Mitzah Bricard first came to fashion designer Christian Dior with her expertise in hats, Dior explains that he examine's each dress as it is modeled before a show.
..."Fashion is above all a question of line; from the shoes to the hat the silhouette must be viewed as a whole.
That is why Mme Bricard and I now pore over the choice of the hat, whose shape has only vaguely suggested in the sketch. The particular shape and size which will suit the 'line' of the dresses has to be decided. Before me is a huge heap of assorted shapes which are to the hats what the toiles are to the dresses. As in the case of the models, the details will come later. At first, all that is necessary is that the hat should suit both the mannequin and the dress for which it is to be the complement. Sometimes the problem seems insoluble. Twenty solutions are tried without success; sometimes in desperation one abandons the fruitless search among the existing shapes in order to create a hat which will suit the dress and the face, out of one's own head."
However, we should not think of her as isolated from the whole process of design to fashion show.
... "And he asks Mmm Bricard*, who is sitting beside him:
'What is that little thing that you've got in your hand? Yes. that. Give it to me.'
'You can't do that,' she exclaims.
'Oh yes I can.'
The object now adorns the hat. Perhaps the gloves are tried and retried over and over again, or the umbrella, which are put up, put down, put up again. Finally they are abandoned in favor of a muff. The voice of Mme Bricard extols maxims as formal as the banderillas of a bullfight. ..." (page 98)
*her surname is spelled Bricart throughout Dior's autobiography, but I will keep it as Bricard. Just as there are various spellings of her given name
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