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Miss Dior

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Just along the path, I find a maze made out of privet hedges, and remember that one of the curators in the Dior archives told me that Catherine, in old age, had described this to him as an important feature of the garden in her childhood.

For this is the place where Maurice and Madeleine Dior moved at the beginning of the century and raised their five children. It is surprisingly quiet this morning in the grounds, perhaps because of the damp weather, although the museum has several dozen visitors who have come to see a new exhibition, dedicated to Princess Grace of Monaco, and displaying clothes designed for her by Christian Dior.On a personal level, early on we are introduced to Hervé des Charbonneries, a married man with whom Catherine spent her life, although they never married, and he never divorced. Vincent had known Catherine – before moving to his job at the Dior archives in Paris, he worked for the museum in Granville – and they corresponded, whenever he had queries that she could answer about her brother.

For they emerged out of moments of time that feel too close to be separated, connected by their makers’ urge to create beauty. She lived completely as one of the family, but when war broke out, she declared to our terrified amazement that she was ready, if needs be, to go “bang-bang” at the French soldiers…’ As a consequence, a twenty-five-year-old French governess, Marthe Lefebvre (soon known affectionately as ‘Ma’), was employed by the Diors in 1915, and she was to remain with them for the rest of her life.Catherine, meanwhile, was educated at home by a governess, and at a girls’ school in Granville; the Dior archives contain several evocative photographs of her playing on the beach as a child. I loved this book and the characters in it have stayed with me - rather like someone's perfume does when they leave the room.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. I wrote some notes, and then walked down to the meadow of roses, where butterflies danced about the petals, accompanied by a chorus of birdsong and bees.The original iron railings and stone walls still enclose the garden – although they are not sufficiently high to conceal the cemetery adjoining the property.

Miss Dior’ paints a portrait of the enigmatic woman behind the designer Christian Dior: his beloved younger sister Catherine, who inspired his most famous perfume and shaped his vision of femininity. Justine Picardie’s attempt to stitch their stories together beyond that sibling relationship fails and in the process deprives Catherine Dior of the biography she deserves. The time spent in the concentration camp at Ravensbrük details the abuses the women experienced from both male and female members of the Nazi party.After my tour of the exhibition, I have been granted permission to spend the remainder of the day writing in what was the Dior children’s playroom in the garden. The grey sea mist is thickening; the daylight seems to be dissolving into the fog; the glass of the playroom’s windows is darkening, the wind growing wilder. As a result, Dior remains a ghostly presence hovering just off the edge of the pages of Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture. In the images that show Catherine wearing a Dior dress—for example, in the garden at Les Naÿssès, a glass of wine in her hand, or at the christening of her godson Nicolas, cradling him close—she still looks entirely herself.

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