Nonette wool skirt suit by Christian Dior, Paris, France, Verticale line, haute couture spring/summer 1950, with reproduction cotton piqué collar

Woman's dark grey wool worsted dress, two pieces, comprising a raglan-sleeved bodice with horseshoe collar, buttons down the back, and long slim sleeves buttoning at the wrist, and separate pencil skirt.

Donated in memory of Princess George Galitzine, MBE (née Jean Dawnay)

Jean Dawnay became a house model at Dior at the end of 1949. She writes about her time at the house in her autobiography Model Girl (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1956). In one passage, she describes the first showing of the new collection at the Paris salon: ‘At 11 o’clock we started, and the babbling of the Press dropped to a breathless hush. As I passed through the grey satin curtains into the salon to show my first number, a caramel coloured fitted coat in grosgrain, I could feel that atmosphere of intense concentration like a tangible thing. There was very little room to turn and show properly, and when it came to the wider ball dresses with their yards and yards of tulle or heavy satin all sparkling with hand embroidery, one could hardly pass between the closely packed audience’. Dawnay was known at Dior as ‘Caroline’ to avoid confusion with another model called Jane.

This suit is from Christian Dior’s haute couture spring/summer 1950 collection, named the Verticale line. Christian Dior showed this collection at his first ever show in Britain, held at the Savoy Hotel on the 25th April 1950. The show was organised by fashion historian Doris Langley Moore, as a charity event to raise funds for a Museum of Costume (now the Fashion Museum, Bath). It received significant press attention and a photograph of Dawnay modelling this suit at the show was published the following day in the Daily Mail. Dawnay was also photographed wearing the suit, while posing in the exterior arches of the Savoy Hotel, by fashion photographer John French (the original negatives are now in the collection of the Archive of Art and Design [John French archive item no. F1257]).

The day after the show at the Savoy, Dior and his models put on a private showing of the collection for members of the British royal family including the Queen, Princess Margaret, Princess Marina the Duchess of Kent and her sister Princess Olga of Greece. Held at the French Embassy in London, the private showing was organised by the Ambassador’s wife, Madame Massigli, a regular Dior client.

Dawnay mentions this suit briefly in a passage in her autobiography describing the production process at the house; 'After the material has been fitted, buttons and belts are chosen, and the dresses are given a name as well as a number. Mine all had very pure-sounding names, such as 'Nonette' (little nun), 'Jungfrau', 'Innocence', and 'Angelique'. I wanted so much to be sophisticated, but obvioulsy M. Dior had a different picture of me'.

Christian Dior founded his Parisian fashion house in 1946, with backing from the textile manufacturer Marcel Boussac. On 12 February 1947, the House of Dior launched its first collection. Dubbed the ‘New Look’ by the press, the collection had an instant and unparalleled influence on fashion around the world.
This suit was worn by Jean Dawnay, later Princess Galitzine, who was a house model at Dior in 1950. Chosen by Dior for her ‘essential Englishness’, she modelled this ensemble from the haute couture spring-summer 1950 Verticale line at the Paris salon and later at a Dior’s first London show held at the Savoy Hotel in April 1950.

T.49:1, 2-2018