The studio that Christian Dior had fitted out in 1951 on the 3rd floor of 13, rue François Ier was a huge, light-filled space in which nine people worked. Raymonde Zehnacker, whom he had met at Lucien Lelong’s, was “my second self, or, to be more accurate, my exact complement,” in the couturier’s words. With her “blue eyes that express everything and miss nothing,” she was the organizational pillar of the studio, but also an intimate friend of Christian Dior.

Christian Dior was accustomed to retiring to the countryside to design his collection two months before it was to be presented early December and June. He started by covering numerous pads of paper with a multitude of small sketches.

The first step was the creation of a toile, in the ecru cotton canvas reserved for this purpose, as a 3-D expression of the sketch. All at once, the studio came alive, filling up with trolleys of fabrics, accessories, sparteries, and hats. The names of the models were written on a blackboard and different designs were attributed to each one.

As this was going on, the chart of the collection was prepared by Madame Raymonde on large sheets of paper. Each one corresponded to a line and had a limited number of boxes for a pre-determined number of day dresses, suits, coats or evening dresses. The chart also enabled a vision of the collection as a whole, from which the fashion show would be organized, ensuring that it was balanced.

Now the fabrics invaded the studio. For Christian Dior, the quality of the fabric was more important than its color, because this is what would enable it to adapt to the desired shape. “Its suppleness or rigidity, weight or thickness” were the characteristics to take into account. Several fabrics were therefore draped, one after the other, on the model still dressed in the toile, to judge how it would fall. Often it took a long time to make a choice. Then “Madame Raymonde returns to her seat,” Christian Dior wrote, “registers the fabric in her book, makes a note that she must tell the manufacturer, and passes the docket to Frontine, who will send it down to the stockroom.”

It was time for the first fittings. The prototype, worn by the chosen model, was presented to Christian Dior by the head seamstress, accompanied by the worker who had produced it. The couturier “watches the dress come alive.” He would examine it at length in the large mirror mounted on one of the studio walls, which enabled him to take a step back and size it up. He might then move the seams, adjust the length of a sleeve or a hem, the width of the neckline. “Little by little, the fitting takes direction,” Christian Dior wrote. “Alignments are rectified, proportions brought into balance. Finally, bristling with pins, studded with pieces of cotton toile, fluttering with those bias-cut strips of material that indicate the position of the principal seams, or the site of alterations, the dress leaves the studio.”