Marc Bohan, who has died aged 97, was the last survivor of the classical era of French couture, a discreet designer content to offer customised perfection to a few thousand clients a year. From 1960 to 1988 he was chief creator at the great house of Christian Dior, and his consistent inventiveness sustained its customer base and fame, which attracted licensing deals for accessories and other merchandise that brought in 80% of Dior revenues.
Named-couturier perfumes had sold well since Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel marketed her first in 1921, but the House of Dior went far beyond this in 1950, just four years after its founding, adding furs and nylon stockings, eventually franchising more than 150 lines.
Christian Dior’s gift for dramatic silhouettes had made his house the world fashion leader, and he selected a dauphin for this kingdom, the talented teenager Yves Saint Laurent, hired in 1955 as apprentice, promoted to assistant in 1957, and promised the throne one day. When Dior died of a heart attack later that year, Saint Laurent, at 21, succeeded in every sense as the house’s artistic director.
But Marcel Boussac, the cotton-empire magnate whose money had set up the house, believed Saint Laurent was fragile, and was wary of his designs – too radical, too biased to the young – for couture buyers. Boussac hired Bohan as human insurance on a two-year contract in 1958. Bohan had already worked in Paris for 13 years, the last four as designer at Jean Patou, and understood clothes also had to please paying customers who were not models.
Bohan, never told the reason for his engagement, was parked overseeing Dior’s London branch, until Saint Laurent was called up for military service in 1960, and had a nervous breakdown. Boussac replaced him with Bohan.
Boussac’s faith that Bohan would maintain Dior’s apex position was justified. The press was impressed by his debut. Elizabeth Taylor bought a dozen dresses, and a gown for the Oscars; Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, shopped repeatedly, as later did her daughters, Caroline and Stephanie. He dressed Sophia Loren, Lauren Bacall and Olivia de Havilland, sometimes for the screen – Bohan’s sleeveless chiffon makes her plotting against Bette Davis even chiller in Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964).
Bohan flattered the Duchess of Windsor and concocted robes for the 1967 coronation of the Iranian empress Farah Pahlavi, the embroidery on her velvet train deciphered from a sketch on crumpled paper sent from Tehran. Bohan’s Dior spin-offs had high-level inspiration – clothes for Taylor’s daughter Maria led to Baby Dior. Beautiful People bought, and the haute-bourgeoisie followed.
Boussac had paid a settlement to Saint Laurent for breach of promise, and with it YSL set up his own house, then international ready-to-wear boutiques. He moved into the new fashion-as-entertainment, and his lifestyle was itself modish. The House of Dior dwarfed YSL, but Bohan’s name never appeared on its collection programmes, and his proper credit, “Marc Bohan for Dior”, was often abbreviated to “Dior”.
He kept his lifestyle invisible. He worked in the same white cotton smocks Christian Dior had worn, constantly sketched ideas, and responded subtly to the mood in modes – his 1966 collection, influenced by Russian costumes in the 1965 film Dr Zhivago, caught early the fashion change from modern simplicity to exotic romance.
Across decades, his designs look timely, individually lovely and good for their wearers (he dissuaded clients, even Princess Grace, from unsuited garments), but lack that strong designer identity which would shift stock from the 1960s on. Bohan disapproved of that level of personal expression: “My style remained constant over my career. I wasn’t designing for anybody except for the women who were my clients.” He added Dior ready-to-wear in 1968, but this never gave Dior the publicity, energy and finance it did younger houses.
As Boussac’s ageing cotton empire fell to cheaper, fresher imports, and synthetics, Boussac began to sell Parfums Christian Dior in 1968 to what became the Moët Hennessy group, completing the deal in 1973, yet still went bankrupt in 1978. Finally, a commercial court accepted a bid for the Boussac group from Agache-Willot, France’s largest textile company. Dior staff trembled, but the house’s business was profitable, and was promised investment money. Bohan worked on quietly. Investment never came.
In 1981, with Agache-Willot’s Boussac acquisition bankrupt, François Mitterrand’s new socialist government had to intervene to keep it alive; they found a hungry buyer in young Bernard Arnault, who purchased it in 1985 with family money and a massive bank loan, just to possess the House of Dior.
Arnault had a vision for the future of luxury, and owning Dior – not yet a “brand” in the modern sense – was crucial. In 1988, he dismissed Bohan (winner of the Golden Thimble award in 1983 and 88) and brought in Gianfranco Ferré. Saint Laurent’s chairman Pierre Bergé protested: “I don’t think opening the doors to a foreigner – and an Italian – is respecting the spirit of creativity in France.” Ferré’s name went on the collection programmes.
Bohan was philosophical; he knew he had been long lucky in a chancy industry. He was born in Sceaux, in the southern suburbs of Paris, to Genevieve (nee Baudoux), a milliner, and Alfred, a businessman. His mother encouraged his artistic gifts, as did his local school, the Lycée Lakanal. From 1945 he trained with Dior’s mentor Robert Piguet, then moved to Edward Molyneux, and briefly opened his own salon which collapsed for lack of capital, before taking responsibility young at Patou.
Post-Dior, Bohan hazarded an uncharacteristic risk, for promised high rewards or perhaps revenge. He accepted an offer from Manny Silverman, the ousted chief executive of Moss Bros, who had bought out of receivership the London business of Norman Hartnell, once couturier to Queen Elizabeth II and her mother.
Silverman believed that if Bohan brought a fraction of his star clients with him, and was perhaps patronised by Diana, Princess of Wales, London might gain a world-class couture house. Their Hartnell opened in 1990, at the start of the Gulf war and, underfunded, closed during the ensuing recession.
Bohan’s first wife, Dominique Gaborit, died in a car accident in 1962; they had a daughter, Marie-Anne. His second wife, Huguette Rinjonneau, also predeceased him.
• Marc Roger Maurice Louis Bohan, couturier, born 22 August 1926; died 6 September 2023
