Christian Dior and House of Dior

Welcome to our latest in the series on iconic fashion designers.

Christian Dior - the fashion house, also known as House of Dior - was founded in 1946 in Paris by Christian Dior - the guy. World War Two was just over, and he decided the new era of peace and plenty needed new clothes, and came up with a famous silhouette that's actually a throwback to the Victorian era, without the bustle:

It even came with killer undergarments, a miniature corset:

It was called a 'waspie' by many people, in reference to the wasp-waist of Dior's fashions.

He called it 'corolle' or corolla, the circle of flower petals in a flower. But fashion commentary began calling it 'The New Look', and the name stuck.

The New Look was 'invented', so to speak, in 1946, but thanks to clothes rationing still in effect in many places, it didn't catch on until the 1950s. For several years, then, women couldn't decide if they liked it, or hated it because it covered up their legs, required corsets, and used an unholy amount of fabric. (Add in, on a personal note, I'll bet it was damn hot in summer.) But, really, it looked so good, as usual, women got suckered in.





By 1949 Dior fashions accounted for 5% of France's entire export revenue. For the entire freaking country. They began licensing the Dior name for parfum (ha, read too many French articles today), jewelery, lingerie, men's ties, well, you name it. The New Look appeared in Vogue - the real Vogue - in November 1954.

That clinched it. They were pretty much unstoppable.

Dior continued, grinding out variations on the theme, until he passed away in 1957. As well as a huge loss to his family, it threw a major wrench in the works at House of Dior. After a bit of a scramble, a new designer was located, and Yves Saint-Laurent was hired. (Yes, THAT Yves Saint-Laurent; give me a while, he'll get his own blog post eventually.) Unfortunately for St.L, about the same time he was hired, hippies in the US were burning their bras and wouldn't be caught dead in an actual CORSET, so between general chaos and changing markets, it was anybody's ball game for about six years. It shows in the clothes.



They went from a very well-defined design structure to, well, who-knows what. Although one awesome thing came from that design house, in that era: The trapeze dress or trapeze cut.

If you wear summer dresses, I bet you've got at least one, cut like this, in your closet. Both comfortable and flattering, it's quite a brilliant idea.

After 1965, House of Dior let St. Laurent go. They brought in Marc Bohan, who is given credit for 'rescuing' the fashion house and keeping it solvent. He went back to giving the nod to the New Look, while trying to update it, with varying amounts of success. There's only so much you can do with the New Look before it looks like Something Else. Still, there were hits.






And misses.





In their defense, Dior has always been known (well, almost always been known) for beautifully tailored clothes. So it was rough going in the seventies and eighties when everyone was ditching tailored anything and slouching around in loose, baggy clothes, and loafers with no socks. We rolled up the sleeves of our blazers, for crying out loud! What was Dior supposed to do?!? Okay, produce blazers with rolled sleeves, but adaptation is a bitch for any company.

I think during the eighties they survived on licensing, judging from the looks of the fashion books and sites I've looked at. Particularly sunglasses. Oh, and shoes. Unholy amounts of shoes.

In 1989 Bohan departed House of Dior (in a swirling cloud of parfum, no doubt) and Gianfranco Ferré replaced him, with another minor scrambling of the design concepts.






It's interesting, how every one of these designers managed to - for the most part - keep the wasp waist, mid-calf length, hourglass figure, even the monochrome color, yet totally mix it up.

John Galliano was the last change in designers in 1997, and heads House of Dior today. He kicked things off by going back to the original New Look (which was originally Victorian, har). His first collection with Dior got off to a real bang, with a sort of space-age New Look thing going on.



Totally. Badass. If I ever wore suits, I'd wear the hell out of one of those. In orange, please.

He followed it up with a ball gown.

New Look turned up to eleven.

So the New New Look is actually the Old New Look, and... oh, who cares. It's awesome.





And what inspired today's blog post? The Spring-Summer 2011 collection, of course.




Look familiar? Monsieur Dior would approve, I'm sure.

