I am very pleased to share this exceptional and important piece of couture with you today. A couple of weeks ago I acquired this wonderful and rare, museum quality, Christian Dior (1905 to 1957), silk faille taffeta coat with the Christian Dior, Paris, Automne-Hiver, 1954 label, numbered 45970. Constructed in deep raspberry silk, lined in silk to match the exterior, it is a voluminous, draped evening coat with three-quarter length sleeves and deep shawl collar.
I am on 1st Dibs and arranged to give them the exclusive to debut it to the world. It is an important enough piece that they decided to give it its own banner! It was purchased within a day or two by a collector so I am afraid that if you just fell in love it is too late! However, it is just too amazing not to share!
Throughout the 1950s Christian Dior was the biggest and best-run haute couture house in Paris and his label accounted for half of France’s haute couture exports. In the fall of 1954, Christian Dior showed the "H-Line" collection based on the silhouette of a young girl and an exploration of volume. This was an important departure form his earlier "New Look" and it was this collection that set the tone for the next decade of fashion and once again changed the way women viewed fashion and defined the silhouette.
The coat is well documented with the green version appearing in the September 1954 issue of Life Magazine with Christian Dior himself, and in editorials in the September 1954 issues of both Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. All of the pictures below are copies of the originals from those issues.
I cannot even begin to convey how this coat felt like on — it feels light and substantial at the same time. It has no structure yet seems to define structure based on the wearer. Just being able to try it was fabulous!
I feel blessed that I am getting to the point as a dealer that this level of pieces are now coming my way. It is an honor to properly place them into the hands of a new owner that will love them and properly care and store them. If we are very lucky the new owner will send me a photo that I can share!
