Not everyone who watches The New Look is a fashion expert, so they don’t know much about the lives of the designers who lead the story, especially Christian Dior (Ben Mendelsohn). It doesn’t get in the way, the series is didactic without irritating beginners. However, what has only been mentioned en passant and must have gone unnoticed is that Dior was extremely superstitious, making several decisions – personal and professional – using tarot cards. That’s right, you read that right.

In the first episode, Catherine (Maisie Williams) mentions to her lover, somewhat amusingly without understanding how justified her brother’s belief was, that a seer had told him, when he was still young, that a seer said he would live in poverty, but who would accumulate great profits and success through women. In the series, she says something that would bring pleasure to women, something that was funny to her, aware that her brother was gay. Like everything in letters and visions, nothing is so literal. Dior, in fact, became a millionaire and to this day his brand makes women very happy. He wanted to know the gypsy’s name!

Christian Dior’s faith in prophecies helped, no doubt. And there is a woman who will have a great influence on his life (in addition to Catherine): the mysterious Madame Delahaye, played by actress Darina Al Joundi. A character that will be extremely important for the series.

Dior claimed that his superstition came from birth

If Catherine was practical even before all the trauma she experienced during the War, Christian always had a pronounced mystical side, something that life only reinforced with a series of facts.

Christian was born on January 21, 1905, in Granville into a family with material comfort due to the chemical trade of his parents, Maurice and Madeleine. According to him, his maternal grandmother taught him from an early age to play tarot, discover the secrets of divinatory arts, identify the signs of destiny in addition to respecting premonitions. His mantra, learned from his grandmother, was “Chance always comes to the aid of people who have a great desire to do something”.

The main evidence – for him – that his grandmother was right came when he was just 14, as mentioned by Catherine in The New Look. At a charity fair in his town, little Christian dressed up as a gypsy and went out to sell amulets. With good results, he caught the attention of a medium who offered to read his hand. “You will run out of money, but women will be supportive of you and you will be successful because of them. He will make huge profits and will be forced to make numerous trips,” she said.

For a gay guy, depending on women seemed a bit challenging and what’s more, Diors were rich. It really seemed like a joke. However, within a few years, when the Great Depression came after the First World War, the family business went bankrupt. Poor thing, the first part of the reading seemed to have come to fruition.

Christian, who was always interested in sewing and paid attention to the dresses made for his mother, collected notebooks drawing his mother’s models. To help at home, he started selling this material, establishing himself as a fashion designer, which took him to Paris and Maisons Agnès and Schiaparelli, as well as Maison Piguet.

With the death of his mother in 1931, a victim of cancer, Christian had to deal with the bankruptcy of his parents’ business, and his life then went through extreme hardship. Without money, he needed help from his friends and to make matters worse, he contracted tuberculosis and became unemployed. He maintained his trust in the gypsy who had foreseen the difficulties, but also the success.

Signs and amulets: a life depending on them

If faith in destiny came from his grandmother’s teachings, time only helped Christian to remain adept at superstitions and amulets.

After he overcame tuberculosis, he decided to follow his intuition and bet on his passion for fashion design and create his own pieces to sell in newspapers and magazines. He was successful and soon became sought after by many fashion houses, but it was only at the age of 35 that success came when he was working with Lucien Lelong (John Malkovich).

At this point, World War II transformed Europe, with the Nazi invasion of Paris putting designers at a crossroads of stopping work and starving, or accepting and dressing their enemies. Lelong was one of those who accepted the second option and Dior, who worked for him, too. When Catherine, who lived with him and was involved with the Resistance, was arrested and sent to a concentration camp, it was as if Christian had received his sister’s death sentence.

In The New Look series, we are right at the worst phase of the designer’s personal life, who tried everything to save Catherine, without success. There was only one person who guaranteed him that he would be able to find his sister alive: the tarot reader Mme. Delahaye (Darina Al Joundi).

Who Was Madame Delahaye?

Who was Madame Delahaye? Honestly? We know little about her origins, not even her first name, but she is famous because Christian Dior did nothing, NOTHING at all, without consulting her first.

How did they meet and where did they come from? We don’t know for sure. She worked in the chic 16th arrondissement of Paris, close to the Eiffel Tower, and had a clientele of stars. Of all Delahaye’s readings and predictions, the most important is precisely about Catherine! She guaranteed that the young woman would survive the Concentration Camp and that she would reunite with her brother.

The suggestion to hold out hope, at the time, was almost cruel, but Delahaye tirelessly predicted that the return of deportation would happen between May and June 1945. She was right.

Without Madame Delahaye, there would be no Maison Dior

Not even with so much talent did Christian Dior have the confidence to launch his own business. He was over 40 years old, the trauma of his parents’ bankruptcy, and Catherine’s disappearance, staying at Maison Lelong was safe. But Madame Dehalaye’s letters did not agree.

Historians prove that it was the tarot reader who definitely pressured him to create his own brand. Torn between his loyalty to Lelong and his personal doubts, Christian was invited by businessman Marcel Boussac, the “King of Cotton”, to take on the artistic direction of the Philippe et Gaston brand. Delahaye’s words were positive and bold: “’ Accept! Accept!” he said, but not to sign for others. “He has to create the Maison Christian Dior. Regardless of what the initial conditions are,” she warned, “nothing they can offer later is comparable to the opportunity presented to you today!’”

If the Cards and the Tarot Reader shook the designer, his mystical grandmother reinforced that it was a sign of destiny. “It will be extraordinary! This house will revolutionize fashion!”, she warned. Still, he wavered.

As we know from history and the testimony of our childhood friend, Georges Vigouroux. With a head full of doubts, Christian stumbled upon an object while walking along the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, when he bent down to see what it was, he saw that it was a star. For him the definitive sign. He accepted the challenge, as long as it was his personal brand and he had the final say in everything. A legend was born.

The world bowed to Dior, who followed his beliefs

In 1946, Christian Dior set up his fashion house at 30 Avenue Montaigne in an intense – short – period completely driven by the designer’s mysticism. For example, its number was eight, which represents transition, so Maison Dior was in the city’s 8th arrondissement and only debuted its brand on October 8th. The Maison had eight floors and eight offices, and the number was also reflected in the silhouettes of the drawings.

Another number he respected, 13, whose Tarot card is Death, but which means rebirth, was another in constant use. In each parade, there were 13 models for all their presentations.

Hidden at the hem of the dresses was Dior’s lucky flower: the stuffed muguet. In his designer pockets, he always had a four-leaf clover, a piece of wood, and a piece of gold.

The one time he ignored Madame Delahaye was fatal

Since establishing the ‘new look’ in 1947, Christian Dior has gained worldwide prestige (and disagreements with Coco Chanel (Juliette Binoche)) and changed the history of fashion.

After so many years and dealings with Delahaye’s cards, which he always respected before any launch or fashion show (as we saw in the series too), it’s a mystery why the designer ignored some of her advice.

In one of her last consultations, she asked: “Don’t travel to Tuscany”. But Christian, exhausted, wanted to rest in Italy and went anyway. At the age of 52, he suffered a sudden heart attack while playing Montecatini Terme cards, on the afternoon of October 24, 1957. He died instantly, leaving the fashion world shocked and uncertain.

Christian’s business was managed by Catherine and the brand is still one of the most prestigious in the world today. Recently, Maison Dior made a collection in honor of Madame Delahaye during Paris Fashion Week. But perhaps even more important was the nameless gypsy who got the right reading of the young Dior who, one day, also deserves to be remembered. After all, she also got her predictions right. With all this, does anyone still doubt the power of Faith?

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