The dark side to Dior and his New Look is, of course, the impossible body image it conveys. It's been credited (by some) as almost singlehandedly causing the epidemic of anorexia. Although I think that's a little harsh, I do think that the New Look represents a huge step backward in terms of sensible and healthy clothing. Even now we're going through another round of girdles and corsets, as we rage about health and lifestyle. Dior didn't cause it, he certainly didn't invent it, but I wonder how we'd dress now, if no one had the grand idea, back in 1946, to put women back in 'waspies'.

Also?

I want to resurrect Christian Dior and hear what he's got to say to John Galliano about THIS:



ETA: As of March 1, 2011, John Galliano is no longer the head designer at House of Dior. We'll have to wait and see how the next person re-interprets the New Look.

What's up.

Well. I've been knitting! That project that needed a couple square feet of gauge swatches? The design and test-knit phase has begun.

When I do this kind of design (it's complicated, with cables integrated into the construction), I do the design and test knit at the same time. I've got the pattern about half worked out. As I go I'll work out the rest and take notes. Then, with luck, I'll do other sizes and possibly have some of you test knit, too.

The neck ribbing feels endless. This is my own fault, for being picky and wanting it JUST SO. It's a double thickness; knit it twice as long, fold it over, knit the beginning to the end, then go on to the rest of the sweater. It's awesome when done (this is the neck I put on the Blue Shimmer, among other things), but in progress it takes FOREVER. Ah well. This is how I learned patience. As much as I ever did.

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CROCUS ARE UP!

Of course, as I type we've got an inch of snow on the ground and more likely to fall, but that's early spring for you. Last fall I planted over a hundred bulbs, mostly in the back yard where I look out the window while I do dishes. Can't wait to see them come up. I love bulb flowers.

The Goober played outside the other day. She likes to collect leaves and sticks and that sort of thing. It was so windy she couldn't pile up the leaves like usual.

Being clever, she found a solution.

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Those of you who think I'm organized?

Ha. Ha, I say.

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When we lived in South Carolina, we had a nice little Mexican restaurant about, oh, three miles from our house. Probably closer to two. I'd really missed the place, so we tried the closest Mexican restaurant to our new place. It's further away, about five miles, but we can live with that. Really good food. I ate so much guacamole I nearly exploded. So we found our replacement.

The Goober is getting taco eating lessons.

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And here is a photo of the Goober stuck in her pajamas, just because it made me laugh.



Now I am going to go finish that neck ribbing, TONIGHT. Or else.

A military moment.

The husbeast and I were talking about this today - don't you hang out over dinner talking about WWII? - and I figured, hell, I don't have anything to blog about and you'll all be amused. So here you go. A moment in the life of a military wife.

Back when I busted my arm, I was in and out of orthopedics at the Army hospital every time I turned around. (Seriously. They were x-raying me monthly to make sure the hardware they put in me didn't shift around.) The Army hospital was also a VA hospital (Veteran's Affairs), so we had a lot of older folks in and out, both veterans and their wives.

I was sitting in the waiting room, which was very full, next to two men. One was an older guy in his late sixties at least, and the other was a young, gung-ho kid in uniform. He was Airborne for sure, I think a Ranger. Somehow the conversation turned to jumping out of airplanes, and the young kid kept going on about how he had over two hundred jumps. The older man quietly said that he'd jumped four times. While the young kid scoffed at that, I eyed the older man and thought, yeah, he looked about the right age to be a WWII veteran. So I politely asked him, if he didn't mind sharing the information, what four jumps were they?

A training jump in the US, D Day, Market Garden, and I thought Crete but now I'm not sure that's right. Probably Battle of the Bulge, now that I'm actually looking stuff up. Three major battles anyway.

Right then. The kid shut up. I shook the older man's hand and thanked him for his service, and he grinned and said I was welcome.

