Pink Dior Bikini

When Christian Dior launched his 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.

Dior was born in Granville, on the Normandy coast, in 1905. His prosperous haute bourgeois parents wanted him to become a diplomat despite his interest in art and architecture. However, they agreed to bankroll an art gallery, which Dior opened in 1928 in Paris with a friend.

This was the start of Dior’s rise in the city’s creative milieu, where he befriended Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau. After seven years as an art dealer, Dior retrained as a fashion illustrator, eventually landing a job as a fashion designer for Robert Piguet, and in 1941, following a year of military service, he joined the house of Lucien Lelong. Just five years later, with the backing of industrialist Marcel Boussac, the ascendant Dior established his own fashion house, at 30 avenue Montaigne in Paris.

Just two years after the end of World War II, the fashion crowd and the moribund haute couture industry were yearning, comme tout Paris, for security and prosperity, desperate to discard the drab, sexless, utilitarian garb imposed by wartime deprivation. They needed to dream anew.

And Dior delivered: He designed a collection for a bright, optimistic future. “It’s quite a revolution, dear Christian!” exclaimed Carmel Snow, the prescient American editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, famously proclaiming, “Your dresses have such a new look.” The press ran with the description, christening Dior’s debut Spring/Summer haute couture collection the New Look. “God help those who bought before they saw Dior,” said Snow. “This changes everything.”

Dior’s collection definitively declared that opulence, luxury and femininity were in. His 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. With the luxuriously full skirts of his New Look, suits and his drop-dead gorgeous couture dresses and ball gowns worthy of any princess, Dior gave women the gift of glamour they’d lost in the miserable years of war.

On 1stDibs, find an exquisite range of vintage Christian Dior clothing, jewelry, handbags and other items.

From Esther Williams’s glamorous one-piece wonders to Brigitte Bardot’s bombshell bikini on the beaches of Cannes, swimwear has made headlines and raised eyebrows for years. After all, who doesn’t want to wear alluring vintage or designer swimwear for a trip to the beach or poolside relaxation?

Design, style and the amount of skin shown have all made news when it comes to swimwear. While in the 19th century women often sported skirts over bloomers when they visited the shore, by the early 20th century, many were wearing sleek Jantzen suits that would influence the swimsuits women wear today.

By the mid-century, cutouts and two-piece suits were pushing the boundaries of swimwear, with designer Rudi Gernreich debuting the daring topless monokini in 1964. In the 1970s, legendary designers such as Halston were applying an evening-wear aesthetic to swimwear, adding plunging necklines, ruching and even beadwork. Maillots and bikinis began to feature strapless designs.

Jean Paul Gaultier, Christian Dior, Balenciaga, Elsa Schiaparelli and Versace are among the designers who have left their mark in the swimwear world with bold prints and cuts as well as a wide range of dazzling embellishments.

Today, swimsuits are crafted with both function and style in mind for swimming, lounging and making a statement in and out of the water. Browse an extensive collection of vintage and designer swimwear on 1stDibs.