Christian Dior

Published 50 years after Christian Dior's "New Look" of 1947, and accompanying an exhibition at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, this book presents a chronology of Dior's creations. They are drawn chiefly from the Costume Institute's collections, which include an extensive record of the designer's achievement as recognized by his New York clients of the 1940s and 1950s. Among the illustrations are extravagant evening wear, chic accessories, and details of Dior tailoring, as well as documentary photographs from the Dior Archives, Paris. The text places Dior's achievement in the cultural perspective of post-war renewal: the desire for optimism, the return to innocence, and the reclaiming of the pleasures of fine clothing and other sumptuary arts. Analyzing the "New Look", the authors set out to demonstrate the abiding impact of Dior's formulation of an icon for fashion's post-war renaissance.