Christian Dior

Christian Dior was born in 1905 in Granville, Normandy, the son of a prosperous fertiliser manufacturer. His parents wanted him to be a diplomat; he wanted to be an architect. They compromised on nothing — Dior drifted through his twenties in Paris, selling fashion illustrations from a small gallery and nearly starving. His family fortune was lost in the Great Depression. He was 41 when he founded his own house.

Christian Dior presented his first collection on February 12, 1947. Harper's Bazaar editor Carmel Snow looked at the long full skirts, nipped waists, and rounded shoulders and said: "It's quite a revolution, dear Christian. Your dresses have such a new look." The name stuck. After years of wartime austerity, the New Look was an explosion of femininity and luxury. Women queued around the block. Some demonstrators threw tomatoes at models wearing the dresses, arguing the extravagance was obscene when Europe was still rebuilding. Dior ignored them.

Dior launched Miss Dior perfume alongside his first collection. The commercial infrastructure — licensing, perfume, accessories — that Dior's business partner Marcel Boussac insisted upon became the template for the modern luxury fashion house. Dior was not merely designing clothes; he was building a brand that could be extended across product categories. The perfume and accessories subsidised the couture, which served as advertising. This model, pioneered at Dior, is now the foundation of every major luxury group.

Christian Dior died of a heart attack in October 1957, aged 52, ten years after founding his house. He had completed ten collections. His successor was a 21-year-old assistant named Yves Saint Laurent, whom Dior had personally chosen. Laurent's first Dior collection saved the house. His second provoked outrage. He was replaced while completing his military service. Laurent went on to found his own house. Dior continued under a series of talented designers — Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons, and Maria Grazia Chiuri — each reinterpreting Dior's founding vision for a new generation.

Bernard Arnault acquired a controlling stake in Christian Dior in 1984 — the transaction that launched Arnault's construction of the LVMH luxury empire. Dior became the cornerstone of a group that eventually included Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Bulgari, Tiffany, and over seventy other luxury brands. LVMH became the most valuable luxury group in history, with a peak market capitalisation exceeding €300 billion. The shy boy from Normandy who had spent his twenties nearly starving had inadvertently created the architecture of global luxury. He had ten years to do it. It turned out to be enough.