Christian Dior: Man of the Century
by: Dufresne, Jean-Luc

Hardcover. France, Editions Artlys, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 256 pages. Hardcover no dust jacket. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. At once Dior scrapbook, survey and autobiography, this magnificent compendium offers a panorama of the life and art of one of the twentieth century's most influential fashion designers. It reprints Dior's 1956 autobiography Christian Dior et moi--in which the designer contrasted his reputation as both an individual and as a company with his own sense of himself--alongside eight articles by Dior first published in Elle magazine in 1951, which were then collected as Je suis couturier. Throughout, the volume takes as its thematic anchor the designer's beautiful childhood home in Granville, elaborating his lifelong attachment to the house (now the Christian Dior Museum) and its gardens, and showing how his work was influenced by these resplendent environs--a theme that especially preoccupied Dior himself, who once affirmed his "tender and wonderful memories of my childhood home," declaring that "my life and my style owe everything to its location and architecture." Many of the copious illustrations that accompany these writings are supplied by the Christian Dior Museum collection, and reproduce family albums and archival photographs, fashion sketches and formal presentations of classic Dior dresses, hats, shoes and jewelry. Dior scholar Jean-Luc Dufresne conducts a tour of the Dior house and garden, narrating its long and fascinating history.