Christian Dior (Company)

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Christian Dior SA

logo
legal form Corporation
ISIN FR0000130403
founding 1946
Seat Paris , FranceFranceFrance 
management Bernard Arnault ( Chairman )
Pietro Beccari ( CEO )
Maria Grazia Chiuri (Designer)
Number of employees 122,736 (June 30, 2015)
sales 35.1 billion euros (June 30, 2015)
Branch Luxury goods
Website www.dior.com

The Christian Dior SA is a 1946 Christian Dior founded and since 1991 at the Paris Stock Exchange -listed French luxury goods manufacturer based in Paris .

The Christian Dior brand is one of the most famous French fashion brands worldwide . The estimated company value of Christian Dior SA at the beginning of 2014 was almost 30 billion euros. In addition to haute couture for women, Dior offers high-priced prêt-à-porter clothing for women, a men's line under the name Dior Men and children's collections called Baby Dior . The range also includes leather goods , shoes , watches , jewelry , glasses , accessories , perfumes and cosmetics in the luxury goods segment . In addition to the fashion division Christian Dior Couture SA, the holding company Christian Dior SA owned the majority of shares in the luxury goods group Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) from 1989 to 2017 , to which in turn the perfume division Parfums Christian Dior SA and numerous other luxury goods brands belong. Since 2017, both the fashion and perfume divisions of Dior have been owned by LVMH.

In the Forbes Global 2000 of the world's largest companies, Christian Dior ranks 150th (as of fiscal year 2017). The company had a market value of over US $ 76 billion in mid-2018.

history

Dior boutique in Ginza , Tokyo

Origins & establishment

The company was founded in 1946 by the French fashion designer Christian Dior (1905–1957) and his financial partner and school friend Marcel Boussac, a wealthy textile manufacturer. The haute couture -Atelier opened Dior in Paris' elegant Avenue Montaigne. The first fashion collection presented by Dior in February 1947 was already a great success and was hailed as the New Look by American journalists . Dior's fashion was a departure from the fashion of the war years and was characterized by feminine-elegant designs with narrow shoulders, narrow waists , figure-hugging tops and wide, swinging skirts . Dior himself called his collection Ligne Corolle ("calyx line") and pointed out that it was influenced by the fashion style that Edward Molyneux had already shown before the Second World War. The Dior company was largely responsible for ensuring that Paris was able to assert itself as the fashion capital of the world. From 1947 to 1950, Pierre Cardin worked as a tailor for Dior. The company's first perfume, Miss Dior , was launched in 1947 by the newly founded Christian Dior Parfums and is still a classic today. The Dior boutique in New York , in which luxurious Dior prêt-à-porter fashion was presented, opened in 1949. In the early 1950s, the first licenses for Dior products, such as women's stockings , were granted to other companies. As a result, an own fur and hat studio was added. In the mid-1950s, Dior had over 900 employees. Christian Dior appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in April 1957 .

Succession

Dior's licensing policy for cosmetics , stockings and accessories became a successful marketing strategy and found numerous imitators in the fashion industry. After Christian Dior's death in October 1957, the young Yves Saint Laurent , who had joined the company in 1955 as Dior's assistant, took over the artistic direction of the house. Saint Laurent's first collection for Dior, Ligne Trapèze , was an overwhelming global success. The "trapezoidal line" freed women from the compulsion to wear a wasp waist and presented them in a different form in an elegant way. In 1958, Saint Laurent showed his first own collection at Dior, which as " Op Art fashion" had a decisive influence on the fashion of the time. He freed the costumes one more time, this time from padding and stiffening on the waist, chest and shoulders, but without renouncing the splendor and abundance of the Dior-style costumes. However, he was given birth after six seasons in 1961 because Boussac, who owned the Dior company, was too avant-garde in Saint Laurent's style . A year later, Saint Laurent founded his own fashion label and successfully sued Dior for breach of contract. His successor was the then 34-year-old designer Marc Bohan (* 1926), who had previously worked for Dior in London and was hired by Boussac in 1958 as an assistant for Saint Laurent. Bohan, originally a fashion designer at Edward Molyneux and Jean Patou , remained chief designer at Dior for almost 30 years until 1989. In 1967, under the name Miss Dior, Philippe Guibourgé, Bohan's assistant, launched prêt-à-porter fashion from Dior for the first time in France, as well as children's clothing from the Baby Dior brand . The Dior perfume business was sold to Moët et Chandon (from 1971: Moët Hennessy , since 1987: LVMH ) at a very lucrative price, with the licensing rights retained, and is still owned by LVMH today.

