MISS DIOR

“Miss Dior”, the excellent book by Justine Picardie – former editor-in-chief of the English Harper’s Bazaar, aims to shed light on the destiny of the very secretive and very discreet Catherine Dior, the younger sister of the immense couturier that was Christian Dior.

Catherine was born in the middle of WWI in Granville, a French seaside city in Normandy, on August 2, 1917. Her parents, Maurice and Madeleine, were wealthy bourgeois from “the Northern Monaco” and she lived between Paris and the marvelous Rhumbs mansion which dominates one of the cliffs of the Granville city.

Her older brother Raymond returns from WWI in a state of shock, her other older brother Bernard is in more than shaky mental health, and the bonds with her sister Jacqueline will never exist.

Remains Christian, with whom the connection will last beyond death, as we will see.

The education of the Dior children is harsh. Madeleine is certainly an elegant mother – Christian will remember her when creating his models – but distant with her children. Christian and Catherine, who try to establish a relationship with this unapproachable mother, often join her in the flowery park that she is developing around the Rhumbs mansion, as the excellent botanist that she has become.

This love of flowers will soon ensure the happiness and survival of these two children – although in very different ways.

Madeleine dies in 1931, emotionally destroyed by the mental illness of her son Bernard. The same year, Maurice goes bankrupt. The fortune of the Diors is no more.

Christian, now an adult, settles in Paris while Catherine accompanies their father in what looks like an exile, since he moves into a house without water or electricity in Callian, in Provence. She provides their livelihood by growing vegetables in the garden of the house, and is soon helped financially by Christian, who begins selling his model sketches to Parisian fashion houses.

Catherine soon joins Christian in Paris and moves in with him. But WWII breaks out and she immediately joins the Resistance, in the very active Anglo-French-Polish F2 movement, specialized in intelligence on the armaments and movements of the German armies. Christian, who lives with her, can hardly be unaware of her clandestine activities, since she regularly receives Resistance members in their apartment.

Unfortunately, the F2 movement is soon infiltrated by a double agent.

Catherine is arrested on July 6, 1944 and tortured for several weeks. However, she will remain silent and refuse to give away the names of her companions.

She is deported to Ravensbrück in one of the last deportee trains on August 15, 1944.

Late May 1945, she comes back a survivor and unrecognizable.

Salvation will come from the two men she loves – her brother Christian and her lover Hervé des Charbonneries.

It is Christian who takes care of her upon her arrival in Paris. And now that Catherine has returned, Christian finally allows himself to think about his future: this shy man has the audacity to ask Marcel Boussac, the French king of textiles, to finance his fashion house which is founded in 1946.

Their brotherly love is unconditional and it is obvious that Catherine – and the ghost of their mother Madeleine – becomes over the fashion seasons the secret inspiration of her brother, who never ceases to baptize his models with the names of flowers.

He will soon create a dress made of a thousand flowers, “Miss Dior”, and a perfume made of lily of the valley, jasmine and rose which will bear the same name and which will be a resounding success. Catherine will wear it all her life.

Christian was thinking about the name of the perfume when Catherine entered the room. Mizza Bricard immediately said: “Hey, there’s Miss Dior”! “Miss Dior! Miss Dior! This is my perfume,” said Christian. And this is how Catherine, a flower dealer, up at four in the morning, became, one evening, the unexpected godmother of a small bottle which contains lily of the valley, spring and love under the name of Miss Dior.”

Alice Chavane, friend of Christian Dior and former editor-in-chief of the fashion pages of Le Figaro Magazine

Catherine’s lover is the second cardinal point of her life. She met Hervé des Charbonneries in November 1941 when she joined the Resistance movement. Here again, secrecy surrounds Catherine, since Hervé is a married man, father of three children. However, their love will endure beyond war, separation due to deportation and death.

Catherine’s salvation will also come from flowers. Returning from the camps, she settles in Paris and then in her late father’s house in Provence, to become a producer and seller of flowers. She participates greatly in the supply of prime materials for the Dior perfumes.

Decorated with the French Croix de Guerre, the Combatants’ Cross, the Resistance Medal, the Legion of Honor, the English King’s Medal for Courage in the Cause for Freedom and the Polish Cross of Valor, Catherine will never complain about torture or concentration camp life. When she gets older, she will talk about the camps to classes of children, but the goal will only be educational.

Dignity, reserve and silence will surround this remarkable woman until the end of her life. She will survive her brother and his lover, but will devote herself to the opening of the Christian Dior museum in Granville, in their childhood house, the Rhumbs mansion.

Madeleine, her legendary reserve and her flowery park will have haunted her two children, who will have found happiness and sweetness only in the nostalgia of the Rhumbs villa and the beauty of its flowers.

The sensitive talent of Justine Picard, who mixes personal and official history – whether it be haute couture, Resistance or collaboration – makes “Miss Dior” a fascinating biography.

Justine Picard retraces the life, made of a thousand shadows, of Catherine Dior, whose dignity was probably the key word.

Should we see the weight of Madeleine’s education in this? Probably.

Should we also see Madeleine’s love for flowers? Certainly.