Christian Dior’s lecture at La Sorbonne

Christian Dior’s lecture at La Sorbonne

Excerpt from a lecture given by Christian DIOR at La Sorbonne in Paris on 4 August 1955, with Mme CAPPELLE DE MENOU. From 1955 to 1957 Christian Dior gave La Sorbonne a series of lectures in which he evokes the history of fashion, the role of the designer, his relationship to the air of time and to the demands of customers. In this excerpt, Christian DIOR says that he wanted to be an architect and that being a designer he followed the laws of architecture. He explains the correspondence between architecture and sewing: "It is not a vain word to talk about the architecture of a dress. A dress is built according to the meaning of the fabrics. The meaning of the fabrics is the secret of sewing. And it is a secret that depends on the first architectural law, that of obedience to weightlessness". He goes on to talk about the importance of the cup, which "nowadays dresses escape the insipid overload of seams and thus join the antique garment of which they have the apparent simplicity".

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File : Christian Dior

Publication date : 5 August 1955