Times of crisis

Bernard Arnault (2009)

In the mid-1970s, the Dior company fell into a crisis . The company had issued too many licenses, which seriously damaged the company's image . In addition, the international market was flooded by counterfeit Dior items. The fashion and style of Dior was no longer perceived as contemporary, let alone modern, in these times. Bohan created classic, wearable fashion, while the other French fashion houses such as Yves Saint Laurent showed modern, even futuristic designs. In 1973 a Dior fur fashion collection was launched. Boussac, whose corporate empire now comprised more than 60 production sites and around 17,000 employees, filed for bankruptcy in 1978 after heavy losses in other branches of business , and the company and the Dior brand were taken over by the Agache-Willot textile group. In the early 1980s, Dior's main income came from licensing revenues from its perfume and cosmetics business. Agache-Willot went in 1981 after a failed expansion policy into bankruptcy . The French entrepreneur Bernard Arnault bought the Agache Willot Group (later renamed Groupe Arnault ) together with investors in 1984 after a bidding war with other potential buyers , which now belonged to the French state under insolvency administration, including the company Boussac and thus the Dior brand, for $ 80 million. The Dior perfume brands belonged to the French luxury goods group Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton , which was to be led by Arnault from 1989. The fashion division remained part of the Dior company.

Development since 1985

In 1985 Arnault became CEO and President of Christian Dior SA Arnault restructured and successfully reorganized the Boussac company in the following years by discontinuing or selling all of the group's activities apart from the Dior brand. In the mid-1990s, for example, as part of a comprehensive restructuring, more than 300 licenses - even though these brought Dior high sales - were withdrawn or completely discontinued in order to gain complete control over the brand image and distribution . Christian Dior SA has been operating as a holding company since the late 1980s , to which, under Arnault's leadership, the company Christian Dior Couture and, as a majority shareholding of the Arnault Group, the LVMH group belong. Arnault had gradually acquired shares in LVMH from the late 1988s and became the group's CEO in 1989. In 1991 Arnault brought Christian Dior SA to the Paris stock exchange.

Arnault drove the expansion of the retail business massively: in 1994 there were only six Dior boutiques worldwide, in 2003 there were 144 (including shops-in-shop). The hiring of the Italian designer Gianfranco Ferré for women's fashion in 1989 had already ushered in a new era at Dior; his successor John Galliano changed the company's image radically and extremely successfully from 1997 onwards - supported by annual advertising expenses equivalent to 50 million euros . The target group changed from a wealthy, elderly lady to a young, confident woman. At the end of the 1990s, the fashion division had annual sales of around 200 million euros. In the 2000 financial year, fashion sales rose to almost 300 million euros, in 2001 it was 350 million euros in annual sales, in 2002 almost 500 million euros, and in 2004 almost 600 million euros. Sales of perfumes and cosmetics were around one billion euros at the time. From the beginning of the 2000s, with small setbacks, the profits of Christian Dior Couture also rose and amounted to 40 million euros in 2003 and over 50 million euros in 2005. The youthful men's fashion line Dior Homme , introduced in 2000 , successfully replaced the collection for the older man from the 1980s, Christian Dior Monsieur . In 2002, the Dior Maison collection with household items for living and dining rooms, kitchens and bathrooms was launched in collaboration with Christofle (now discontinued). From 2003 Dior's presence in Asia, particularly Japan, was expanded. The massive use of well-known advertising testimonials such as Charlize Theron , Natalie Portman , Kate Moss , Monica Bellucci , Jude Law and others for the perfume and cosmetics division or Marion Cotillard and Mila Kunis for the leather goods had an equally positive effect on the fashion division over the years out. In 2006 a Cruise collection with spring fashion for winter time was launched.

