Forget about pearl-skinned Princess Margaret posing primly for Cecil Beaton on her 21st birthday with seven layers of ballroom-scale Dior taffeta resplendent around her. This season, Dior’s anointed princess is Josephine Baker, commanding the stage of a smoky jazz club draped in sequins, white fur stole falling from her shoulders as she sings.
Baker, who was born in Missouri but lived much of her life in France, was a muse to Christian Dior and one of his best customers, spending $250,000 on an haute couture wardrobe. The latest Dior haute couture show, a dazzling homage of kiss curls and swishy fringing, velvet tailoring and crushed silk lamé, restores Baker to her rightful place in Dior’s history. The show was a counterweight to the heavily fetishised image of an infamous Folies Bergère costume – a string of bananas and little else – which came to define Baker’s image.