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Last night we went out for dinner (we found a new Mexican place to replace our beloved hole-in-the-wall we ate at all the time in Charleston). When we walked in, there was a table full of Navy guys, mostly in uniform, sitting near us. We assume it was some kind of regional meeting for recruiters. I begged the husbeast to let me go over and introduce myself. "Hi. I'm Julie. In the US Navy I'm known as THE BITCH WIFE." (One of his bosses actually called me that. Hahahah.)

He wouldn't let me. He's no fun.

ACK!

So much for that 'blog every day' idea. But when I don't blog, hey, lots to report!

Well, probably not that much.

The Goober tracked home a killer germ from hell that has lingered with all three of us, for weeks. Yay. Mine's turned into a sinus infection, I think the husbeast and the Goober are just fulla snot.

The whining and bitching that I've been doing about physical therapy is backing off some. I'm able to feel a difference by now, so, well. Obvious results make it a little easier to live with - even if my awesome PT keeps adding on exercises.

HOWEVER!

Since I've been sitting around at home, whining and full of green snot, I got some knitting done!

This is the last of the ridiculous amounts of gauge swatches I've knit for the current design I'm working on. (Am I the only one who knits up an entire swatch of Cascade 220 for this kind of thing?) Since I designed the twisted stitch pattern mostly from scratch (inspired by an old sock!) I had to knit the whole damn thing to make sure it worked. And, hey, didja know that cables and twists suck in more than regular stockinette? WHO KNEW! So there's that to fuck with, too. But I'm almost at the 'knit the damn thing' stage. Whee!

The Goober took her own picture yesterday.

Not the most flattering photo of her, ever, but still pretty funny. She's been having fun with the computer lately. I got her the "Crayola Art Studio" for Christmas, and now that she's got the hang of computers in general, well, she'd have carpal tunnel by now if I let her play as long and often as she wanted to.

Sekhmet still guards her, as often as not. Just like when the Goober was a baby.

Lately we've been making the Goober do pushups when she screws up. Willful screwups, not mistakes. Seems more humane than spanking her, and she's at an age where spanking is a little iffy, anyway. Nothing else works. So, pushups! I totally stole the idea from Sensei at karate class. He makes them do squats. Between the two of us, this kid's going to be well-mannered AND fit.

Oh, look! Kitty!

Brain hack.

I'm sharing this with everyone because my response was "WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE KNOW ABOUT THIS?!?!?!" which strikes me as a good reason. It's ridiculous that you've gotta bust yourself up and do hard time in a chronic pain clinic to learn some things. May it help all of you.

Disclaimer, I am not a physical therapist, let alone a neuroscientist. So I'm sure I don't understand 100% exactly how this works. But I do think I got the gist of it, and it's one of those lovely things that is completely safe unless you've got a compound fracture or other massive traumatic tissue damage, in which case, you will know it. It is definitely within the 'can't hurt, might help' category.

As I'm sure we all know, the brain gets massive amounts of information from our nervous systems, and has a protocol for what it ignores. Think about it; you can't pay attention to every signal coming in all the time. You just don't have the attention span for it. And you sure as hell don't need to be aware of EVERYTHING. Right now I bet you're not noticing the feel of your clothes pushing on your body, at least not until you think about it. Once you think about it, oh yeah, it's right there. Then you pay attention to something else, and it fades into the background again. That's the basis for this painkilling technique; distract the brain and give it something to pay attention to.

In the overall big picture, the brain pays attention to movement signals before it pays attention to sensory input (including pain), because it's REALLY important that we know where our arms and legs are and what they're doing. So there you go. Getting a pain signal from your hand? Wiggle it around a little. Your brain goes "ooh! movement!" and tracks on that rather than focusing on the pain. The pain is still there if you think about it, so don't. But this is a fantastic, almost instantaneous way to get dull aches and pains to shut the hell up for a while.

When being taught this, I remarked that it sounds like when you bump into something and then rub the ouch to make it go away. In terms of the brain it's not EXACTLY the same thing, but it's very similar.