In the times of the financial crisis from 2007 , the numbers at Dior also fell slightly, but from 2009 sales (2010: 826 million euros; 2011: one billion euros) and profits (2010: 35 million euros; 2011: 85 Million euros). In 2006 there were already almost 200 Dior stores worldwide; In 2009 there were 239. At the end of 2011 there were 210 Dior boutiques; In 2016 there were 196. In Germany there has been a Dior boutique for women in Munich and since 2015 in Frankfurt am Main , as well as shops-in-shops in Berlin ( KaDeWe ), Stuttgart ( Breuninger ) and Munich ( Oberpollinger ). In May 2014, Dior also took over the premises of the Düsseldorf specialist retailer Albert Eickhoff for a full-range boutique on Königsallee for 10 years . In Switzerland , Dior is represented for women in Zurich and Geneva , and in Austria since mid-2014 in Vienna . In 2009 a jewelry boutique also opened its doors in Geneva. In 2013, Dior opened a temporary Café Dior as part of a one-month anniversary exhibition at Harrods in London in collaboration with star pastry chef Pierre Hermé . This cooperation was continued in mid-2015 with the opening of a stationary Café Dior in the Dior flagship store designed by Christian de Portzamparc and furnished by Peter Marino in Seoul , with six floors the largest in the world.

Since the mid-2000s, the Christian Dior company has been appearing externally, especially through advertising, increasingly under the brand name Dior , the first name of the founder is not mentioned. In 2007 the company celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of the Dior brand.

Designer

Women's collection

The responsible women's fashion designer at Dior after Marc Bohan was at Arnault's instigation from 1989 to 1996, as the first foreigner in this role, the Italian designer Gianfranco Ferré. Ferré's creations paved the way for Dior's successful repositioning in the luxury goods sector. During this time there was also the women's second line, Christian Dior Coordonnées, manufactured under license . From 1997, the position of women's fashion designer (haute couture and prêt-à-porter) was held by the avant-garde Briton John Galliano, who had previously worked for Givenchy . At Dior, Galliano created bombastic, sometimes scandalous and not infrequently unbearable gowns for the couture sector, with which the Dior company almost inevitably made it onto the front pages of the international press, and rejuvenated the Dior women's collections - in a way that boosted sales - decisively. The eccentric Galliano wanted to "sweep away the cobwebs, bring the house [Dior] back to life". At the end of the applause on the catwalk, he usually staged himself in an exuberant way. Galliano was suspended from Dior at the end of February 2011 due to anti-Semitic remarks under the influence of alcohol in public and was dismissed without notice on March 1, 2011 after 15 years as chief designer at Dior by the then CEO Sidney Toledano . The last ready-to-wear collection designed by Galliano for Dior was shown on March 4, 2011 in the absence of Galliano at the Paris fashion shows. As a result, Galliano's longtime assistant Bill Gaytten and his colleague Suzanna Venegas took over the creative management. The haute couture collections presented by the two from the beginning of July 2011 received cautious reviews, however. At the same time, the company reported steadily growing sales. On April 9, 2012, after much speculation, the Dior company appointed the outgoing Jil Sander designer Raf Simons , who had achieved notoriety primarily with minimalist fashion, as the new chief designer of all Dior women's collections. His first haute couture collection took place on July 2nd, 2012 in Paris and was highly praised by the press. Simons' first ready-to-wear collection for the Dior women's division was presented in Paris at the end of September 2012 and also received extremely favorable reviews. At the end of October 2015, Dior announced that Simons was leaving the company at his own request. At the beginning of July 2016, Dior announced that long-time Valentino designer Maria Grazia Chiuri (* 1964 in Rome ) had been appointed as the first woman in this position as the new creative director of Dior's women's fashion division.

