The Birth of Dior’s New Look
On a chilly morning in February, just two years after the Nazis had been driven out of Paris, the creme de la creme of the fashion world crowded into a room in an elegant hotel particulier not far from the Champs Elysees. The atmosphere was electric.
A shy, rather awkward, middle-aged fashion designer (just past his Uranus opposition) was launching his debut collection. He was already known within the Paris fashion industry for his exquisite flair, so expectations were high.
“I created the flower women with gentle shoulders and generous bosoms, with tiny waists like stems, and skirts belling out like petals.” — Christian Dior
As the soignee audience perched on their spindly chairs, expectations were met. The six mannequins came out in dress after dress, each one more voluptuous, more extravagant and more elegant than the last. Not only was it a flamboyant design statement, it was a showcase for the highly-skilled craftspeople of Paris: the seamstresses, the embroiderers, the milliners, the cutters. Paris’ haute couture tradition had made it Europe’s capital of fashion since the time of the Sun King. Before the show, there had been rumblings that the war had finished off Paris’ fashion supremacy. After the show, there was no doubt: Paris was back.
Christian Dior named the two lines he was showing Corolle, referring to the petals of a flower, and Huit, the figure eight. At the end of the show, Carmel Snow, a fashion maven over from America, rushed to congratulate him. “It’s quite a revolution dear Christian. Your dresses have such a new look,” she exclaimed. A Reuters journalist overheard her and the story went across the wires around the globe. The New Look was born.
The dresses that Dior showed that day would change what women around the world wore. Those tiny waists and full swishing skirts were replicated and reproduced from Cairo to Copacabana, Tokyo to Toledo. A dress that cost thousands to make in Paris was copied for a few pounds by clever seamstresses everywhere.
Very few fashions have become so mainstream, so fast, but the world was hungry for beauty, extravagance; and suddenly everyone could partake in a tiny bit of Paris.
We have an actual chart for the birth of the New Look. The show started at 10.30 on 12 February, 1947, time for everyone to have had a café noir and a croissant before gathering in the elegant rooms of 30 Avenue Montaigne.
Appropriately, Taurus is rising, ruled by Venus, but this Venus is in Capricorn and the goddess of beauty was the highest planet in the sky at that moment. Venus in Capricorn is all about good bones. In Capricorn, she’s classy and structured, just like Dior’s New Look. His ambition as a youngster had been architecture and his clothes had an architectural underpinning of corsetry and padding around the hips. The earthy Taurus Rising is also voluptuous, curvaceous, juicy and just beautiful.
I have read a lot of discussion about the New Look from fashion historians, but not one has mentioned how very sexy it is. It’s sexy to wear, with a tight waist and bare legs hidden under the massive corolle — like Marilyn Monroe standing over an air vent in The Seven Year Itch. That iconic dress, a variation almost 10 years later on the New Look, was designed by the costumier William Travilla.
Across from Taurus Rising is the Moon in sexy Scorpio. Both these signs are also associated with money, of course, and the money did just pour in for the house of Dior after this show. After Venus, the most highly placed astrological point is Black Moon Lilith, which is close to a conjunction, so here is real allure. Purity and lusciousness combined.
Of course, the other thing about the New Look was the sheer extravagance of the design. Some of the dresses use up to 14 yards of material. This, at a time when there was still rationing was wildly, gloriously extravagant — truly luxurious. That is another attribute of Venus in Capricorn.
Dior himself was a modest man, but also aware of his own unique talent. There’s real tension in his chart between the extraordinarily sensitive and exposed Moon in Cancer, and that original, airy Sun in Aquarius. The Sun is in a really tight conjunction with Ceres on one side and Chiron on the other. To be an artist, which Dior certainly was, you have to be able to make yourself vulnerable. See how Chiron is actually very close to the Ascendant on the day of the launch. Dior was said to be an anxious person, having to gird himself just to enter his own salon, carrying his wound with him.
On the other hand, he was helped by women — his customers, his sister, his managers, his seamstresses — and above all his millions of fans. These legions of women — Ceres conjoining the Sun from Capricorn. Ceres is the matronly mature woman, and the Moon is the young mother. Dior put women back on a pedestal, Venus exalted in Pisces; shone a light on them, Moon in Cancer in the 9th. That Moon is the highness planet but it is not the closest to an angle, That is his powerful Mars in Scorpio, driving the whole chart forward.
You often see some Scorpio in a designer’s chart. It may show expertise in cutting and ruthless perfectionism. This Scorpio Mars was also directly opposed by the Ascendant of the Launch. So the New Look is a reflection of some aspect of Dior’s own self. It is literally his regard. No wonder Chiron was rising when the show began. He was showing the world his soul.
See how the Venus-Lilith conjunction in the New Look is echoed in his own chart in imaginative Pisces. In fact, they sit just by his natal Uranus-Mercury conjunction, a sign of a highly original mind.
Note also how Pluto is approaching Dior’s midheaven on that fateful day. He was about to transform everything,
There is much more to unpick with these two charts. And they are relevant to today for several reasons. For a start. Dior’s Sun was at 0° Aquarius, where Pluto is spending so much time right now, creating another revolution. For another, Dior had lived through a terrifying time, the occupation of France. the disappearance of his sister who was in the resistance. She survived Ravensbruck. He wanted to create a new world to be part of something fresh, beautiful, to celebrate women and things that were real and tangible. We may be going through difficult times. And if we are not, there are people in the world who are. During the war, Dior kept going, kept designing. Employed by Lucien Lelong, he made clothes for Nazi wives. But their money was directly funding a tiny cog in the resistance.
One day, after the battle, we will need to recreate the beauty, cook again the delicious meal, dance again in the graceful shoes, fall in love again. These are the things of Venus. During the battle some of us must maintain the line of beauty, so the threads can be picked up on the other side.
“Fashion is an expression of faith. In this world of ours, that seeks to give away its secrets one by one, that feeds on false confidences and fabricated revelations, it is the very incarnation of mystery, and the best proof of the spell it casts is that, now more than ever, it is the topic on everyone’s lips.” –– Christian Dior
This piece was inspired by two things. In the summer, I visited Christian Dior’s house at Granville in Normandy, which has been turned into a lovely little museum. I have to admit, I fell in love with his gentle gracious nature, his love of the loveliness, and his mysticism. And I have just watched The New Look on Apple TV, which is so good. Ben Mendelsohn plays Dior and Juliette Binoche is blistering as Coco Chanel.
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So enjoyable to read how you delineate his chart. Thank you!
there is a lot more to see too! This was just a whisper.
Hello Christine,
Long time subscriber. I love your blog posts, esp. ones like this that really break down and analyze succinctly a historical moment.
Why thank you!
I always mean to be more, but so many other responsibilities press in!