How Christian Dior’s passion for flowers inspired his fashion

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century after the couturier Christian Dior spent his childhood in a house set high on the cliffs overlooking the Normandy seaside resort of Granville, the influence of these formative years remains deeply ingrained in the decorative spirit of the fashion house he founded.

“Thankfully, there are flowers,” Dior once enthused, a sentiment imbued throughout a new exhibition, Dior, Enchanting Gardens (with an accompanying book, published by Rizzoli). The exhibition is on show at the Museé Christian Dior, located on the site of his former seaside home Les Rhumbs (so named for the nautical measurement of lines extending from a compass rose, seen depicted as a mosaic in the villa’s hallway).

Christian Dior drawing in his garden, circa 1954

EUGENE KAMMERMAN/GAMMA RAPHO