MARC BOHAN WAS NEVER ONE TO MAKE A FUSS. BUT HE WAS FED UP. It was 1961, and for the last three years he’d been cosseted in London, running Dior’s design operations there, in charge of adapting creations by the house’s talented young designer, Yves Saint Laurent, for the English market. Bohan, 34, had his own aspirations for glory; he didn’t want to play second fiddle any more.
Then, just as he’d resolved to quit (he’d even lined up a job at Revillon, the fur house, which he hoped would catapult him to the forefront of couture), the wheel of fortune spun in his favor: Saint Laurent was summoned to do his compulsory military service. A replacement would be needed, and Dior owner Marcel Boussac turned to Bohan.
At first, Bohan’s contract stipulated he pinch-hit for Saint Laurent until the younger couturier could return. But when Saint Laurent, who suffered a nervous breakdown while in the military, refused what he thought was a second-rate offer to become Dior’s ambassador in New York, Bohan’s contract became permanent. (Saint Laurent, of course, went on to found his own house.)
When he took over, Bohan was far from a celebrity. He avoided the limelight and preferred to listen to his collection of classical records at home or go to a live recital than rub shoulders with the posh set. He was a private man, known for an even-keeled nature and for a proclivity for designing clothes for “real women.” Often, he boasted of an affinity for a “timeless notion of beauty.”
“I make clothes for real women, not myself, not for mannequins and not for fashion magazines,” he said in an interview with WWD on the occasion of his 25th anniversary at Dior. “I gladly leave the abstract creations to others.”
Though he went on to work almost three decades at the house — the longest reign to date of any Dior couturier — Bohan’s success was hardly a given at first. In fact, many in the fashion press, which had anointed Saint Laurent a genius, doubted Bohan’s ability to astonish.
His reputation was for conservative good taste. After the youthful élan and brilliant theatrical gestures of Saint Laurent, who had made his debut with the audacious Trapeze line, what could Bohan bring to Dior?
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He was a student of Captain Edward Molyneux and Robert Piguet, both known for their discreet style. Bohan wasn’t known to be a risk taker. And even when he tried to strike out on his own, the results were less than stellar: He was forced to close after a season for lack of financial backing.
“Before my first collection for Dior, most people had the knives out,” recalled Bohan in an interview over a simple lunch of steak and French fries in a restaurant in Montbard, near his home in Burgundy. “People were licking their lips. They were waiting for me to fall on my face. No one expected a success.”
As he prepared for his debut, Bohan said he spent long hours sketching. “I decided I should follow Mr. Dior’s example. He always went off for a couple of weeks before a collection and closed himself in to sketch. I did the same thing. I did it before every collection, until the end.”
Bohan firmly decided not to chase after Saint Laurent’s style, and he didn’t want to resurrect Dior. “Dior’s time had passed,” said Bohan. “My mother was mad for the New Look. That’s all she would wear when I was younger. But there was no reason to bring it back. It was the line of the past. We needed another style.”
After long hours of sketching, Bohan hit on an easy, chic silhouette, largely informed by the cool elegance of Jacqueline Kennedy. It was adapted to the upper-crust lifestyle Bohan aspired to. He was always a fastidious, almost prim, man, known as one of the best-dressed in Paris, and he drove a red sports car he’d imported from England. His apartment in Paris was tastefully appointed with art and antiques. Like Dior, he always wore a white smock over his suit and tie when he worked.
“I wanted something that was easy,” remembered Bohan. “I liked Jackie Kennedy’s style, with the T-shirt blouses with a short jacket and an easy skirt, or the little cocktail dress. I wasn’t inventing the wheel. I was against anything rigid.”
Bohan’s first collection for the house was a great success for its assured, contemporary designs, and orders flooded in. “My style remained constant over my career,” said Bohan. “I wasn’t designing for anybody except for the women who were my clients. It was important that they feel beautiful.
That’s not to say Bohan didn’t cultivate an arsenal of showstoppers. His fitted bodices and Gazar evening dresses never failed to please the ladies, as did his palette of refined details, like soft prints, delicate ruffles and rich embroidery. Director David Lean’s “Doctor Zhivago” inspired one of his most memorable collections, full of spirited, Russian-inspired coats.
Bohan’s stability gave Boussac just what he wanted: a firm grip on the rudder that would keep the Dior ship sailing smoothly toward greater financial gain.
Bohan, for one, made sure his relationship with Boussac, a man known for his penchant for the horse races, stayed close. For starters, he invited Boussac to attend his fashion shows, something Saint Laurent never had done. “I wanted to understand Mr. Boussac’s point of view,” he said.
But beyond that, Bohan’s collections sold. Elizabeth Taylor ordered 12 dresses from his debut collection, which he dubbed the “slim look.” Marlene Dietrich purchased a jacket and skirt ensemble from his debut line, as well.
“She had two skirts made up for the jacket, one long and one short,” recalled Bohan. “I can tell you she knew exactly what she was doing.”
Still, Bohan remembered Dietrich as being a “bit stingy” when it came to buying expensive haute couture. “She preferred to have her suits made in the men’s made-to-measure department,” he said. “It was cheaper. But it also suited her.”
One of Bohan’s closest professional relationships was with Taylor. “I loved dressing Liz,” said Bohan.
On one occasion, Bohan remembered being summoned by Taylor to London, where she was working on a film with her then-husband, Richard Burton. “They were waiting for me in Pinewood Studios,” related Bohan. “It was their wedding anniversary and they invited me to luncheon. They were divine. They both had the most fabulous sense of humor. I was in heaven. They were fantastic together — and so much in love. I’ve never seen a couple like that. It’s easy to understand that they got married twice. Their relationship was electric.”
Many of Bohan’s early clients remained faithful throughout his career, calling on his resolute good taste for myriad occasions and daily obligations. Princess Grace of Monaco, for instance, was a diehard fan. And her daughter, Princess Caroline, would swear by Bohan until he quit Dior in 1989, when he was succeeded by Gianfranco Ferré. (Caroline decamped to Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel.)
Bohan recalls working in his atelier one day when a store clerk rushed up to tell him Princess Grace was browsing in the shop, about to try on a suit Bohan hated.
“It was a little Tyrolean-style jacket,” the designer remembered. “I’d made it in a moment of abandon. There was no question that Princess Grace would wear it. I told the people in the shop to bring it to the atelier and I replaced it with a nice little jacket and blazer. When she saw it, she said, ‘Ah, that’s pretty.’ I said, It’s exactly what you need because the other jacket doesn’t suit you at all.”
Bohan’s name often was affiliated with Caroline, for whom he made countless dresses, including the gown she wore to Princess Diana’s wedding to Prince Charles in July 1981.
Among Bohan’s most memorable design experiences was the wedding gown he created for the Empress of Iran, Farah Diba, in 1967.
“She was set on the dress being made in Iran because it would be politically proper,” remembered Bohan, so he and his team packed up and flew to Tehran, where he would present his ideas to the future empress.
“The palace was so big,” he said. “We went to Ispahan. We needed to find ideas for the dress. We were looking for a symbol, something appropriate, because the ceremony was symbolic. I decided on a long white imperial dress with a long train and bell sleeves, with a sleeveless coat open on each side, in green with a white mink collar, with the arms of Iran embroidered in stones on the back. She was delighted.”
Back in Paris, he received a drawing of the Iranian arms. “It came on a crumpled piece of paper that was impossible to decipher. But with Lesage, we figured it out.”
Though the dress was said to be made in Iran, it was mostly, if not entirely, made in Paris. In fact, the future empress came to Paris for fittings.
Bohan dressed many other famous women, including Queen Sylvia of Sweden, for whom he created a wedding dress in 1976; Gloria Guinness; Betsy Bloomingdale; Lynn Wyatt and Babe Paley. He also oversaw Dior’s ready-to-wear. But that aspect of the business never thrived. Couture was his ultimate love until the end. He sold between 1,500 and 2,000 pieces each year to some 500 clients in the late Eighties, making Dior the top-ranking house in Paris. Retail volume of all Dior products, which were primarily licensed at the time, was $1.16 billion (excluding cosmetics and fragrances) in 1988, the last full year Bohan spent at the firm.
After Dior, Bohan was recruited to attempt to revive the London fashion house of Hartnell, Queen Elizabeth II’s dressmaker, with couture and rtw lines, but the effort failed because of insufficient financial backing. He then retired from fashion.
Bohan, now 80, lives in Burgundy, France, where he enjoys the seclusion of the provinces. He seldom comes to Paris any longer, having sold his pied-à-terre there recently.
As for fashion, he said it no longer concerns him.
“I tried to respect the house of Dior,” he said. “I didn’t want to vulgarize the name. In that, I succeeded.”