French fashion designer Christian Dior was BOTD in 1905. Born in Granville, Normandy to a wealthy industrialist family, he was raised in Paris. After finishing school, he ran an art gallery financed by his father, until the family’s financial trouble closed the business. In 1937, he began working for fashion designer Robert Piguet, creating the “Café Anglais” design, a houndstooth wool dress with a tight-fitting top and full skirt. During World War Two, he worked for designer Lucien Lelong, controversially designing clothes for the wives of Nazi officers, before establishing his own fashion house in 1946. The following year he launched his womenswear collection, later called “The New Look”. Ignoring wartime austerity, he presented glamorous ultra-feminine gowns recalling late 19th century fashion, utilising corsets, crinolines and padding to accentuate the shoulders and hips and pinch the waist. His designs enraptured Paris, notably the Bar Suit, a cream-coloured morning coat with soft rounded tails and a black pleated skirt, but provoked criticism from others for their extravagance and impracticality. “Only a man who never was intimate with a woman could design something that uncomfortable” sneered Coco Chanel, dropping one of many pointed hints about Dior’s homosexuality. The New Look took America by storm, re-establishing Paris as the world centre of fashion. Dior mentored the careers of Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint-Laurent whom he later appointed as his successor. He also designed costumes for films including Terminal Station, Stage Fright (starring Marlene Dietrich) and Arabesque. Dior had a number of discreet relationships, the last of whom was Jacques Benita, an Algerian singer three decades his junior. He died in 1957, aged 52. Now considered one of the major designers of the 20th century, his legacy of glamour, sculptural tailoring and luxurious fabrics was highly influential on Hollywood costumier Edith Head, and the work of designers Cristóbal Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen and John Galliano.