"Dior is too expensive for my income."
Girl in Dior is a memoir of the legendary fashion designer Christian Dior as told through the eyes of a fictional model Clara who arrives at Dior's atelier just as he is about to change the face of fashion in 1947. Cue lavish drawing after drawing of Dior dresses. The result is a fashionista's delight.
Parisian cartoonist Annie Goetzinger has in the past created graphic novels about George Sand and Marie Antoinette. Here she talks about Dior, the similarities between fashion designers and comic strip artists and who draws the best dressed comic book characters.
What gave you the idea for Girl in Dior? And why tell it in graphic novel form?
Nothing has been made about art of Christian Dior, though the life of Chanel, and Yves St Laurent have been adapted in movie, theatre and books. And I admire Dior in many aspects: fantasy, talent, discretion, productivity, generosity.
The graphic novel form has flexibility to develop the telling. In double pages for example. That inspired me for several "défilés", also for some close-up.
How did you go about researching Dior's story and the Dior look?
I've read his autobiography (Dior et Moi) and biographies. Over the years I've collected reviews, books about all kind of fashion and I studied History of Costume in art-school.
What do fashion design and creating comics have in common?
Patience, strength, endurance and regularity! (To create day after day until you make a collection or a book!)
Do you have any Dior (or any other designer labels) in your wardrobe?
I have a Kenzo bag more than 20 years old! Dior is too expensive for my income. A Dior lipstick is more expensive than my book, you see.
Who are the best-dressed comic-book characters?
The heroines of Alex Raymond's comics: Pagan Lee -the bad girl- in Rip Kirby. So sexy and glamorous. Rip Kirby himself is also very elegant.
Girl in Dior by Annie Goetzinger is published by NBM in hardback,priced £20.99
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article