He adored her.
For her, he would have done anything.
Without her, he would perhaps not have continued to design these dresses over which Paris of the last century raved.
The series
The New Look
, broadcast on Apple TV+, looks back on the rise of the creator (played by Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn) in the 1940s-1950s, during the period of Nazi occupation and the post-war period.
She also reveals the lives of the people who surrounded her and the way in which the war impacted them, from Coco Chanel to Pierre Balmain, including Christian Dior's beloved sister, Catherine.
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She was born in 1917, twelve years after her brother.
However, the bond between them is solid.
Muse locked in a Nazi work camp during the war, flower seller at the Halles de Paris and first “Miss Dior”, Catherine Dior led a discreet life, but no less difficult.
And has always been close to the creator.
Catherine Dior was born in 1917, twelve years after the designer, but they maintained a very deep relationship throughout their lives.
@fashionunfiltered on Pinterest
The story begins in Granville, in Normandy.
Christian and Catherine's parents, Alexandre Maurice Louis Dior and Marie-Madeleine Dior, led a wealthy life thanks to the fertilizer and bleach business in which the father of the family enriched himself.
The Diors live facing the English Channel, in the villa Les Rhumbs, located in the heights of the town.
The building is imposing, with its porch, its flowery gardens and its unobstructed view of the coastline.
The couple's first four children, including Christian, the second, grew up there surrounded by servants.
But Catherine, the youngest, will experience a Parisian childhood.
The Dior family moved into a vast Haussmann-style apartment in the 16th arrondissement, 9 rue Louis-David, seven years before her birth in 1910. The Norman villa would be a second home for her, a vacation home in which to enjoy the fresh air.
The house in Grainville, in Normandy, called the villa Les Rhumbs.
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Catherine Dior, dear sister
Catherine Dior received a severe education, devoid of affection.
While she stayed with their parents, Christian Dior frequented the Parisian cultural scene and opened an art gallery with his friend Jacques Bonjean.
But their relationship remains special: both share the same sensitivity for art and the same love of flowers and gardening, which they practice in Grainville.
The following years, however, would be difficult years.
In May 1931, their mother Madeleine Dior died suddenly at the age of fifty-two, and their brother Bernard was interned for schizophrenia.
Due to bad investments during the stock market
crash
of 1929, Maurice Dior found himself ruined in a few days, forced to sell his companies.
The father of the family leaves the Parisian apartment and settles with Catherine in Callian, in the Var, 800 kilometers from Paris.
The young girl lives in uncomfortable conditions, where poverty reigns.
When she was 18, Christian Dior invited her to join him in the capital to work with him.
Under the same roof, they experience great freedom together.
When the war breaks out, Catherine Dior returns to Callian, to her father.
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But the dark storm of the Second World War rumbles in the distance, then falling on Paris.
Brother and sister are forced to separate for a time.
Catherine returns to her father, and Christian is mobilized, joining the 47th Engineer Company.
Freed from his obligations the following year, he returned to the still besieged capital.
Employed in the Lucien Lelong fashion house, he will help financially, at least as much as he can, his little sister who remains in the South.
During these times of war, Catherine Dior lived there without electricity or amenities, cultivating a few green beans and peas on the land surrounding her father's house for their subsistence.
Difficult arrangements which are nevertheless far from the hell that awaits him.
Catherine Dior, the resistance fighter
In winter 1941, Catherine Dior wanted to buy a radio, wanting to listen to General De Gaulle on the BBC.
She falls in love with the electrical appliances salesman, Hervé Papillault des Charbonneries, with whom she begins a relationship.
He is part of the Resistance and she follows his convictions, getting involved in the Franco-Polish F2 network.
In 1944, numerous arrests took place on the Côte d'Azur: the young woman received a coded message telling her to return to Paris, where she would be safer.
Catherine Dior then used her brother's apartment, at 10 rue Royale, for two years to receive members of her network.
Her role is that of a courier, collecting and depositing intelligence on German troops in the streets of Paris.
A dangerous mission which, one summer evening, will change his life forever, giving substance to Christian Dior's absolute nightmare, that of losing his little sister.
Catherine Dior, played by Maisie Williams, and Hervé Papillault des Charbonneries, played by Hugo Becker, in the series
The New Look
.
The New Look
It is July 6, 1944, and Catherine Dior has a meeting with a member of the network near the Place du Trocadéro.
On his way, the Gestapo suddenly stopped him, blindfolded him and took him to their headquarters, at 180 rue de la Pompe.
The designer's sister will be tortured there for several days, ordered to reveal what she knows.
She does not give in and will be deported to Germany.
Christian Dior, informed, will try the impossible to get her off the train before it leaves the territory.
In vain.
The resistance fighter was sent to Drancy, then to the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp.
She will be liberated near Dresden at the end of the war.
Repatriated, very thin and weakened - Maisie Williams had to lose 12 kilos for these scenes - Catherine Dior moved back in with her brother.
She helps families of deportees find their loved ones and gets involved in the Resistance Foundation.
For her efforts, she will receive the War Cross, the Combatants' Cross and that of the Legion of Honor.
She will rarely speak of these dark years.
Read alsoThe first images of
The New Look
, the new series on Christian Dior with Juliette Binoche as Coco Chanel
In the series
The New Look
, the plot begins just before Catherine's arrest.
We see the designer fighting body and soul to free his little sister, using all his contacts, all his means, taking all the risks.
Unable to do so, he despairs but consults a clairvoyant (a lover of mysticism, he often saw them), Madame Delahaye, who guarantees him: "Your sister is alive, she will come back", which encourages him to wait and continue her sewing projects.
Thus, he who had not drawn a silhouette for weeks timidly accepted the proposal of Marcel Boussac, a textile industrialist who offered him six million francs to launch his own house.
The project is moving forward, but Christian Dior is having trouble working without his sister.
Catherine's return at the end of the war provided inspiration: two years later, in 1947, Christian Dior presented his first collection at 30, Avenue Montaigne.
Catherine Dior, the muse
Passionate about horticulture, Catherine and Christian Dior share the same love of flowers and gardening.
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The same year, the couturier created his first perfume, but was unable to find a name for it.
One day when Mitzah Bricard, Dior muse par excellence and artistic advisor to the couturier, was in the latter's offices, Catherine Dior entered.
Mitzah exclaims: “Hey, there’s Miss Dior!”
Christian Dior then responds enthusiastically: “Miss Dior!
That’s it, that’s my perfume!”
For the couturier, the association is perfect, since the fragrance and its notes of green jasmine come from his sister's favorite flowers, created on memories of the Grainville garden, and on their shared love of flowers.
Fleeing the spotlight and journalists' microphones, Catherine Dior gradually fades behind her brother's triumphs.
She will be a florist at Les Halles, with her companion Hervé, whom she found upon her return from the camps.
Together, the couple will return to Callian, where the former resistance fighter devotes herself full time to the horticulture that she cherishes so much.
The roses she plants are also used by Christian Dior for the Miss Dior perfume.
It was there that she learned of the sudden death of her brother, Christian Dior, in 1957. She made it a point of honor to keep his legacy alive, notably through the Grainville villa, transformed into the Dior Museum.
She in turn died in 2008, in Callian, after bringing back what would be her last flower collection.
Catherine Dior thus lived a life in the shadows, full of convictions and humility.
A life on which the lens of a camera deserves to focus for a few moments, or at least a few scenes at least.
By shedding light on her character,
The New Look
pays homage to her story, to the role she played in her brother's life and consequently, to the history of fashion.
“The New Look”, the trailer: