Miss Dior

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The original iron railings and stone walls still enclose the garden – although they are not sufficiently high to conceal the cemetery adjoining the property. 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. And just for a moment, standing in Catherine’s former bedroom, I become aware of this unmistakable scent; not on my own skin, but emanating from some other, unseen source … perhaps the huge flagon of perfume presented to Princess Grace by Christian Dior, on show in a nearby gallery? She is a woman of courage, a devoted sister, a constant gardener, and a resistance heroine who lived life on her own terms.

Picardie’s writing about life in the camps, which makes up the bulk of the first half of the book, is unflinching and powerful.But after pages describing Christian Dior’s “New Look” designs, a costume party in Venice, a chapter detailing Princess Margaret’s fashion sense, and a rehashing of the Edward VII and Wallis Simpson scandal, readers can be forgiven for asking themselves what any of it has to do with Catherine Dior. War and fash­ion — some­times these words are incon­gru­ous uttered in the same breath; oth­er times they are meld­ed togeth­er like two sides of a shiny French coin.

Miss Dior portrays a woman who has too long stood hidden in the shadow of her famous brother, Christian. Picardie explains how Catherine’s love of flowers played a role in her recovery as she created a floral business. Miss Dior is a story of freedom and fascism, beauty and betrayal, roses and repression, and how the polished surface of fashion conceals hidden depths.Picardie overcomes the absence of Catherine’s first hand account of her life and experiences by recounting the stories of other women who went through the same things. Although a clear pic­ture of Cather­ine remains shad­owy through­out the book, we do get a sharp sense of her courage and her strong spir­it, plus her deep belief in the work of the Resis­tance, and we find ample evi­dence in the text that she was noth­ing short of a woman of steel. By 1949, Catherine and Hervé des Charbonneries had moved out of Christian’s apartment on Rue Royale, and were living nearby in a home of their own, at 49 Rue Montorgueil. The pictures that I have seen of Catherine in her post-war life show her at ease in linen trousers and shirts in Provence, or discreetly attired for work in Paris. She explores what it means to believe in beauty and hope, despite our knowledge of darkness and despair, and discovers the timeless solace of the natural world in the aftermath of devastation and destruction.

This is a very different kind of biography and if you were hoping for a book about the glamorous life of Christian Dior's sister then this might not be the book for you. To bring this part of her life alive, she must rely on the experiences of other Resistance fighters, the work of other historians. I was so disappointed as I love Dior and the history of fashion and I even really love WW2 fashion but this book isn’t about any of those things! Yet the Diors had lived and prospered in Granville for many generations; their wealth based on the enterprise of Christian’s great-grandfather, who imported guano from South America into Normandy, to supply raw materials for the fertiliser industry. The book is very well illustrated throughout and though we will never truly know Catherine, Justine Picardie has captured her essence, which is what I think she set out to do.The juxtaposition of terrible shadows and dazzling light is one of the great strengths of this book . I gave this book three stars, not because I thought it was not good but because it doesn't deliver what it says on the cover. Clockwise from top left: the clifftop garden of Les Rhumbs; Madeleine and Maurice Dior; Les Rhumbs; Madeleine’s mother, Marie-Juliette Surosne; Christian (left) and Raymond in the garden; Catherine.

The original formula is classed, in the specialist terminology of perfumery, as a ‘green chypre’, blending complex notes of galbanum (a distinctive-smelling plant resin), bergamot, patchouli and oakmoss, with the warmth of jasmine and rose at its floral heart. The book blurb for Miss Dior by Justine Picardie, “A long-overdue and intimate restoration of Catherine Dior’s story that illuminates the work of the most iconic designer of the postwar world—her brother, Christian—and casts new light on the overlooked life of a quietly courageous, quietly extraordinary woman” is only partially true.

A long account of the relationship of Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII, for instance, cannot be justified by the fact that the former was a client of Dior (their connection with Catherine is nonexistent). Catherine looks well-dressed, but there is little evidence of the elaborate padding and traditional corsetry that were essential elements of Dior couture, which he dubbed “ephemeral architecture, dedicated to the beauty of the female body. Justine Picardie's journey takes her to Occupied Paris, where Christian honed his couture skills while Catherine dedicated herself to the French Resistance, until she was captured by the Gestapo and deported to the German concentration camp of Ravensbrück. Picardie's journey to uncover the secret life of Christian Dior's beloved sister Catherine takes the reader to the heart of Occupied Paris, where he mastered the art of couture while Catherine dedicated herself to the French Resistance - until she was captured by the Gestapo and deported to the German concentration camp of Ravensbruck. 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.