Men's collection

In 1970, a men's collection, Christian Dior Monsieur , was established under Marc Bohan , in which Dior presented classic business fashion and which was later manufactured under license. Christian Dior himself had not designed any men's fashion except for ties that were issued under license . From 1980 Gérard Penneroux was the men's designer, from 1983 Dominique Morlotti. From 1992 Patrick Lavoix was responsible for the men's collection. In 2000, Arnault employed the then 32-year-old former Yves Saint Laurent designer Hedi Slimane for the newly created, very modern and androgynous Dior Homme collection. The Christian Dior Monsieur collection has been discontinued. Karl Lagerfeld claims that the reason for the fact that he in 2000 by a diet 42 kg decreased weight, is his penchant for skin-tight cut suits by Dior Homme . In 2007 Slimane's longtime assistant Kris Van Assche took over the creation of men's fashion at Dior Homme . He was followed in 2018 by Briton Kim Jones, previously a men's fashion designer at Louis Vuitton . The latter renamed the division in Dior Men . Even if the brand was officially called Dior Homme and is called Dior Men , only “Dior” was and is on the sewn labels of the clothing. In the late 2000s, Hedi Slimane established a stylized bee (French "abeille") as a trademark for the men's collection, which is still found today, for example, as embroidery on polo shirts , hats and ties.

Products

Since the late 1990s at the latest, Dior has once again belonged to the top tier of international luxury goods manufacturers due to massive advertising campaigns.

In the fashion division there is the haute couture collection and the ready-to-wear line for women. Leather goods such as handbags and accessories account for a large part of sales. The Dior Men line is offered for men . The Baby Dior collection exists for children up to teenage years . During his lifetime, Dior's fashion was worn by Evita Perón , Jackie Kennedy and, after Christian Dior's death, by Princess Diana and many other celebrities.

As with all large fashion houses, the business share from license revenues for fragrances and cosmetics, glasses frames or other accessories is now economically decisive.

Since 1947, more than 40 women's perfumes in countless variations have been created under the brand name Dior , for example Miss Dior (1947), Poison (1985), Dune (1991), Dolce Vita (1995), J'adore (1999), Dior Addict (2002 ), Miss Dior Chérie (2005) and Dior Star (2007). In addition, men's fragrances have also been offered since 1966. These include, among many others: Eau Sauvage (1966), Jules (1980), Fahrenheit (1988), Dune (1988), Higher (2001), Dior Homme (2005), Dior Homme Sport (2008), Dior Homme Cologne (2013 ) and Sauvage (2015). There are also special fragrance series, such as high-priced perfumes in larger bottles: La Collection Privèe (since 2004; renamed the Maison Christian Dior Collection in 2018 ), reissued classics from the 1940s to 1970s: Les Créations de Monsieur Dior ( Diorama , Diorissimo , Diorella , Dioressence etc .; since 2009) or unisex fragrance extracts: Les Elexirs Précieux (2014). There are also extensive Dior product lines for skin care and decorative cosmetics such as makeup.

In 1975 the first Dior wristwatch, the men's Black Moon model , was brought onto the market with the licensee Benedom from Meyrin (bought by LVMH in 1995). In 2001 the subsidiary Les Ateliers Horlogers Dior SA was founded in La Chaux-de-Fonds . The Dior wristwatches for women and men in the upper price segment, which have since appeared in large numbers, were sometimes designed in the past by the company's fashion designers such as Galliano or Slimane.

Under the designer Victoire de Castellane, high-priced jewelry by Dior was introduced in the 'Fine Jewelry' category in 1999. Castellane also designed Dior wristwatches.

Claus-Dietrich Lahrs (2009)

Group structure

The family holding Groupe Arnault SAS of the French entrepreneur Bernard Arnault owned over 74.1% of the company Christian Dior SA through the company Semyrhamis until April 2017 , to which the companies Christian Dior Couture SA and Financière Jean Goujon SAS belonged 100% . As of 2012, the latter included 40.9% of the shares in LVMH and 56.8% of the voting rights. Arnault himself holds a further 5.8% in LVMH and is in possession of 100% of the voting rights held by Dior in LVMH , which brings him to a total of almost 47% of shares in LVMH with voting rights of over 64%. The Parfums Christian Dior SA division is 100% owned by LVMH. In 2017, Groupe Arnault took over another 25.9% of Christian Dior SA , making it 100% owned, and at the same time LVMH bought the fashion division Dior Couture SA for 6.5 billion euros , making Dior fashion and perfume completely owned by LVMH. Holding Christian Dior SA retains a 41% stake in LVMH.

