Avery Trufelman

Elizabeth Hawes, Zelda Wynne Valdez, Bonnie Cashin, Anne Lowe, many, many more.

Unfortunately, they weren't prioritized in the storytelling.

None of these American women could have been Dior.

Dior was capable of owning his own business, which was high fashion.

It was haute couture.

It was considered high art.

I think that Dior's name carried on because his label carried on.

But can I tell you something?

Dior's label almost didn't carry on.

After Dior passed away, his company was barely limping through the 1960s when hippie fashion had taken over and there were fewer customers clamoring for custom ball gowns.

The brand survived by licensing out its name, slapping Dior on sunglasses and bags and ties and men's shirts.

And by the early 80s, 90% of Dior's sales were licenses.

They held 260 licenses worldwide for products made by other companies.

usually made cheaply with shoddy construction that were not up to luxury standards.

Dior lost all quality control.

They developed a terrible reputation, and their finances fell into horrible disarray.

And so Dior was bought out, and it lay in the bowels of a big holding company until 1984.

when this holding company was bought by an elegant French real estate developer named Bernard Arnault, who immediately began to clean house and fired 8,000 workers and ditched anything in the holding company that wasn't Dior.

He found Dior, this diamond in the rough, and he polished it and he used it as his anchor to create the biggest luxury empire in history.

LVMH, the company that owns most designer brands and Sephora and all the duty-free stores, and it has made Bernard Arnault one of the top 10 richest men in the world.