Fit 2 Stitch

Peggy Sagers: Christian Dior forever changed the face of fashion in 1947 with his groundbreaking new look: rounded shoulders, a nipped-in waist, and voluminous skirts that redefined the feminine silhouette, but Dior was more than a designer.

He was a visionary who transformed Parisian couture into a global business.

His dedication to detail elevated couture to an art form.

Today on "Fit 2 Stitch," we step into the legacy of Dior, where elegance, innovation, and timeless beauty still inspire every stitch.

male announcer: "Fit 2 Stitch" is made possible by Kai Scissors.

announcer: Reliable Corporation.

announcer: Bennos Buttons.

announcer: Plano Sewing Center.

announcer: Elliott Berman Textiles.

announcer: And WAWAK Sewing Supplies.

Peggy: We're very privileged to be able to take a very close look at these Christian Dior garments, and I just want you to know that literally the Texas Fashion Collection has had people fly in from Paris, Milan, all over the world to study how these garments are made and how the designers put them together.

There's so much to learn from these.

So I wanna welcome Annette onto the set.

Her knowledge is just incredible.

We just can't get enough.

Maybe I should only speak for myself, but I can't get enough.

This is Christian Dior.

And so 1947, even some of these designers at the age they were at, I think of them as being my age, more relevant, but I know that's not true.

Annette Becker: So I think we're really lucky today that there are so many historic couture and designer houses that the company really feels like a sense of history is important to understanding the brand and having it continue forward.

So while Christian Dior was only the head of his house from 1947 to 1957 when he unexpectedly passed of a heart attack-- Peggy: Only ten years.

Annette: Just in that ten years, he made such a huge impact that today the brand Dior still exists today and still draws inspiration from the pieces he created half a century ago.

Peggy: That is impressive, and it will live throughout time.

Annette: Absolutely, I think partially because there are these archives that keep these pieces as cultural heritage for all of us to appreciate, but then also that the Dior brand still exists means we're being filled with these beautiful stories of the history of Dior and his work.

Peggy: So tell us about Christian Dior.

Where do we start, where does his story start?

For you, where does it start?

Annette: So in our collection, the history of Dior really starts in 1947 when he opened his house.

Before that, he'd spent time working for other very famous designers before and during World War II, but then following World War II, he had a financial backer who was part of the textile industry to help him launch his own brand.

And you know, there are often these synergies in the fashion industry.

We see designer names, but there are textile manufacturers, there are retailers who play important roles in these famous designer names becoming familiar to us.

Peggy: And we always say it's a lot of hard work, but there's luck involved along the way, and one doesn't exist without the other, I don't think, that it really becomes that.

It's only ten years, that's really surprising.

That name Dior is so strong today.

Annette: Mhm, mhm, yeah, and a lot of it is because he was such an innovator, especially when we think about the silhouettes that he created following World War II.

We went from having really austere fashion that had really narrow lines close to the body to preserve fabric and conserve it for the war effort, and that was something we saw in the US and in Europe.

So following World War II, Christian Dior used yards and yards of textiles to make these beautiful elaborate silhouettes, which is something that we can see in the pieces we have today.

Peggy: Yeah, I've looked at some of the sketches he's done and I'm amazed how angled they are.

Very sharp angles, very skinny little waist, very voluminous bottoms.

It's interesting to look at, but let's look at the real things.

Annette: Yes, absolutely.

Peggy: All right, we're gonna start over here.

Annette: So this is a really lovely example from fall/winter 1952, which is about five years into Christian Dior being the head of his house.

We're most familiar often with hearing about Dior's new look, which is characterized by sloped shoulders, a really nipped-in waist, and then a really full skirt.

With that, that first set of silhouettes he created was sometimes called the "Corolle," which is evocative of a flower blooming, or the "Figure 8," which has, you know, roundness at the top, nipped-in middle, and fullness at the bottom.

This silhouette is called "The Cicada," which I think is not exactly where most of us go for inspiration for fashion, but what's really lovely is we can see Dior's iconic silhouette.

We can see those sloped shoulders.

We can see this beautiful accentuated bust line, but then we can also see these elements that have been added at the skirt, additional pattern pieces that add fullness right at the hips.

Peggy: Yeah, this is really interesting because you can tell that is not her body.

You can tell that is fabric and it's just the style, where sometimes today I think we're so inhibited about having anything extra at our hips as women.

Annette: I think there was a really different mentality in this time period about the relationship between bodies and clothing.

