"Magic...was what everyone wanted from Paris. Never has there been a moment more climatically right for a Napoleon, An Alexander the Great, a Caesar of Couture. Paris fashion was waiting to be seized and shaken and given direction. There has never been an easier or complete conquest than that of Christian Dior in 1947."

“I'm a mild man, but I have violent tastes.”

“I wanted to be considered a good craftsman. I wanted my dresses to be constructed like buildings, molded to the curves of the female form, stylizing its shape.”

“Women, with their sure instincts, realized that my intention was to make them not just more beautiful but also happier.”

“Bright reds – scarlet, pillar-box red, crimson or cherry – are very cheerful and youthful.”

“I know very well the women. The short skirt was never a good fashion — very vulgar. The American women will accept the new fashions. You can never stop the fashions.”

“My mother whom I adored, secretly wasted away and died of grief…; her death…marked me for life.”