At the age of five his family relocated to Paris and the young Dior was exposed to a vast array of alternative career ideas.
During his twenties grappled with a series of family misfortunes. Both his elder brother Raymond and his mother Madeleine died, and the family business was ruined in the wake of the stock exchange crash of 1929.
Through friend Jean Ozenne Dior was inspired to try his hand at fashion sketching as a means of earning some money. His sketches for hats were noted at the time as being particularly good. This marked the point at which Dior, now in his thirties, started to work in the fashion world, being employed at first as a fashion illustrator for couturiers, milliners and newspapers.
In 1938 Dior was hired as a design assistant for fashion house Robert Piguet, where he worked for a year until he was called up for war service.
After demobilisation Dior took a position as designer with Lucien Lelong, where he worked alongside another young fashion designer, Pierre Balmain. During the 1920s to 1940s it was one of the most successful houses operating in Paris, and as president of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, Lelong played a critical role in protecting the French couture industry during the German occupation. Dior recalled:
‘Neither Balmain nor I will ever forget that in spite of wartime restrictions and the constant fear of closing, Lelong taught us our profession’.
The stage was set for the establishment of a new couture house for postwar Paris. Later Dior reflected:
I wanted a house in which every single thing would be new, from the ambience and staff down to the furniture and even address. All around us life was beginning anew: it was time for a new trend in fashion.
Parfums Christian Dior is founded By Christian Dior and headed by childhood friend Serge Heftler Louiche. Dior names the first perfume Miss Dior in honour of his sister Catherine.
Dior negotiates an agreement with Sydney fashion label House of Youth for the reproduction of exclusive Christian Dior–New York models for the Australian market.
Christian Dior appeared on the cover of Time magazine (4 March).
On 24 October Christian Dior dies of a heart attack at the age of 52 in Montecatini, Italy. Christian Dior Couture produces fifty per cent of all French haute couture exports.
A major retrospective exhibition is held at the Museé des Arts Décoratifs to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the House of Dior.
The House of Dior was established in 1946, and its first haute couture collection was shown in 1947. It is now seventy years since Christian Dior presented his vision to reinvigorate the ailing postwar French fashion industry and created a couture house whose reach and relevance is still felt globally today. Founding the house at the age of forty-one, Christian Dior oversaw the growth, success and influence of the label during its first ten years, until his untimely death in 1957. He was highly influential in redefining the feminine postwar silhouette in the late 1940s to mid-1950s by introducing styles that featured rounded shoulders, exaggerated padded hips and full skirts made with an abundance of fabric. Dior was an extraordinary designer, entrepreneur and visionary who had a lasting impact on mid twentieth-century fashion and culture. Shaped by the constraints and opportunities of the tumultuous era in which he lived, Dior carved out a groundbreaking path in fashion and has become an inspiration to generations of designers including the six creative directors who have succeeded him at Dior.