Framboise evening dress, silk faille, Christian Dior haute couture Spring/Summer 1957, Libre line, Paris, France

Evening dress of red silk faille. Short sleeves, and tight moulded bodice with a V-neck line. A looped single bow at the décolleté with rouched central seam falling into 2 fringed ties from the waist. Full bell-shaped skirt. Integral boning with silk and net skirts.

Given by Mrs D.M. Haynes and Mrs M. Clark

Opal Holt was born in Canada in 1887 but lived in the US until the end of the Second World War. She travelled extensively between the wars and was in the first plane to land in Bali. She married Herbert Holt, a Canadian who lived a large part of his life in England, as her third husband in 1946. They came to England and Europe every summer and Opal Holt began buying clothes in Paris for her life in England, and for the Bahamas in Winter, over a period of about thirty years. She died in 1980.

Given by Mrs D.M Haynes and Mrs. Clark (nee Holt; Opal Holt's step-daughters).

This design was commercially very successful for Dior. The Royal Ontario Museum has two identical models.

The caption for the photograph at the Dior Archive (see 'References') shows how, at the time of his death in 1957, Christian Dior had established an empire of licensed brands, such as shoes, stockings, gloves, etc. See Wilcox, C. 'Dior's Golden Age' in Wilcox, C., ed., The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947-57 (V&A Publications, 2007), p.56.

T.111-1982