So really in the 1960s, designers started experimenting more with stretchy jersey knits which follow the line of a wearer's body rather than enforcing a silhouette on it.

So in the 1950s when Dior was working, people were more used to wearing things like girdles and petticoats, even adding padding to their shoulders to make that beautiful sloped line, so it was really a way that this artifice could be seen as improving on nature and making it even more beautiful, even if it is drawing inspiration from a cicada to add fullness at hips.

Peggy: So interesting with this dress, we've got a dart in the front, we get like a yoke, almost a yoked effect here, and then those are bound buttonholes, yes?

Annette: They're beautiful bound buttonholes, and you can see they're even at a little bit of an angle.

You can imagine if someone is moving, that probably provides a little bit more movement and give there.

Peggy: Sure, because as a dress, typically we have buttonholes going up and down so that they don't show what's underneath, and a jacket has them horizontal to give movement, but these are a different angle than what I would put them at.

Annette: Yeah, honestly, I haven't seen other examples of this in our collection, and it does make you really realize how nipped in this becomes, that actually as someone is wearing this and moving around, the bottom bound buttonhole could almost go straight.

I also wonder if it might have something to do with the angle that this fabric is on.

So you can see it looks like it's on the grain at the top, but then it almost goes to the bias at the bottom to really fit around the wearer's body.

Peggy: It's very moire looking.

Annette: Yeah, and moire is the perfect word to use for this.

That's a way to describe this textile, which is a really heavy file, and files are characterized by these ridged lines, and then a moire is creating by rolling that fabric with those ridges through a heated press, and then it makes some of those lines go-- sort of wobble either direction.

Peggy: Oh, interesting, I didn't know that.

Annette: Which is why this looks like wood grain.

Peggy: Is this a silk?

Annette: This is a silk.

It's a very, very heavy silk, and you can imagine if you're making these really sculptural silhouettes, you have to have really dense, heavy fabric to hold itself up to make that shape.

Peggy: You would, otherwise you wouldn't get the volume just with the--the circumferences at the hems are really quite a bit.

And it's interesting to see these kimono sleeves because I didn't even think in the '40s the kimono was really that popular.

Annette: I think a lot of that is because Dior is known for these sloped shoulders.

So if you have an arm's eye, you know, that really creates this firm line between shoulder and arm or torso and arm, and this creates a much smoother, gentler line.

So if Dior is sort of obsessed with silhouette, choosing a kind of sleeve to accomplish that silhouette is important.

Peggy: So that's all one piece, and that changes where the whole sleeve is on a bias now.

Annette: Exactly, exactly.

Peggy: It's angled all the way.

It's just beautiful, just beautiful.

And would this be fully lined?

Annette: So this piece is fully lined, and it even has some really fussy bits underneath that are sort of like a lining that's like a skirt, and then there are even some ruched areas here with really dense netting that help this part stick up.

Peggy: Oh, interesting.

The sewing is amazing because I just was kind of looking at it, and noticed that this is like exactly the same all the way around, and it's bias.

So for it to be bias and have that kind of consistency, somebody had to be really, really good at what they were doing.

It just doesn't even change width at all.

Like, I took a tape measure to it.

But you know, it's impressive.

It's really beautiful.

Annette: I love imagining someone working anonymously in Dior's workshop appreciating now, what, 70 years later, you noticing these details.

Peggy: I know, but I mean, you know, hey, I measured their work and they were right spot on.

They really paid attention.

All right, so where do we go?

Annette: So next we have this piece.

Peggy: Oh, this dress.

What is it about--what is it that makes this dress so beautiful?

Annette: I think part of it is the textile.

So this is made out of a silk satin ikat.

Silk is the fiber.

Satin is the way of weaving the textile.

So we often think of weaving as going under, over, under, over, but with satin you go under and then over for a longer amount of time, which leaves these floats that reflect more light, which is why satin is so luminous.

And then the ikat is a way that all of these threads were dyed before the textile was woven, which means the threads were saturated with dye, so the blacks and browns are so intense and deep, and the effect with that is there's a sort of haziness on the edges of all of these floral motifs, which means today if we wanted to recreate this, we could certainly recreate the box pleats that we're seeing to create the silhouette, but it would be very difficult for us to source this fabric.

Just beautiful.

Peggy: It really is, and you know, all of these pleats, you can see that they're just regular pleats for the most part.

The fabric, I look at the fabric and it's a feminine fabric.

It's roses, it's floral, it's very feminine, but the pleating is very masculine, and then the bow is very feminine again.

