Review: Miss Dior

I feel like Dior is one of those fashion names that I’ve always been aware of but never really knew much about. So I definitely didn’t know Christian’s sister, Catherine, was involved in the French Resistance until I read Natasha Lester’s novel The Paris Secret. I was fascinated with the work of the Resistance during WWII and the stories that were never told. So, when I had the chance to review Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture, I jumped at it because I wanted to learn more about Catherine. A hefty book full oh photos, Justine Picardie’s latest work was interesting, if far lighter on Catherine’s life than I would have liked.

Here’s the book’s description:

When the French designer Christian Dior presented his first collection in Paris in 1947, he changed fashion forever. Dior's "New Look" created a striking, romantic vision of femininity, luxury, and grace, making him--and his last name--famous overnight. One woman informed Dior's vision more than any other: his sister, Catherine, a Resistance fighter, concentration camp survivor, and cultivator of rose gardens who inspired Dior's most beloved fragrance, Miss Dior. Yet the story of Catherine's remarkable life--so different from her famous brother's--has never been told, until now.
Drawing on the Dior archives and extensive research, Justine Picardie's Miss Dior is the long-overdue restoration of Catherine Dior's life. The siblings' stories are profoundly intertwined: in Occupied France, as Christian honed his couture skills, Catherine dedicated herself to the Resistance, ultimately being captured by the Gestapo and sent to Ravensbrück, the only Nazi camp solely for women. Seeking to trace Catherine's story as well as her influence on her brother, Picardie traveled to the significant places of Catherine's life, including Les Rhumbs, the Dior family villa with its magnificent gardens; the House of Dior in Paris; and La Colle Noire, Christian's chateau that he bequeathed to his sister.
Inventive and captivating, and shaped by Picardie's own journey, Miss Dior examines the legacy of Christian Dior, the secrets of postwar France, and the unbreakable bond between two remarkable siblings. Most important, it shines overdue recognition on a previously overlooked life, one that epitomized courage and also embodied the astonishing capacity of the human spirit to remain undimmed, even in the darkest circumstances.

After reading Lester’s novel, I did a bit of research myself to see what was out there about Catherine Dior. The answer is: not much. She was incredibly close-lipped about her time in the Resistance, her arrest, and her imprisonment and eventual release from a Nazi camp. Picardie gives life to a woman who stayed towards the shadows after the war – but there’s only so much she could do. I found the book was far more about Christian and his fashion house than it was about Catherine. Interesting? Sure. But not exactly what I signed up for.

Because there isn’t a lot of information from Catherine directly, Picardie used stories from other people who were experiencing similar things as Catherine during the war. In this, Picardie did very well and I could begin to have a sense of what Catherine would have gone through. She shares stories of other people who were also captured by French informants and tortured by the Gestapo, and women who were imprisoned at Ravensbrück at the same time as Catherine. Those stories, as you can imagine, were hard to read. Not only did it highlight that there were completely terrible people who had no qualms about sending people to die just because they were “different” but there were so many others who were complicit. Catherine was tortured because she was trying to help stop the war and the atrocities. She was tortured and injured so badly she was never able to have children. French citizens turned on each other and helped the Nazis. And the conditions at the camps were horrifying. There really is no other word for it.

Picardie visited a few of the places that were of significance to Catherine’s life, including Ravensbrück. She puts quite the personal spin on the visits, which I wasn’t expecting but isn’t surprising. I imagine one can’t help but reflect when visiting a place like a concentration camp. What was somewhat irksome was she referenced her own grief in such a way that I felt like I was supposed to know Picardie’s own background and history (from a brief search, I learned her sister died). It seems a bit…harsh, I guess, to remark on the author’s own grief but it took me out of the narrative I was expecting from this book.

The photographs and other images used throughout the book were great and added a lot to the overall narrative of the book. While I wasn’t expecting so much fashion talk, I was glad of the photos that accompanied those chapters. I did a listen/read combo with this one but I’m definitely glad I had a (hefty) physical copy as well so I got the full experience. The audiobook is narrated by Picardie herself and was well done.

Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture was definitely more couture than courage. If you know what to expect going into Justine Picardie’s latest book, I think you’ll enjoy it more. Catherine Dior may have been the focus of the book but she still remains an elusive historical figure.

*A copy of this novel was provided by the Canadian distributor, Publishers Group Canada, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*  

My review of The Paris Secret

Just Finished: Mick Jagger

Confession: Before reading Mick Jagger by Philip Norman I would not have been able to tell you how many band members are in The Rolling Stones, let alone what some of their names are (or were). I know Mick and I know Keith but after that? Clueless. So why did I decide to read this biography if I didn't know much about the band? Because I'm intrigued by them and wondered what their rise to fame was like. I know (and really enjoy) a lot of their songs so I was looking forward to learning about their popular front man.

The first thing I learned was that Mick was not involved in the writing of this biography. From what I understand, Norman has been interviewing the band for years and took some of the information he learned from those interviews as well as information from memoirs or biographies about people from Mick's past (former managers, wives, girlfriends, and the like) and put it all together to create this bio. Is this a bad thing? No, not really. My issue was that it didn't feel very personal. Norman has written a couple of biographies on John Lennon and I'm interested to know if those bios have the same feel. To me, when biographies don't have personal statements from the subject or some acknowledgement from them when they are still living, it doesn't feel...legitimate, I suppose. In the long run, it really doesn't matter too much but I think readers should be aware of the nature of the bio before jumping in.

After finishing this book (which took me forever, by the way, as I'm a slow non-fiction reader and this book is 640 pages long), my first thought was, "How are these men still alive?!?" The amount of drugs and alcohol that were consumed is just mind boggling. But that's part of the mystique of the Stones, isn't it? How much did they do? And the other big question - how many women did they sleep with? Norman does a good job of making sure this doesn't become a little black book list and tends to focus on the relationships Mick had instead of the women he was fooling around with on the side. Which leads to a few other interesting tidbits: Mick has seven children (with four different women) and four grandchildren and he used to date Angelina Jolie. The latter was pretty mind boggling, let me tell you.

The other thing I didn't really like was that Norman was portraying Jagger in a very positive light. I could see the negatives in his personality but they were almost glossed over. He also didn't seem to be fond of Richards and was always on Mick's side when writing about the problems he and Keith had over the years. There was one particular passage that just completely slammed Keith and I had to read it aloud to my boyfriend - a Richards fan - because it was just so biased. Final issue: Mick was knighted in 2003 for services to music and, I'm not kidding here, every single time Mick was mentioned after that section, Norman referred to him as Sir Mick. Every single time. I get that he's now knighted and is a Sir but I thought it was overkill.

I know this review is coming off as very negative, but I did enjoy reading this biography. Really! It was so interesting to learn about Mick and the band. They've been around for so long (technically, 50 years but the Stones don't consider 1962 as their "birth" year as Charlie Watts didn't join until the next year, according to this article in Rolling Stone) and have a fascinating history. Surprisingly enough, no band member has ever died of overdose (see above re: extreme drug usage), although one, Brian Jones, may or may not have been murdered (nope, didn't know that either). They never really broke up either, just took a short hiatus or two. How many other bands can or will be able to say that?

Overall, I think Mick Jagger was a really interesting read. While I wasn't a fan of the way author Philip Norman wrote the bio I enjoyed learning about Jagger and the Stones.

Finally, I leave you with the video of one of my favourite Stones songs. What's your favourite?




*I received a copy of this book from Random House Canada in exchange for an honest review*