CHRISTIAN DIOR, Paris (couture house)<br />
 Christian DIOR (designer)<br />
 (FRANCE) (fashion house)<br/>
<em>Evening ensemble</em> 1951 {Natural (Naturelle) line, spring-summer 1951} <!-- (front 3/4 left) --><br />

silk, rayon, cotton, baleen, metal<br />
(a) 57.0 cm (centre back) 24.0 cm (waist, flat) (Boston, bodice) (b) 115.0 cm (centre back) 26.0 cm (waist, flat) (skirt)<br />
couture no: 16778<br />
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne<br />
Presented through the NGV Foundation from the wardrobe of Mrs Mavis Powell by her daughter Mrs Angela Wood, Fellow, 2001<br />
2001.217.a-b<br />
© Christian Dior Couture
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Christian Dior Evening ensemble autumn-winter, Profile line collection 1952

CHRISTIAN DIOR, Paris (couture house)
 Christian DIOR (designer)

Christian Dior’s ‘New Look’, launched in February 1947, changed the shape of fashion for the next decade. As Dior himself wrote, ‘In December 1946, as a result of the war and uniforms, women still looked and dressed like Amazons. I designed clothes for flower-like women, with rounded shoulders, full feminine busts, and hand-span waists above enormous spreading skirts’.