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.)
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
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.
