own fashion house, at 30 avenue Montaigne in Paris.
Two years after the end of World War II, the fashion crowd and the moribund haute couture industry were yearning, comme tout Paris, for security and prosperity, desperate to discard the drab, sexless, utilitarian garb imposed by wartime deprivation. They needed to dream anew.
And Dior delivered: He designed a collection for a bright, optimistic future.
“It’s quite a revolution, dear Christian!” exclaimed Carmel Snow, the prescient American editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, famously proclaiming, “Your dresses have such a new look.” The press ran with the description, christening Dior’s debut Spring/Summer haute couture collection the New Look. “God help those who bought before they saw Dior,” said Snow. “This changes everything.”
Dior’s collection definitively declared that opulence, luxury and femininity were in. His skirts could have 40-meter-circumference hems, and outfits could weigh up to 60 pounds. They were cut and shaped like architecture, on strong foundations that molded women and “freed them from nature,” Dior said. Rather than rationing, his ladies wanted reams of fabric and 19-inch waists enforced by wire corsets, and the fashion world concurred. The debut got a standing ovation.
In the subsequent decade, Paris ruled as the undisputed fashion capital of the world, and Christian Dior reigned as its king. With the luxuriously full skirts of his New Look, suits and his drop-dead gorgeous couture evening dresses and ball gowns worthy of any princess, Dior gave women the gift of glamour they’d lost in the miserable years of war.
Find vintage Dior haute couture dresses and gowns for sale on 1stDibs.
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