So it's this real yin-yang between all of these feminine and masculine things going on, and all presented with a great look.

So as I look at it and I try to say, "Okay, I'm going to design something like this," I just wouldn't criss-cross back and forth like that, and yet this presents itself and it's so beautiful.

So I can see why this is hard to teach, because how do you teach this?

Annette: It's so true.

I think Dior was really obsessed with silhouette and would often sketch out lines.

He had a Y-line, an H-line for his garments, so I think in thinking so abstractly about what he wanted to accomplish with dresses, he was able to create things that are just impossible for most of our brains to construct.

So with this, you know, you mentioned some of these really beautiful pleats.

You can see how layered and dense these are, how much fabric is being folded.

It's just an embarrassment of riches when it comes to textiles.

And what's really unexpected about this to me is that we have this seam at the natural waistline, and you can see that's disrupted by this beautiful pleat here that almost makes this pleat look like it's the trail end of this bow at the bust line.

Peggy: It does.

It looks like the ribbon, like the bottom of it or whatever.

Annette: Exactly.

Peggy: It's continuous.

So how do you get into this dress?

Annette: There is a zipper at the back.

Peggy: Just a regular zip up the back, a normal zipper?

Annette: It's the least glamorous part of this dress.

Peggy: And the neckline, I mean, the neckline is just stunningly beautiful.

It's a silk in a satin weave, and that just gives it the most amount of sheen that satin weave does.

So when we talk about keeping the volume out like it is, what do we build underneath that holds that volume like that?

Annette: Such a great question.

So often we can see the pleats that are external on this garment, but what we don't get to see is the layer after layer after layer after layer of petticoats that are attached to this garment, and you can see that these have been all dyed to coordinate.

And with each of these layers, you can see this denser band, another band of crinoline that's been even added as a second tier here to give this volume.

So often in garments that people wore in the 1950s that weren't examples of haute couture that were ready to wear, you could purchase at a department store, people would add their own petticoats because they could decide if they wanted it to be gently filled out or, you know, more dramatic.

Dior being obsessed with silhouette was not going to leave it to the person who wore this.

He was going to build all of that structure in himself.

Peggy: Well, and you know what's interesting, I sit here and wonder and look at your--you've got your wide seam allowances again, and look at that wide hem.

That's the biggest hem I think I've ever seen, but--and is that an underlining?

Annette: It is an underlining here.

Peggy: Sorry, I just have another question after that.

Annette: Yeah, and you can see that it's been hand stitched on here too.

Peggy: So the underlining is so where I can--like we saw before, where you can hem the dress to the underlining and it doesn't show on the outside.

Annette: Precisely.

Peggy: So how do you know how many of those are needed?

Do you think they just trial?

This is a couture, so this was made for a person.

Do we know who that person is or was, or?

Annette: So the woman who owned this was named Betty Blake.

She was a socialite in Dallas who had this piece custom-created for her since it is an example of haute couture.

So there is a chance, because there's always a conversation between the designer and the person commissioning the couture garment, that maybe Betty Blake described what her personal style was, but also because Dior had such a firm hand when it came to silhouette, he might've essentially said, "Take it or leave it.

This is the number of petticoats.

This is the line that I am creating that I have become famous for, so you can trust my vision."

Peggy: Well, what's interesting, because it could be more.

There is space available where those pleats could be expanded more, but yet somehow this proportion is just stunning.

So I just wonder, how do you get to that conclusion that four is good, it works?

Like you said, Dior must have said, "Just trust me, I'm good, I gotcha."

Annette: I could imagine.

There likely was some trial and error in the atelier workshop.

You know, Dior had to hire very experienced people to work with him to fabricate these garments, so there was probably a lot of back and forth to figure out exactly how full this needed to be-- Peggy: Tell me a little bit about his travels.

Where did he start?

Annette: So Dior is originally from France and spent basically his entire career in France.

He is best known today for his haute couture practice in Paris, and couture can only be created in Paris, so you can imagine the sort of cultural weight that couture has.

But Dior was also really clever in creating relationships, especially in the UK, in the US, in Mexico, to create lines that could then be purchased by people who weren't just making this pilgrimage to Paris to buy his pieces.

Peggy: I was gonna say, so this woman had to have gone to Paris and scheduled this to have it made for her.

Annette: Exactly, and we-- you know, you can think today how easy it is for us to hop on a plane and go over to Paris from wherever we are, but appreciating that this is at a time when travel is much more complicated.

Peggy: In the '50s.

Annette: Exactly.

