The couturier and former creative director of Maison Dior, successor to Yves Saint Laurent, died on Wednesday September 6 at the age of 97 in Châtillon-sur-Seine, Burgundy.
Thanks to his exceptional longevity at the Maison de couture, he was able to accompany several generations between the “trente glorieuses” and the end of the 1980s, but he is undoubtedly one of the most little-known designers in the Dior saga.
Designing for everyday women
More discreet and less flamboyant than, among his successors, the Italian Gianfranco Ferré or the sanguine John Galliano, Marc Bohan first designed clothes for “real women” as much as he nurtured a pronounced taste for “a notion of timeless beauty”.
Thus, he told WWD magazine, “I make clothes for real women, not for myself, not for models and not for fashion magazines”.
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While his style remained in the purest continuity of founder Christian Dior, he was also responsible for launching the “Miss Dior” women’s ready-to-wear line, the “Baby Dior” line and the “Dior Homme” men’s line. A segmentation that is still very much alive within the House.
Witness to changing mores, the emerging leisure society and, above all, youth culture, dresses became more practical and shorter.
A passion for drawing
Born in Paris on August 22, 1926, Marc Bohan developed a passion for design and fashion from an early age, encouraged by his mother, a milliner. After completing his training in fashion design, he joined Robert Piguet in 1946, before continuing his training with British fashion designer Edward Molyneux, based in Paris, where he remained until 1951.
He tried unsuccessfully to set up his own company, but finances were tight and he only made it through one season. Jean Patou gave him a chance, making him head of his haute couture collections.
Continuing the spirit of Christian Dior
He arrived at Dior in 1957, in charge of creating collections in London. At the end of October 1960, he was summoned by Marcel Boussac, owner of the couture house, to replace a hospitalized Yves Saint Laurent at short notice.
His collections were shown for the first time for Spring-Summer 1961. Overtaken by an era of license inflation, he’s suddenly departed in 1989, after 32 years with Dior. A record, beating even the number of years spent by the founder at the head of creation!
Replaced by the whimsical Gianfranco Ferré, he became artistic director for a londonian Maison and Crown official supplier, Norman Hartnell, until 1992.
According to public information on the Libra Memoria website, a religious service is scheduled for September 13 at Saint-Nicolas church, followed by a cremation.
It will thus be possible to say goodbye to the man who had an unrivalled sense of proportion and cut, as well as a strong attraction to opera and theater. But discreet to the end, he didn’t like to be at the center of the show. He preferred his friends and clients to take center stage, such as the writer Françoise Sagan, the committed artist Niki de Saint Phalle, the Hollywoodian actress Elizabeth Taylor and the royal Grace of Monaco.
A generation light years ahead of some of today’s star designers!
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