The movement doesn't have to be large; it can be a small 1/4 inch or 1/2 cm wiggle. Just enough to get your brain's attention. Don't do it for more than thirty seconds. If it's going to work, it'll work in that first half minute. THIS DOES NOT FIX INJURY, including repetitive stress injuries, so don't knit for six hours straight, wiggle your fingers, and go back to it. But for shaking off the stupid aches and pains we all get in winter, it seems to work.

I've been fooling with this technique since Monday and I'm quite boggled at how well it works, and not just on my stupid hand. With luck it'll work as well for everyone else. And even if it doesn't, hey, no cost, no risk, no allergies, woohoo!

Famen Temple.

Today's blog post is inspired by troubles at the Penn Museum and their Silk Road exhibit that was supposed to open this weekend. China is dicking with them and it's gone horribly wrong. But it got me thinking of other awesomeness in Chinese history and archeology, and you're stuck now, reading about one of my all-time favorite archeological discoveries. This one is a favorite for the sheer HolyFuck awesomeness. And also because I imagine what it must have been like to be one of the first ones in the room - very much like Howard Carter and King Tut: Famen Temple's underground 'crypt'.

Traditionally, in China, there were sort of reverse-pilgrimages, when relics (in this case finger bones from the Buddha, from the looks of the official web site) were taken from their temple, carried about the countryside, and then replaced with many offerings and sealed up until the next round of processions. Larger, greater, more important temples, like the one in Famen, would get imperial offerings from the royal family as well as the wealthy from all over.

After a procession in 873CE (to the capital and back), all the offerings and the relics were gathered up, placed in an underground crypt, and sealed up with a really helpful detailed inventory. Normally, they would have been taken out every fifty years or so, send on another procession, and put away with more offerings.

Then they were forgotten. No one's sure why.

In 1984CE (like, when I was in high school), part of the pagoda at Famen Temple fell down. Nothing much happened - I assume because by then China was a communist country and in the eighties, China famously did not give a rip about religion. Eventually, local governments and some Buddhists got together and started cleaning up and digging out, and in 1987 they stumbled into that underground crypt packed to the rafters (do crypts have rafters?) with the best that the Tang Dynasty had to offer. Statues, textiles, scrolls, gold and silver, even musical instruments if my memory's working today. Can you imagine, standing there with your flashlight, with all of that looking back at you?

Among the nearly 2500 bits and bobs were over seven hundred textiles. Most of them were things historians had read about, but never seen. Famen figures largely in descriptions of textiles in particular, containing oldest known examples of all sorts of things. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of pictures available, at least not on the internet, or in any books I own. (I've been cruising the official web site, which is tedious in the extreme, considering I don't read Chinese. No pictures of artifacts I can find, lots of touristy stuff showing Buddhist festivals; cool, but not what I'm looking for. They wanted me to download a plugin to watch videos. Hahahahaha. NO. WAY.)

To give you an idea, though, here's one picture I can find:

This piece, and several others that match, were made for a statue, so it's not nearly as big as you think; consider it doll clothes. The red fabric is silk. The Chinese didn't have access to any of the bright red bug dyes (cochineal, kermes) at the time (that we know of), so it was either dyed with lac or a mineral pigment. Regardless, red fabric wasn't easy to make. The gold embroidery is done with real gold foil, wrapped around a core of silk fiber. Then it's laid over the fabric and carefully stitched down. (Couching, it's called.) Labor intensive and expensive.

The coolest thing about the find, though, was the combination of inventory in writing AND artifacts. Chinese is written with pictograms - some of them go back as far as the Shang Dynasty, 3500 years ago. So for hundreds of years, historians had been reading accounts of THINGS in ancient China, and didn't have any idea what they were talking about. Either the symbols were completely meaningless, or they could figure out GENERALLY what was being discussed in context, but not be sure. But with this discovery, they finally KNEW.

Among other things they finally figured out were ceramics. For years they'd known of Celadon, but had no real idea what it was.

Now they knew. (Celadons are some of my favorite.)

"Secret color" porcelain?

There you go.

They also found a lot of gold and silver.


One of the most important archeological finds you've never heard of.