Brown going away suit consisting of tailored jacket and skirt. Made by Dior London atelier for Laura Templer.

Given in memory of Laura Lofting(née Templer)

Laura Templer trained in fashion design at Bromley School of Art. After receiving her Diploma in 1954, she joined the tailoring department at the Christian Dior London atelier. Initially, she was tasked with translating the sketches and photographs of Dior designs sent from Paris into patterns to be made for London clients, evidenced by the documents, photographs, sketches and patterns kept by Laura Templer until her death in 2021. A group of 14 of these photographs and sketches, together with her diploma sketchbook of drawings made at couture fashion shows in 1954, were also acquired by the V&A[2024/135].

Templar was born in Ostend, her mother French-Belgian, while her father came from a British-Dutch background and worked as a diplomat. In May 1940, aged nine, she escaped Belgium with her parents on one of the last convoys to leave before Germany invaded. The family subsequently settled in Bournemouth.
Templer left her job at Dior London after marrying a GP, Dr John Lofting, in 1960 and moving to Norwich. At her wedding ceremony she wore a cream silk wedding dress and a brown wool suit to leave for the honeymoon, both made for her in the Dior London atelier.


Christian Dior (1905-1957) founded his Parisian fashion house in 1946 and showed his first collection on 12th February 1947. The immediate success of his ‘New Look’, and subsequent collections until his death in 1957, made Dior one of the most significant and influential Parisian fashion houses of the post-war period. As part of the wider international growth of the house, in 1952 Christian Dior set up a London- based company, C. D. Models (London) Ltd, which was renamed Christian Dior London Ltd in December 1954.

Christian Dior by Oriole Cullen and Connie Karol Burks (V&A 2019):
C.D. Models (London) Ltd was formed in partnership with Dior in 1952 by wholesale clothing manufacturers Coleman Jeffreys and Marcel Fenez, and Laura Ward, Countess of Dudley. Christian Dior sent Jacques Chastel from Paris and enlisted his good friend Serge Mirman to oversee business operations. Mirman remained closely involved with the business for several years, whilst his wife milliner Simone Mirman designed and made hats for the London collections. The London-based company produced ready-made Christian Dior garments based on the main Paris haute couture and New York collections at their ateliers in Maddox Street, London, made mainly from British fabrics, for sale in Britain and the British Commonwealth.

T.50:1-3-2025