What is Dior best known for?

Dior is best known for his legendary fashion house and New Look collection.

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.

Two years after the end of World War II, the fashion crowd and the moribund haute couture industry were yearning for security and prosperity, desperate to discard the drab, sexless, utilitarian garb imposed by wartime deprivation. Dior’s New Look collection definitively declared that opulence, luxury and femininity were in.

Dior 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. Find vintage Dior dresses, skirts and other clothing and accessories on 1stDibs.