THE DEMANDING MME. BRICARD IS WITH DIOR FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE FASHION HOUSE : HER EXPERTISE IS HATS

This autobiography proves to me once again that the creative are rarely only good at one thing for it's an exciting read, conveying the back-room, of a couture house, the models and the fashion show, the creativity and the business that was Christian Dior's House of Dior.

Our subject for this month, Mitzah Bricard, was on the team for all of it:

Why Christian Dior had Mitzah Bricard join his design team.

... "Mme Bricard, who had helped Molyneau with his collection to great effect.  We had become great friends... In August she allows herself to spend a month at a fashionable watering-place in order that she may be seen in the square of the casino, but on the whole her love of the country and nature does not go further than the flowers with which she decorates her hats and her dresses.  Her high standards are inflexible; in fashion she aims immediately for the most marked expression of that indefinable, and perhaps slightly neglected thing called chic. (page 12-13)

At the birth of the House of Dior, Christian Dior reports that Madame Bricard was there.  Using a 'cubbyhole' of the workshop to show his first independent collection:  

"At 10:30, with the salons full to bursting, the first mannequin showed the first dress.  Marie-Therese, half dead with fright, stumbled at her first appearance, collapsed in tears, and was henceforth incapable of showing a dress.  Very soon, the entry of each model was accompanied by gusts of applause.  I stuffed my ears, terrified of feeling confident too soon; but a series of short bulletins from the field of battle confirmed to me that my star mannequin, the troops - led, flags flying, but my star mannequin, the inimitable Tania - had triumphed.

Now the last dress had been shown, amid a tumult of enthusiasm, and Mme Marguerite, Mme. Bricard, and I stood gazing at each other in the dressing room.  We were none of us able to speak,  Then Raymonde came to look for us, crying with joy, in order to propel us into the big salon, where we were greeted by a salvo of applause.  As long as I live, whatever triumphs I win, nothing will ever exceed my feelings at that supreme moment." (page 17 paperback)

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