Sidney Toledano (* 1951), with the company since 1994, was CEO and General Manager of Christian Dior SA and President of Christian Dior Couture SA until 2018 , when he moved to the LVMH board of directors. He was succeeded by Pietro Beccari as Dior CEO. Arnault is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Christian Dior SA and President of LVMH. From 2004 to 2008 the German Claus-Dietrich Lahrs, a former Louis Vuitton manager, headed the operative business at Christian Dior Couture as COO, after which he moved to Hugo Boss . Lahrs was replaced by Serge Brunschwig, previously managing director of the LVMH brand Céline .

Picture gallery

Web links

Commons : Christian Dior SA  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Report annuel au 30 June 2015. (pdf) Dior, p. 270 , accessed on March 3, 2016 (French). P.56
  2. Christian Dior SA (CDI.PA) - Key Figures , finance.yahoo.com, January 21, 2014
  3. The luxury company LVMH is now on welt.de, November 8, 2017
  4. ^ The World's Largest Public Companies . In: Forbes . ( forbes.com [accessed July 17, 2018]).
  5. dior-finance.com: Dior Finance - History of the Group ( Memento of November 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), accessed: February 23, 2011
  6. ^ The boy from the country faz.net, May 17, 2005
  7. ^ With Dior, luxury returned, Abendblatt.de, January 20, 2005
  8. ^ A battle for the knee spiegel.de, September 24, 1958
  9. ^ Marc Bohan - Exhibition in the Christian Dior Museum ( Memento from December 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) hype-magazine.de, May 19, 2009
  10. Flottes for Diana spiegel.de, January 28, 1991
  11. faz.net: Düsseldorfer Modehaus Eickhoff - “We stop at the peak” , November 11, 2013
  12. ^ In Seoul, a spectacular new Dior boutique , lvmh.com, July 17, 2016
  13. Lanvin's Top Designer Quits latimes.com, May 27, 1989
  14. Nice Day for a White Wedding? Flashback to Dior Couture's Transgressive Fall 2000 Collection vogue.com, July 4, 2016
  15. vogue.de Biographies: John Galliano (last accessed: June 29, 2010)
  16. Haute Couture Paris sees red spiegel.de, July 9, 2000
  17. ^ How John Galliano changed the face of fashion theguardian.com, December 26, 2011
  18. ^ Dior fires Galliano , textilwirtschaft.de, March 2, 2011
  19. Crash of the Bird of Paradise , manager-magazin.de, March 2, 2011
  20. Provocation in excess , tagesspiegel.de, March 2, 2011
  21. John Galliano and the weird worldview of designers , welt.de, March 6, 2011
  22. ^ Galliano absence felt at Dior haute couture show , reuters.com, July 4, 2011
  23. Haute Couture with Hippies and Harlequins , handelsblatt.com, July 5, 2011
  24. Dior plays the hat game , blick.ch, July 5, 2011
  25. Galliano is missing from the Dior show in Paris ( memento from September 11, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), suedtirolnews.it, July 5, 2011
  26. Raf Simons for Dior - Debut in Couture , faz.net, April 10, 2012
  27. Raf Simons becomes chief designer at Dior , spiegel.de, April 9, 2012
  28. ↑ It couldn't be more exclusive , zeit.de, July 7, 2012
  29. Raf Simons knows couture - Karl stays cool
  30. Raf Simons debut at Dior: Great shine for Paris , faz.net, September 29, 2012
  31. Raf Simons' first ready-to-wear collection for Dior ( Memento from January 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), derstandard.at, September 29, 2012
  32. ^ Maria Grazia Chiuri: The first couturière at Dior , faz.net, July 9, 2016
  33. faz.net: Designer ABC: S for Slimane (July 2nd, 2007)
  34. Dior Men's Summer 19 Runway & Bags Report bagaddictsanonymous.com, June 25, 2018
  35. Arnault's net worth is $ 15 billion less than expected , welt.de, May 18, 2012
  36. ^ LVMH to Take Control of Christian Dior in $ 13.1 Billion Deal nytimes.com, April 25, 2017
  37. dior-finance.com: Dior Finance - Executive and supervisory bodies ( memento from January 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), accessed: February 23, 2011