Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture

by Justine Picardie

Overview

“Remarkable” —Hamish Bowles, Vogue

The overdue restoration of Catherine Dior's extraordinary life, from her brother's muse to Holocaust survivor

When the French designer Christian Dior presented his first collection in Paris in 1947, he changed fashion forever. Dior’s “New Look” created a striking, romantic vision of femininity, luxury, and grace, making him—and his last name—famous overnight. One woman informed Dior’s vision more than any other: his sister, Catherine, a Resistance fighter, concentration camp survivor, and cultivator of rose gardens who inspired Dior’s most beloved fragrance, Miss Dior. Yet the story of Catherine’s remarkable life—so different from her famous brother’s—has never been told, until now.

Drawing on the Dior archives and extensive research, Justine Picardie’s Miss Dior is the long-overdue restoration of Catherine Dior’s life. The siblings’ stories are profoundly intertwined: in Occupied France, as Christian honed his couture skills, Catherine dedicated herself to the Resistance, ultimately being captured by the Gestapo and sent to Ravensbruck, the only Nazi camp solely for women. Seeking to trace Catherine’s story as well as her influence on her brother, Picardie traveled to the significant places of Catherine’s life, including Les Rhumbs, the Dior family villa with its magnificent gardens; the House of Dior in Paris; and La Colle Noire, Christian’s chateâu that he bequeathed to his sister.

Inventive and captivating, and shaped by Picardie’s own journey, Miss Dior examines the legacy of Christian Dior, the secrets of postwar France, and the unbreakable bond between two remarkable siblings. Most important, it shines overdue recognition on a previously overlooked life, one that epitomized courage and also embodied the astonishing capacity of the human spirit to remain undimmed, even in the darkest circumstances.

Includes Black-and-White Illustrations

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374210359
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	11/09/2021
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	131,268
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Justine Picardie is the author of several books, including her critically acclaimed memoir, If the Spirit Moves You: Life and Love After Death, and the international bestseller, Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life. She is a contributing editor to the UK edition of Harper’s Bazaar, having previously been its editor-in-chief. She was formerly an investigative journalist for the Sunday Times, a columnist for the Telegraph, editor of the Observer Magazine, and features director of Vogue.

Editorial Reviews

07/19/2021

Journalist Picardie (Coco Chanel) offers an evocative yet thin biography of Catherine Dior (1917–2008), the youngest sister of couturier Christian Dior and the inspiration for Miss Dior perfume. Raised at the family’s estate in Normandy, Catherine moved with her brother to Paris in 1936. After the fall of France in 1940, the siblings lived in a village near Cannes, where they gardened and socialized with other exiled Parisians. In 1941, while shopping for a battery-operated radio to listen to Gen. Charles de Gaulle’s broadcasts from London, Catherine met French Resistance leader Hervé des Charbonneries. The two fell in love, and Catherine became an active Resistance member, compiling reports on German operations and passing them to British intelligence services. Captured and tortured by the Gestapo in July 1944, she was held at the Ravensbrück and Markkleeberg concentration camps and survived a death march in April 1945. She hardly ever spoke of her wartime experiences, however, and Picardie’s narrative, though it weaves in the stories of other captured operatives and intriguing asides about perfumery, cooperation between French fashion houses and the Nazis, and other topics, suffers from the lack of firsthand information about its subject. Readers will find that the essence of this remarkable woman remains elusive. Agent: Sarah Chalfant, the Wylie Agency. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Picardie has written a moving and impressive history of wartime politics, death camps, postwar trials, collaboration and the invigorating world of haute couture. She gets much of her Ravensbrück material from victims who left records of their experiences and made small, heartbreaking drawings and gifts to keep their spirits up. Miss Dior is a tricky book to pull off but Ms. Picardie is a sensitive, elegant writer and—hard as it is to imagine—for the most part she succeeds." —Moira Hodgson, The Wall Street Journal

"Picardie . . . has nearly unassailable fashion knowledge. She reconstructs with ease and confidence how fashion restored luxury to its French perch after the war." —Ruth Peltason, Air Mail

“Extraordinary . . . The result is Netflix-worthy and the pace page-turning as Picardie presents a woman who appeals beyond the boundaries of Planet Fashion . . . Catherine’s story . . . shines—the quiet Dior who preferred flowers to fashion, the unsung heroine who survived the abuse of the Third Reich to help liberate France.” —Jackie Annesley, The Sunday Times (UK)

“The juxtaposition of terrible shadows and dazzling light is one of the great strengths of this book . . . [Miss Dior] is a very personal, very passionate book.” —Artemis Cooper, Times Literary Supplement

“Catherine’s story is beautifully, hauntingly told in spare and elegant prose by Picardie . . . awe-inspiring.” —Laura Freeman, The Times (UK)

