Elizabeth Evitz Dickinson

They were born a few months apart.

Christian Dior was three months older than Claire McArdle.

Dior was actually new to fashion, newer to fashion than she was.

He had his first collection come out in 1947, and it was...

wildly anticipated because they needed something to save the haute couture tradition.

And he wanted to, as he put it, save women from nature.

He wanted to put them back on a pedestal.

And in a lot of ways, what Dior wanted was to go back to his beloved mother's Victorian era, like very structured clothing.

And he unleashed the new look.

It's said that Carmel Snow was the one who called it, oh, Christiane, it's such a new look.

There's mixed attribution of where that first came.

And it was, people went wild for it because it felt like Paris is back.

He created these long skirts.

And the thing is, is after the war, remember all the rationing and the tight, short skirts?

When McArdle was asked by a fashion editor, what do you think is coming?

She said, oh, we're going to have really long, beautiful skirts.

And she effectively did a new look design, which she was doing the long, full skirts again, but she wasn't putting anyone into this understructure.

Yeah, there was a way to make this statement without the discomfort.

One of his models in his new look corset fainted during preparation for the show.

And he told it in this joke.