Haute Couture
Christian Dior, it seems, is a man misunderstood. For a week the jackdaws of the fashion world pecked and chattered and quarrelled about the length of his hem line. But all the time, as he has now revealed, "M. Dior's revolution was aimed at the body." His "abolition" of the corset had been obscured by the swirl of the storm about skirts. The designer is entitled to an explanation of this misconception of his grand design. The explanation is that he is asking too much of his less wealthy followers. The dictators of fashion, like all dictators, are tyrants. All women are their subjects, but some women are more their subjects than others. Those who buy at Dior and Fath, at Digby Morton or Victor Stiebel, are nearer the thrpne and also nearer the tyrant. They are subject not merely to the silhouette but to every seam and dart and pleat, to the virtuosity of the vendeuses, to the subtlety of the master's hand. So if he says: "Corsets, or my line will be ruined," they wear corsets because they pay 200,000 francs for his line. And if he says: "No corsets, or the new line will be ruined," they cease to wear them so that they will get the best from the 250,000 francs which alone will buy the new line. By these, M. Dior will always be understood. But the less fortunate, who buy clothes at Marks and Spencers, or even at Bonwit Tellers or the Trois Quartiers, may be less ready for quick double changes. They too will sooner or later discover that the outlines of the prevailing silhouette have been blown like a wisp of smoke by a slight puff from the Autumn collections. The tyrant will have successfully tyrannised. But unless he is prepared to lend his cutters for a nominal fee to Oxford Street, he must share with the prophets and Mr. Adlai Stevenson the risk of asking too much of most of his audience.
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