"For a dress to be successful, you have to have an idea of how it will move in real life", Christian Dior explained. His knowledge of construction was informed by an intuitive understanding of the movement of the body beneath, an awareness heightened by his profound passion for dance. He designed dozens of 'dancing dresses', whose light and flaring lines lent themselves perfectly to untrammeled twirling, with names like 'Danse', 'Cabaret', and 'Foyer de la Danse', evoking a tutu in white tulle beneath a shock of moiré. Renowned ballerinas such as Ruth Page and Leslie Caron were dressed by the House, along with Dior ambassador Margot Fonteyn. In 1947, he costumed the ballet 'Treize Dances', a fraught experience that did nothing to dim his love for this most mesmerizing of performance arts, and to which we pay tribute today, on International Dance Day.