“Remarkable” —Hamish Bowles, Vogue

“Picardie’s book is of the moment . . . celebrating an unsung hero.” —Laird Borrelli-Persson, Vogue

“Moving and beautifully illustrated.” —Christiana Bishop, New Statesman

“Picardie’s research is remarkable, her writing grabs and holds the reader tight from beginning to end . . . An exceptional discussion on France during WWII and the couture industry, [Miss Dior] is fascinating reading and will not disappoint.” —Judith Reveal, New York Journal of Books

“Picardie taps Resistance archives and memoirs by Catherine's fellow resistants and unearths a wealth of archival photos in order to piece together her subject's experience. Catherine . . . represents exquisite grace under fire. Miss Dior is an effulgent ode to the woman and her French Resistance compatriots.” —Shelf Awareness

"Picardie interweaves a sensitive narrative of her search for Catherine as she follows the 'echoing footfall of a disappearing girl.' A well-informed rendering of dramatic times." —Kirkus Reviews

“As subtle as it is fragrant, Justine Picardie’s book casts a strong spell that lingers.” —Benjamin Taylor, author of Here We Are and The Hue and Cry at Our House

“Miss Dior portrays a woman who has too long stood hidden in the shadow of her famous brother, Christian. While full of import for them both, Catherine Dior’s kinship with the great fashion designer may well have been her least noteworthy trait. A fighter in the French Resistance, a survivor of the Ravensbrück death camp, and a creator of the rose gardens that inspired the fragrance Miss Dior, she is an inspiring, unforgettable figure, worthy of Picardie’s inspiring, unforgettable prose. ” —Caroline Weber, author of Proust’s Duchess and Queen of Fashion

From the Publisher

10/01/2021

Designer Christian Dior's beloved sister Catherine was immortalized in name and spirit with his "Miss Dior" parfum. Biographer and Harper's Bazaar UK editor in chief Picardie (Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life) focuses on Catherine and her Second World War involvement in this biography. At the start of the war, Christian and Catherine both retreated to Provence, where Catherine fell in love with Hervé des Charbonneries, a married man and member of the French Resistance. She also joined the Resistance and was arrested by French Gestapo in July 1944; unrelenting after their vicious interrogation, Catherine was deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp. In May 1945, she was repatriated in unrecognizable condition. Afterward, Catherine lived out a relatively quiet life with Charbonneries. Picardie's biography exhibits deep appreciation for Christian and a craving to understand Catherine's life; the only detriment is the limited glimpses into Catherine's life, perhaps because too much time is devoted to a wider narrative of World War II. The book includes photographs of the Dior family, illustrations of their personal keepsakes, and reproductions of their art—an added bonus. VERDICT Outstanding scholarship reveals Catherine Dior's participation in the French Resistance. Overall, this is a haunting biography that carefully examines Catherine's largely unexplored life and will have broad appeal to fashion or World War II enthusiasts.—Jessica Bushore, Xenia, OH

Library Journal

2021-08-17
A fashion historian searches for an elusive woman.

Renowned couturier Christian Dior named his signature perfume Miss Dior, honoring his sister Catherine (1917-2008). Although British novelist, fashion historian, and memoirist Picardie, author of a well-received biography of Coco Chanel, tries to maintain the focus on Catherine, her life becomes subsumed within a sweeping history of war, French politics, and fashion. Surely, Catherine experienced a tumultuous few years. Alongside her married lover, she joined the French Resistance, tasked with gathering information on the movements of German troops and warships. She was arrested, tortured, and imprisoned but never revealed the identities of other Resistance members. In August 1944, she was sent to a German concentration camp for women and, a month later, was transported to a labor camp, then another, to work in munitions factories. In April 1945, she escaped from a death march and made her way back to Paris. Despite the privations of war, Paris couture was thriving, with Dior a rising star. The revenue of couture houses rose from 67 million francs in 1941 to more than 463 million in 1943. Malnourished and weak, Catherine was beset by psychological symptoms: “insomnia, nightmares, memory loss, anxiety and depression,” and a need for isolation. For a while, she shared her brother’s luxurious Paris apartment, then moved with her lover to their own home near the flower shop they ran. They spent summers in Provence in a house Catherine had inherited from her family. She did not adopt the extravagant, romantic New Look for which her brother became famous. Described as stoic, quiet, and unemotional by her godson, whom Picardie talked with, Catherine was “invisible to Christian’s acolytes.” The book is generously illustrated with family and historical photographs, Dior’s drawings, and fashion images, and Picardie interweaves a sensitive narrative of her search for Catherine as she follows the “echoing footfall of a disappearing girl.”

A well-informed rendering of dramatic times.

Kirkus Reviews