If there’s a guilty pleasure of ours that we aren’t too proud about, that’s definitely spending some hundreds and even thousands purchasing clothes and items from luxury brands.
It isn’t like we are rich or earn millions, but we have to admit the quality of the merchandise is usually worth the expense or more like an investment for us.
However, we get it; not everyone can afford a single shirt or skirt, maybe a pair of pants, due to the average price for each of the items. Suppose you are one of those, would you want to have enough money for it?
If you aren’t certain, this is what we can tell you: When wanting money for luxury brands and merchandise, make sure you choose a brand that suits your taste and offers very top items you won’t regret purchasing.
Among all the existing ones in the market (which are probably more than you can imagine), Christian Dior or just Dior is definitely one we always remember and is at the top of our three options before any other.
It has a great variety of items, and the quality is unmatchable by many other luxury brands. Thus, we just fall in love with over 70% of the merchandise the fashion brand can offer.
This is why we decided to encourage you to buy something from it, or maybe just provide some information and key facts about Dior that could help you understand a bit better why people decide to spend hundreds and thousands on it, even if that money is for one item only.
The Designer’s History: Christian Dior Early Years
Some people consider those old fashion designers weren’t too creative when choosing the name of their brands. However, if you ask us, they were more than simply smart.
If you want to be remembered, why not include your name in everything along with your talent and success?
Christian Dior isn’t different from this, but before we get to the point where the brand was created and founded, we need to review the designer’s life with the name.
Dior was born in Granville, a French seaside town, on January 21, 1905. At the time, not many people outside of the country knew about the town. But now that one of the most successful fashion designers was born there, tourism and knowledge have increased (just as additional information).
His parents, Maurice Dior and Madeleine Martin were wealthy thanks to his father’s business, which was a successful fertilizer manufacturer.
Along with his four siblings, Raymond, Jacqueline, Bernard, and Catherine Dior, they presumptively lived comfortably thanks to how much his parents provide to the point of moving to Paris and returning to the coast for the summer holidays.
He showed signs of passion and interest in art during his childhood and wanted to be an architect. However, his father expected him to become a diplomat, which led Christian to give in to his father’s pressure and enrolled in the École des Sciences Politiques in 1925 to study political science after his primary education.
Although Dior graduated in 1928 without delay, he decided to follow part of his passion for art and opened a small art gallery with the money he had received from his father.
He agreed to loan his son his financial support by this point, but the condition was that his family name would not be displayed above the gallery doors.
In the few years, it was open, Dior’s gallery handled the works of such notable artists as Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and Max Jacob.
In 1931, the gallery was closed by Dior due to the deaths of his mother and older brother as well as the financial collapse of his father’s business.
Starting a Fashion Career – Dior’s Early Work
Many would beñieve his desire for art and passion inclined for this industry would sow more due to how his father and adored mother, and older brother passed away.
However, the crude reality is that someone needed to make ends, and finding a new option is what Dior needed the most at the moment.
After the gallery was closed, Dior started to sell his fashion sketches, and, in 1935, he got a job as an illustrator for the Figaro Illustre. All this to make ends and be able to help his family and himself.
Robert Piguet, a Parisian couturier, hired Dior as his design assistant several years later. However, Dior was an officer in France’s army when World War II broke out the following year.
After France surrendered to Germany in 1940, Christian returned to Paris, where Lucien Lelong, a couturier, quickly hired him.
Lelong’s design company would dress both French and Nazi collaborators throughout the rest of the war.
But when does Dior start to boom as a fashion designer? We need to go a few more years in the future (our past now).
The House of Dior in specific was established on December 16, 1946, in Paris, but 1947 is considered the opening and foundation year due to the revolutionary New Look by Christian, which was introduced in the latter year and was backed by Marcel Boussac, a French entrepreneur.
This resulted in international controversy due to its dramatically lowered hemline. This look was a radical departure from the World War II style of short skirts and padded shoulders. It featured smaller shoulders, a cinched waist, and a large dress.
The New Look became an overnight success and was followed by ten more years of remarkable success by the designer.
Dior introduced many new silhouettes in the 1950s, including the H-line and A-lines, and the Y-line. Dior played a key role in the commercialization of Parisian fashion worldwide and regaining the ground previously lost to American designers for Parisian designers.
Dior’s Success: A Look Inside the Fashion Brand
Telling you about a general overview of the company’s success is quite generic, which is why we want to make sure we are pointing out the most relevant years of the fashion brand.
After the brand’s success with the controversial New Look style introduced by the designer, things couldn’t look any better.
With the opening of a Christian Dior boutique in New York City, expansion from France began at the end of 1949.
Dior fashions accounted for 75% of Paris fashion exports and 5% of total French export revenue by the end of the year.
Douglas Cox, an Australian-born, traveled to Paris in 1949 to meet Christian Dior and ended up signing a contract that allowed Dior to make original designs for Douglas Cox’s Flinders Lane workshop.
However, the 60 Dior models proved too avant-garde to appeal to the conservative Australian tastes. Douglas Cox ended the contract after a single collection.
After the failure with the Australian market in 1950, Jacques Rouët was the general manager of Dior Ltd. He devised a licensing plan to put the name of Christian Dior visibly on a variety of luxury goods.
However, licensing was a lucrative move that set a precedent for couture houses to follow.
Dior was also the exclusive designer for Marlene Dietrich’s 1950s gowns in Stage Fright, an Alfred Hitchcock film.
The first Dior shoe collection was launched in 1953, and by the end of the year, the company had established strong locations in Mexico and Canada.