Peggy: You know, late '40s, yeah.

Annette: Exactly, and we can also appreciate most of us buy our clothing off the rack, it's ready to wear.

We don't have to go in for fitting after fitting to make sure every seam is custom tailored to our bodies.

The people who commissioned these couture pieces are really investing in that system of production.

It's not just another dress, it is a piece that is created in this cultural ecosystem.

Peggy: I think that's where I just have such a great appreciation for those women who have donated this because it is a relationship, it is a piece of art, and they've donated it simply so that others could benefit.

There's no other gain for them.

They don't get money, they don't get paid.

I just really admire that, that we can actually enjoy it.

All of us can enjoy it because of their selflessness on that level.

Annette: It's so true, especially thinking about this having been donated decades ago to our collection at a point when fashion was not seen as being on par with art, so this is even at a time when people were undervaluing historic fashion like this, and Betty Blake still recognizes this as something that deserved to be saved and studied, and how lucky are we that get to keep benefiting from that?

Peggy: It is just beautiful.

I mean, the dress is just beautiful.

Thank you so much again for sharing this.

So what else?

Tell us what else.

I'm grateful for everything we've seen, we just want more, okay?

Annette: So this is a really lovely example from 1949 that really shows a way that Dior was thinking not just about creating these pieces in his couture house, but also creating demi-couture, which is a way of creating the beginning of a garment in Paris but then essentially making the last step of all of those fittings happen in, say, a department store in the U.S.

Peggy: I don't think I've ever heard of that expression.

And did he actually--was he the first who did that, or was there many who did that, demi-couture?

Annette: There were many designers who did, and historically there have been many levels of fashion design production in Paris, and especially because those things were supported and regulated by the government, they had very specific vocabulary that was used for them.

Peggy: Sure, so a garment could be started then and then sent to the United States, New York per se, where they were, so we had to have some type of team, or this was sent to Neiman Marcus?

Annette: Yeah, this was retailed through Neiman Marcus, a Dallas-based department store, and the institution that started our historic collection of clothing.

Dior and Neiman Marcus had a very special relationship because Dior received the Neiman Marcus Award, which was called the Oscars of Fashion, in 1947, the year he opened his fashion house.

Peggy: Oh my, that was big.

Annette: Yeah, it was also a very savvy move for Neiman Marcus to develop a very early relationship with this couturier who was clearly going to be important.

So this piece was made expressly for Neiman Marcus and their clients, and I think something that's really clever about what was accomplished is we can see the way Dior's silhouettes here come into play.

We have a sloped shoulder, a more full bust line, and you can see this really nipped-in waist, but what we're not showing you is that this is actually two pieces, so this is a two-piece dress.

Peggy: Kind of sportswear, probably the beginning of sportswear in those years, you think, or separates?

Annette: It certainly has a relationship with that.

So this would have only been worn together likely, but Christian Dior certainly knew that American clients preferred sportswear and like sort of easy to wear clothing, and also recognized that a lot of how you get fit for a garment is a proportion from a torso and legs, and people have different proportions, so in separating out these two pieces he could get that fit and get a silhouette.

Peggy: And you notice there's no buttons down here, so wherever it was tucked in, it definitely went for those different heights.

Annette: Exactly, yes.

Peggy: That's fascinating.

Annette: So we can see that there's a seam here and that the buttons only go that far, so all of this would have always been tucked in, and you can even see that it was not meant to just fly loose, that we have some hook and eye closures here.

Peggy: Oh, boy, the details.

Annette: So many details that no one's ever going to see, but makes a difference to the wearer.

Peggy: Sure, and again, this kimono.

It's kind of that sloped shoulder, exactly what you're talking about again.

Annette: And you can see how broad this collar is and how much the line of this sort of follows the shoulder too.

Peggy: So again, extending those shoulders.

Skinny little waist.

Look how thin those--that's a little waist.

Annette: It is a very small waist, and you can imagine especially with how voluminous the top is.

And then again, as we look at these layers and layers of pleats, you can appreciate how that waist was given the illusion of being even thinner, even skinnier next to all of this yardage.

Peggy: Wow, there's pleats inside of a pleat.

Annette: It's so much.

Peggy: Oh my goodness gracious, but it hangs so beautiful.

What fabric is this?

Do you know the fiber?

Annette: So this is made out of a brocade that's made out of silk.

So brocades tend to have a lot of body to them too, especially as we can see the inside of this textile.

You can see that basically anywhere there is a color shown on the outside, all of the other colors of thread are running underneath.

