Christian Dior’s Most Famous Silhouettes in Vogue

“If there could be a composite, mythical woman dressed by a mythical, composite couturier,” wrote Vogue in the April 1, 1947, issue, “she would probably wear her skirt about 14 inches from the floor; it might have, for its working model a flower: petals of padding and stiffening seen beneath the cup of the skirt.” In other words, she’d be wearing the New Look silhouette introduced by Dior in his debut collectsion, the most iconic example of which is the Bar suit.

“Take last season’s round hipline, small shoulder, pulled-in waist, longer skirt, and emphasize each; stress the bosom, the derrière; add a side-moving hat . . .”

The Envol Line: “The new ‘zigzag’ cut of Dior; a glove-close top, a skirt manipulated entirely at the back.”

The Cloche: Left: “The wide flaring silhouette: The cloche. Gentle natural shoulders; lamp-shade draping; the cummerbund waistline. . . .” Right: Photographed in the gardens of the Grand Trianon, “Dior’s big satin dress, pearl-grey, stately, the extraordinary décolletage drapery slanted high above one shoulder, and balanced by a bow at the side-back; the skirt a sweeping fullness of doubly inverted pleats.”

(Kangaroo) pockets and panels.

The Blused Line: “An ample line, belted in, with soft bulk somewhere, either above or below the waist.”

The Vertical Line: “Vertical is the new word.” Narrow works, too.

The Oblique Line: “Wrapped, jutted, buttoned, slanting lines.”

“Dior’s collectsion was his best since his first sensation. Dior, who gave the padded, pleated New Look its name, turned his back on all padding and stiffening, and only used pleats when they were clinging like fluted columns. He made carved oval dresses. . . .”

The Long Line

“The waist is what catches the eye right away.”

“Dior’s ‘Queen of Hearts’ profile follows the molded body line to the waist, with a stiff, standout skirt-yoke holding out the skirt. The shaped profile swells out from the molded waist to a lightly rounded back or side. . . . Perfection of construction and execution make Dior’s collectsion a strong fashion force.”

The Tulip Line: “It’s definite, now: Dior believes that a woman’s waist should be molded, her body silhouetted. His figurine figure of last season has crystallized this way—into a line that’s a slender, curving stalk for three-fourths of the way, and after that, at the top, a flowering of fullness. The comparison seems inevitable: it’s a tulip—and the exact reverse of Dior’s former tulip-line where the flare was at the hem.”

“. . . the hemlines that made the news was Dior’s—so short in some cases that it made its point dramatically but it was downright unwearable; just short enough in others (left and right) so that any woman with good legs and a strong appetite for fashion news will be tempted to try it.”

“What do they do for relaxation, Dior’s new clothes? They just take everything a lot easier now. Jackets are shorter, more lenient; many are bloused. Skirts, even the straight ones, are far more livable. This is something of a millennium, this much ease from Dior. But one thing’s sure: It’s easier said than done.”

The H Line: “Even at Dior . . . the news is as much in the look as in the line. His sheathed bosom is actually an accessory to a new kind of femininity: subtler, not at all insistent, full of a charming reserve.”

The A Line: “An ‘A’ set in the most beautiful fashion type—slender shoulders for the apex; sides slanting gently to the base, the hem.”

The Y Line: “Bulk above slimness.”

“A waistline that dawned (it’s very subtle) as almost the newsiest Spring line in Paris—the work of the jacket that Dior calls the ‘caraco.’”

“It came in, quiet as a mouse, at the Dior opening; left the room (and the world of fashion) buzzing. . . . Yes, the elegance is unquestioned. No, they’re not a fluke; the noticeably longer skirt is prophetic, perhaps for next spring, almost certainly for next autumn. Now? Experiment—inch by inch.”

The 7/8ths Length: “The continuous, flowing, soft line, shoes to hat.”

The unfitted dress . . . “masks the contours of the body with an ease as plotted as a compass reading.”