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Christian Dior (1905 – 1957), before becoming the world famous fashion designer, spent a period in Lucien Lelong’s fashion house (casa di moda) together with Pierre Balmain. They both tried to preserve fashion industry alive (in vita) during the second World War and designed dresses for the wives of Nazi officers (mogli di ufficili nazisti) and French collaborators.
Then, in 1946, he founded (fondò; to found: fondare) his own fashion house using the cotton fabric (tessuto di cotone) produced by Marcel Boussac.
The first collection was called Corolle (corolla) and appeared in 1947.
Carmel Snow, the editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar (rivista di moda), coined (coniò)the title New Look to define Christian Dior’s fashion.
The designs gave more volume to the simple dresses of the war. Dior took inspiration from flowers, as the name of the collection suggests: wasp- waisted corsets (corsetti che fanno il vitino da vespa) and petticoats (busti) and large skirst (gonne) which burnt from the waist (esplodono dalla vita) . The models had a curvaceous form.
At first these models were criticized: he used too much fabric and the skirts covered the women’s legs – they were shorter in war time because of the limitation on fabrics.
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However the New Look reestablished (ristabilì) Paris as the center of the fashion world after World War II.