French couture house Dior this week remembered a time of crisis 70 years ago, when the bloody upheaval of World War II pushed French fashion designers to dig deep to revive the fashion industry.
Rising to the challenge, in 1945 designers dressed miniature mannequins in high fashion collections and sent them on a tour of Europe and then the United States.
This week, in reaction to the global coronavirus pandemic that many see as another historic global crisis, Dior unveiled its haute couture collection on 37 miniature mannequins, one-third human size – echoing the post-war effort. Likely to become sought-after collectors’ items, these exquisitely dressed modern mannequins are housed in trunks, miniature replicas of Dior’s fashion flagship building in Avenue Montaigne, Paris.
“We made this project in a very particular moment of our lives,” says Dior designer Maria Grazia Chiuri, who began working on the 2020 show remotely under the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in Rome, coordinating with the seamstresses and production crew who were also working from home. Like the post-war French designers, Dior intended to send the message that “traditions were alive” in Paris despite the worldwide coronavirus tragedy and widespread lockdowns.
This year’s Dior couture gowns are inspired by surrealist women artists such as photographer Lee Miller, and accompanying the release of the miniatures is a fantastical film shot by Gomorrah director Matteo Garrone.
“It’s a different experience,” says Chiuri of working on the film, which features nymphs and mermaids seduced by the couture clothing. “But I think it’s a beautiful experience.”
In 1945-46, Europe was still reeling from the savagery of World War II, and Europeans were forced to cope with shortages of food, books and clothes.
French fashion had been hit hard, and the lack of fabric, thread, buttons, and skills continued after the fighting ended and the bombs stopped falling.
Robert Ricci, the son of couturier Nina Ricci, suggested the industry use miniature mannequins, or fashion dolls, to conserve textiles, leather, fur and other materials. About 60 Paris couturiers, including Nina Ricci, Balenciaga, Hermès, Philippe & Gaston, Jeanne Lanvin, and Pierre Balmain answered the call and provided hoarded fabric pieces and labour to create the miniature post-war fashion collections.
Titled Theatre de la Mode, the tiny fashion collection was the industry’s renaissance from the dark days of war.
Milliners created little hats, stylists gave the mannequins elegant coiffeurs, jewellers provided small pieces of jewellery and accessories. The fashion was detailed and exquisite.
Details were not skimped. Some of the mannequins even had handmade underwear, and their handbags contained tiny purses.
All the frustrations of the long years of war were poured into the galvanic Theatre de la Mode effort to revive French fashion, an essential pillar of French identity.
The collection eventually included 237 doll-size mannequins in 15 elaborate artist-created sets. It was shown first at the Louvre art museum in Paris in 1945, where it was visited by more than 100,000 people. These days the collection is housed at the Maryhill Museum of Art in Washington state in the US northwest.
Intended to be a display of high-end craftsmanship and one-of-a-kind ensembles, shows of couture collections are attended by fashion cognoscenti from around the world. With haute couture week in Paris effectively cancelled this year, Dior turned to the inspiration of an earlier time.
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