Hotel de Ville's Christian Dior Wire-Topped Sunglasses, Red-Black/Gold accents
View Similar Items
Hotel de Ville's Christian Dior Wire-Topped Sunglasses, Red-Black/Gold accents
About the Item
- Designer:
- Brand:
- Style:Art Deco (Of the Period)
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Seller Location:Los Angeles, CA
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU39021907953
Christian Dior
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.
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 evening 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.
- Sting vintage sunglasses, Italy 90sBy Sting, De rigoLocated in Santa Clarita, CAMAKE: Sting MODEL: 4244 - 590 MADE IN: Italy ERA: 1980s CONDITION: New Old Stock [never worn] DIMENSIONS: Lens width: 52 mm / 2 1/16 in Lens height: 35 mm / 1 3/8 in Bridge: 20 ...Category
1980s Italian Sunglasses
- Lozza rectangular vintage sunglasses 80sBy Lozza, De rigoLocated in Santa Clarita, CALozza established in 1878, Lozza is the oldest eyewear brand in Italy, always a forerunner in its choice of styles and materials: in the '20s it launched the first sunglasses in cell...Category
1980s Italian Sunglasses
- Lozza oval vintage sunglasses 80sBy Lozza, De rigoLocated in Santa Clarita, CALozza established in 1878, Lozza is the oldest eyewear brand in Italy, always a forerunner in its choice of styles and materials: in the '20s it launched the first sunglasses in cell...Category
1980s Italian Sunglasses
- Lozza rectangular vintage sunglasses 80sBy Lozza, De rigoLocated in Santa Clarita, CALozza established in 1878, Lozza is the oldest eyewear brand in Italy, always a forerunner in its choice of styles and materials: in the '20s it launched the first sunglasses in cell...Category
1980s Italian Sunglasses
- Lozza oval vintage sunglasses, ItalyBy Lozza, De rigoLocated in Santa Clarita, CALozza established in 1878, Lozza is the oldest eyewear brand in Italy, always a forerunner in its choice of styles and materials: in the '20s it launched the first sunglasses in cell...Category
1980s Italian Sunglasses
- Paul Smith PM 8203-S 1188/81 33PSC914Located in Dix hills, NYThis item will ship immediately!! Previously owned. Date Code :PM 8203-S 1188/81 Made In:ITALY Measurements: Length:6 " Width:5.75 " Height: 1.75" Signs of Wear: Dark marks on t...Category
20th Century Sunglasses
Recently Viewed
View AllRead More
Too Soon for the Return of ’90s Fashion? As If
There's a renewed appreciation for the era's aesthetic, perhaps most notably among millennials seeking authentic, easy style.
14 Iconic Luxury Handbags and the Stories behind Them
When the name of a bag is as well-known as its brand, you know it's a classic.