Christian Dior

"It is unforgivable to do what one doesn't love especially if one succeeds."

"I'm a mild man, but I have violent tastes."

"I know very well the women. The short skirt was never a good fashion — very vulgar. The American women will accept the new fashions. You can never stop the fashions."

"Zest is the secret of all beauty. There is no beauty that is attractive without zest."

"My dream is to save women from nature."

"Women are most fascinating between the ages of 35 and 40, after they have won a few races and know how to pace themselves. Since few women ever pass 40, maximum fascination can continue indefinitely."

"[Black is] the most popular and the most convenient and the most elegant of all colors."

"I wanted to be considered a good craftsman. I wanted my dresses to be constructed like buildings, molded to the curves of the female form, stylizing its shape."

"Colour is what gives jewels their worth. They light up and enhance the face. Nothing is more elegant than a black skirt and sweater worn with a sparkling multi-stoned necklace."

"Bright reds – scarlet, pillar-box red, crimson or cherry – are very cheerful and youthful."

"We were emerging from the period of war, of uniforms, of women-soldiers built like boxers. I drew women-flowers, soft shoulders, fine waists like liana and wide skirts like corolla."

"In Shirley Miles O'Donnol American Costume 1915-1970: A Source Book for the Stage Costumer, Indiana University Press, 22 August 1989, p. 153"

"A dress is a piece of ephemeral architecture, designed to enhance the proportions of the female body."

"Women, with their sure instincts, realized that my intention was to make them not just more beautiful but also happier."

"In a machine age, dressmaking is one of the last refuges of the human, the personal, the inimitable."

"A woman's perfume tells more about her than her handwriting."

"You can wear black at any time. You can wear it at any age. You may wear it for almost any occasion; a 'little black frock' is essential to a woman's wardrobe."

"If my poor maman had still been alive, I would never have tried"

"My mother whom I adored, secretly wasted away and died of grief…; her death…marked me for life."

"I used to have frequent arguments with my father which ended in doors slamming and the ultimate expletive ‘Filthy bougeois’"

"We went from losses to goods seized by creditors, while continuing to organize surrealist or abstract exhibitions…"

"I think I would be more suited to the couture side of the business!"

"Much has been written about fashion, in all its aspects, but i do not think any couturier has ever before attempted to compile a dictionary on the subject."

"Many people dismiss haute couture as being something that is only for those who are very wealthy... simplicity, good taste, and grooming are the three fundamentals of good dressing and these do not cost money."

"The Dior display suddenly made me nostalgic for France. What was before me was so clearly more refined than the other displays. And it stood out in my memory. Later when I was given the chance to buy Christian Dior, I remembered White Plains and Bloomingdales. I have no doubt that unconsciously it had an effect on me."

"Dior is that nimble genius unique to our age with the magical name - combining God and gold [dieu et or]."

"This was certainly at the root of my intense dislike of machinery, and my firm determination never to work in an office or anything of that nature."

"Christian, however, was fortunate having a paternal grandmother who realized very early that this child was very different from his brothers and sisters, if only physically. Raymond was a fighter, Jacqueline a tomboy, and Bernard, who was gentle as a lamb, had an introverted side that caused concern. Christian on the other hand was lively and affectionate, interested in everything – and with such an imagination. He epitomized the wonderment of childhood."

"His greatest delight was in dreaming up a new costume, a talent he displayed early on. .. One year he transformed his sister into King Neptune with a bodice made of shells and raffia skirt …Never without a notebook, he scribbled down ideas as they occurred to him."

"He was very fond of his grandmother, who came to live not far from the family when she sold her home in Angers. She brought with her the handsome Napolean III drawing-room suite with empire chairs that went to furnish Christian’s favorite room, the parlor."

"Dior is like a big adolescent with old- fashioned shyness of as schoolboy and most charming in his childish awkwardness."

"With his rotund ecclesiastical side, Dior was like a cathedral, a repository of countless secrets no one else had access to."

"He gave no sign of any great desire to persevere with music or painting, despite his obvious eye for the latter. The idea of creativity obsessed but not to the point of renouncing his spectator status."

"Misfortune did not make him a poor man, and actually taught him a great deal."

"Come on, do it. You are good and I believe in you."

"We were given a polished theatrical performance such as we had never seen in a couture house before"

"We were witness to a revolution in fashion and a revolution in showing fashion as well."

"It is quite a revolution, dear Christian. Your dresses have such a new look. They are quite wonderful you know."

"Magic...was what everyone wanted from Paris. Never has there been a moment more climatically right for a Napoleon, An Alexander the Great, a Caesar of Couture. Paris fashion was waiting to be seized and shaken and given direction. There has never been an easier or complete conquest than that of Christian Dior in 1947."

"Every year Dior would present a new line – from Oval to Oblique to the Scissors look."

"In 1957, he was consecrated on the cover of Times. The Consensus was that the House of Dior was in a class of its own."