In the late 1950s, House of Dior was a respected fashion company. A Dior fashion show was also held at Blenheim Palace in honor of Princess Margaret and the Duchess of Marlborough.
After all this success, the designer succumbed to a third heart attack on October 24, 1957, which led him to be featured on the cover of Time that wrote wonders about him, considering him one of the faces of luxury and good taste.
Upon Dior’s death in 1957, his assistant Yves Saint Laurent took over the couture house.
Saint Laurent held the position until 1960 when he was drafted into France’s army. Subsequent creative directors at the House of Dior have included Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferre, and John Galliano.
The brand followed the years by adding perfumes, lighter designs, and neatness that the customers loved.
Despite all the chaos after Dior’s death, the status of the main designer in the company, and how some stores had to close, the company remained and stood strong in the industry, leading to innovating with jewelry and many new items.
This progress included creating clothes for men instead of women-only, and right now, in 2021, Kim Jones has been the men’s artistic director of the house since March 2018.
Many collaborations have been made with other brands, celebrities, artists, and the future of Dior looks solid and strengthened after hard decades with ups and downs.
Why Christian Dior Is Unique
If you ever get an original Dior, you will notice the difference in quality with even other brands like LV and Burberry.
Of course, it is tough to compare luxury brands since all of them are unique in their own ways.
But when it comes to Dior, we cannot avoid placing it at the top even when it isn’t the favorite according to sales and popular opinions. Now, why is this?
One of the main reasons the clothes from the brand are so popular is due to how it compliments a woman’s curves and silhouette.
Many thought Dior was too daring by the time it came out, and it maybe was, but his founder sure put a lot of effort into making it work, and even when some people complained about the style, there was much more than loved it, and this has remained as a timeless uniqueness from the brand.
By knowing this, we can focus on the pieces that made Dior famous the most: Hourglass gowns and chic tailoring and suiting.
Women loved how they could be sexy and elegant yet comfortable with the clothing to the point of wanting an exclusive design from the designer when he was alive.
One of the most popular collections back in the days was the one from Fall 1950 that included tunic coats, wrapped fabric, jutting out hemlines, and buttons above the waist.
To this date, the luxury brand focused on keeping this in mind for both women and men equally and has exceeded in making the overall silhouette of any person dressing the clothes to have a slanted shape anyone could envy.
Dior doesn’t follow fashion trends; it has created them since its very first collection and after showing the beauty of women to the point of making them more excited about shopping and making magazines like Vogue cover each one of the new releases.
Prices & Items – Can You Afford a Single One?
Well, this is the million-dollar question: Can you purchase any product from the brand with your salary or earnings? Maybe.
Although some people believe luxury brands are extremely expensive in everything, the truth is we consider them to be just over the average and then too expensive depending on the items.
We are trying to say: You can actually afford something; the question is if you will spend your money on it.
Accessories, makeup, skincare, and products that involve gifts and services are usually affordable, or there’s something you can find according to your budget.
This doesn’t mean they aren’t expensive for what they are (some of them aren’t), but you can actually pay for something, which is our point.
That being said, we want to help you have an idea of how much you could expect to spend someday, so here’s a list with average prices and products:
- Fragrances: The price ranges from $104 to $311 for most options available depending on the presentation (30ml, 50ml, 100ml, and 150ml).
- Makeup: Foundations can be acquired from $93 to $200. Brushes cost about $80, while luminizers, cushions, and concealers have a similar price.
- Skincare: It depends on the collection and line, but each of the products ranges from $90 to $250, including serums, micellar waters, self-tanners, face masks, and more.
- Accessories: For both men and women, they include watches, jewelry, bags, silks, and more. Usually starting at $100 and reaching the $10k+ mark.
- Women’s fashion: Includes jackets, pants, shoes, shirts, skirts, and more—the average ranges from $2k to $100k for pieces like dresses.
- Men’s fashion: Includes almost the same items as the previous one, and the range is similar as well.
- Maison: Kitchenware, furniture, décor, bedding, and more items start at $130 and usually end at $15k.
- Kids: You can access some bags and pieces for $5.000 or more expensive ones reaching $15k.
If you expected lower prices, just think about this:
- The total revenue of the company is set at $75 billion approx.
- The operating income goes up to $14 billion.
- The net income is $3.5 billion as of 2019.
- And the total assets reach the $41 billion mark.
Therefore, you can definitely expect it to meet the term “luxury” in its items, prices, and the whole concept.
Does Christian Dior Love Celebrities?
Absolutely.
In 2021, and the last decade, collaborations and figures representing the brand are among the most crucial strategies for people to buy something from it.
Therefore, you can expect Dior to use not only some of the best actors, actresses, singers, and celebrities overall by endorsing them.
Instead, many models (usually the most popular ones) are included on their list for photoshoots and advertising.
Natalie Portman is an all-time celebrity involved with the brand, to the point of promoting one of its most popular fragrances: Miss Dior. Also, she participates in makeup, clothing, and skincare lines or collections.
Others like Charlize Theron and Johnny Deep are involved in some of the same products: J’adore and Sauvage, respectively.
On the other hand, supermodels like Cara Delevigne and Bella Hadid have been featured in several runways and ads.
One of our favorite artists involved with Dior is Jennifer Lawrence, who has provided her face to promote bags, scarves, and more brand products.
Finally, when it comes to endorsements, all the previous artists are included on the list, along with another dozen (and we are falling short with this number).
Here’s Our #1 Recommended Online Business Model:
Interested in starting an online business to build passive income? Check out the local lead gen business model. Click here to learn more.