So anywhere we have this yellow, you have the greens and blues running underneath, which just makes this really dense.

And again, because Dior wanted to create these really voluminous sculptural silhouettes, having this dense fabric is important for that.

Peggy: So it didn't necessarily have a wearer or an owner, it came directly from Neiman Marcus.

Annette: So this is a-- Peggy: A demi-couture?

Annette: Yes, this is a piece that came to us directly from Neiman Marcus as part of the original collection that formed our holdings.

Peggy: So it could have never been worn.

Annette: My guess is it was worn maybe by informal models in a Neiman Marcus department store space, but it was never worn by someone who purchased this piece.

So straight from the department store to our archive, and it will never be worn again because it's just for us to appreciate for research.

Peggy: And then, I mean, you know, we would never know these facts, and I think these facts are so important in our own sewing when we go to make decisions or create.

I cannot say thank you enough.

Annette: Well, thank you for having me.

Peggy: I really appreciate it, thank you.

I'm gonna take a minute and show people how to make pleats.

Annette: Oh, how fun, enjoy.

Peggy: Thanks so much, Annette.

You know, in our world today, as we know and study fashion, and I love to look at these past fashions, we know that fashions repeat themselves.

We know they do.

We've all been alive long enough to know that they come back, and so pleats are a big thing.

We're seeing them again, we've seen them before, and so basically I'm going to give you a quick little pleated lesson, but in a contemporary version to show you how we're seeing them today.

There's basically six types of pleats is how we've defined them.

There's a kick pleat, a knife pleat, an accordion, a box pleat, an inverted pleat, and then a sunray, and I'm just gonna give you a quick example of all of them.

However, in some cases, we see a pleat like this across the back of a jacket where there's literally no use for it, it's just for style.

And then we look at a blouse like this, and instead of gathers, we see soft pleats all the way across the front of that blouse.

Beautifully done, lightweight, silk, and just beautiful pleats, faced on the inside with a little piece of bias tape to hold those pleats in place.

On the bottom of a pair of jeans, we see what we call a kick pleat.

So let me quickly show you these different kinds of pleats because we can use our creative imagination and do all kinds of different fun things.

This first one I'm gonna start with is what we call a kick pleat.

In the old days, a kick pleat used to go all the way up.

Today, we shorten fabric, we use a little less fabric by just making it the bottom half, but if you notice, you just cut where you want to add it, and simply both sides are folded over.

You stitch a regular seam allowance and then stitch both sides together.

Both of them are folded the same direction, and then there's some type of top stitching that's done right here at the top that keeps them in place.

You think about a skirt, the jeans that I showed you, it's a great way to do that.

This next one is just a simple little pleat, and you're gonna measure the depth you want the pleat to be and then simply double that amount.

This is actually called a knife pleat.

The only difference between a knife pleat and an accordion pleat is that knife pleats are triply done together.

Accordions are more of them and they're smaller.

And then what we have is an inverted pleat, and an inverted pleat and a box pleat are actually the same except they're, again, just opposite of one another.

So this one, I'm gonna call this a inverted pleat.

What I do is I measure the depth of the pleat, and then I add four times so that I can get two together, and typically this is all the same fabric.

I only did it cut separate so you could actually see them, how much to add and where it's added, but all of this math is just done by adding this many inches the number of times you want the pleat.

But if this were done on the outside, that would be called the box pleat, but when it's on the inside, it's called the inverted pleat, but it's the same size, same amount, same added.

It's just sewn differently and turned a different way.

This last pleat is called a sunray, and if you notice, it's wider at the bottom than it is at the top.

So again, the depth you want twice plus the amount of fullness you wanted, and there's many times where we see a whole skirt done like this, and it's almost shaped like this moon shape.

We see this big accentuation at the bottom, and then it gets pleated into this beautiful waistline.

It's just, the pleats are so beautiful, and they're so fun to just put them in lots of different places.

I've had the pleasure of speaking with our next guest many times.

Ella Pritsker truly believes that couture brings her joy, and she's going to show us all how and why.

Be sure to join us next time on "Fit 2 Stitch."

[piano music] announcer: "Fit 2 Stitch" is made possible by Kai Scissors.

announcer: Reliable Corporation.

announcer: Bennos Buttons.

announcer: Plano Sewing Center.

announcer: Elliott Berman Textiles.

announcer: And WAWAK Sewing Supplies.

announcer: To order a 4-DVD set of "Fit 2 Stitch" Series 14, please visit our website at fit2stitch.com.