Monsieur Boussac

"⁠Here now stands the international — and in many respects anachronistic — stature of the man who henceforth agrees to expose his image to the public! Miracle of Dior!… But should we emphasize how much the “jewel” of Avenue Montaigne is an exception in the “Boussac system”? It is surely because Dior succeeded that the absolute monarch opened a few windows on his palaces and opened himself up to the outside world. Even the secret of his participation in the ownership of L’Aurore has been revealed!⁠"

"polytechnic. The abstract irks him. He has banned any form of reports, graphs, and statistics at his place; he manages without writing: sometimes he is barely seen holding a tiny square of white paper on which he has scribbled 2 or 3 elliptical notes. He stores all the data he needs in his head and expects his staff to do the same. Everything must be “of absolute simplicity.” When given a note, he asks: “Can your five-year-old daughter understand it? If not, there’s no point in giving it to me!”"

"him: “It is extremely difficult to work with Marcel: he does what he wants, when he wants, with whom he wants. He has the genius of slicing up other people’s time into small pieces.”"

"“With the sudden eloquence of the shy.” Christian Dior begins by explaining that “his desire was not to resurrect an old house but to create one with his name, in a neighborhood of his choice, where everything would be new” … The house of his dreams “would be very small, very closed, with few workshops; they would work there according to the traditions of the best tailoring intended for a clientele of truly elegant women.” He also explains that he “would only make seemingly simple models, but with very elaborate craftsmanship.” Furthermore and above all, he speaks of the foreign markets lost during the war and says that to reconquer them, we must “return to the tradition of great luxury of French couture.” When, out of breath and surprised by his own boldness, Dior falls silent, he fears greatly that his interlocutor found him a bit presumptuous. Yet…: “I listened,” Boussac told me, “during our conversation that lasted nearly an hour, to Christian Dior analyzing haute couture, describing to me how he conceived his profession, everything that had fascinated him, how he saw the evolution of couture worldwide. Before accompanying him out, I told him that his project was quite different from mine, that it might be ambitious but that after all, his point of view was interesting and needed reflection. After Christian Dior’s departure, Henri Fayol came into my office and immediately asked me:"

"The house opens on December 15th, and the collection is presented on February 12th, 1947. That’s the short amount of time it took to prepare the “bomb” that was to turn the fashion world “upside down.” Boussac gave Dior complete freedom to conduct this “lace” war as he saw fit. Dior’s success was having an absolutely precise idea of what he wanted to create and orchestrating its preparation with exemplary meticulousness and assurance. For the setting, he first wanted to create, “in the charming hotel on Avenue Montaigne, a decorated but not decorative atmosphere… whose invisible elegance was not to disconcert or divert the eye from the collection.” He chose the neo-Louis XVI style that had charmed his childhood with its classical and Parisian tone. In turn, his impeccable taste created, with those white and pearl gray wood panelings, those bronze sconces with small lampshades under a flow of Quintia palms, the famous “Dior” style, so characteristic was its imposed eleganc"

"If he desires advice, he summons the competent person, listens without saying a word, provided the interviewed is clear and quick, then thanks them and makes the decision alone without discussing it with anyone. Making decisions: that’s his favorite sport."

"21 Rue Poissonnière is the nerve center of this textile empire, the most important nationally, with 52 factories spread across the Vosges, Alsace, the Center, Normandy, and soon the North, integrated from spinning to retail, employing 21,000 people and achieving a turnover of 54 billion of that time, equivalent to 2.3 billion francs today"

"The boss, a “superman,” who remains such despite his age, is still a workhorse. His eyes are still equipped with lenses capable of magnifying and revealing detail; their flash paralyzes, their anger threatens, but while the gestures are authoritarian, it is known that the leader commands himself as much as those under his orders. Is this the secret of his influence over those around him?"

"The very image of power: at sixty, still in the prime of life, a massive body that exudes balance and authority, the forehead and chin accentuated by determined wrinkles, the neck and jaw taut as if for a fight, a gaze that chills the interlocutor, hands, fine but firmly drawn, he seems carved from a block of marble."

"Thanks to Dior, American buyers are once again flocking to Paris. Overnight, elegant American women find themselves with unwearable clothes. And the most remarkable thing is not that the dresses have lengthened by fifteen centimeters, but that Dior made a revolution by returning to the natural."

"Glory, one must be wary of it: ephemeral, fragile!… The true master is the one who has no accounts to render to anyone, not even to his fame."

"“I have too much respect for freedom,” he said, “to create organizations that my staff would be obliged to join.” There is no company union at Boussac, no union at all or very little, during this great era, barely 10% unionization. What need is there for a union when the boss takes care of everything? “The policy was to hold everything in order to offer better, or from a different perspective, to offer everything to hold better [4](private://read/01jjdy9maqdsy9c2bv37rfja01/#bookmark6) [5](private://read/01jjdy9maqdsy9c2bv37rfja01/#bookmark7).” The staff will recognize themselves as “emboussaqué”: a rather rare neologism in the history of French paternalism."

"A flash of restrained anger in his eyes, he has the gift of intimidating his people. All tremble at the thought of being asked an unexpected question—which never fails to happen—dreading being “grilled” about an explanation deemed insufficient. Unerring in his observations, the boss, always terse in his assessments, does not hesitate to be cutting:"

"This boss who discusses business in the industry’s language has a phobia of offices: “The place for directors is in their factories, on their machines, with their staff: they don’t need to create paperwork!”"

"Marcel’s leitmotif is: — I want more choice in my collections."

"“Remember this well: when you want something, you always get it. But you must want it for a long time, with tenacity, without giving up,” he would say to one of his collaborators. Youth is about believing that everything is possible. Strength is to continue thinking so against all odds. It’s also called stubbornness. Not everyone is equally endowed with it."

"From that moment, with singular foresight—and what boldness!—he laid the foundation of his textile empire."

"This is the second asset he will wonderfully exploit, remembering the good address his father had given him."

"manufacturer from Châteauroux no longer operates three or four factories but about twenty. After checkered aprons and floral smocks, he converted the Vosges to the production of kilometers of tent fabric: nothing more useful to the soldier, it’s a two-meter square of waterproof fabric, serving as both a “roof” against the rain in the trenches and packaging for the soldier’s gear."

"— Whether you work for him or for me, you know very well that it is the same thing. So do whatever you want."

"— Whether you work for him or for me, you know very well that it is the same thing. So do whatever you want."

"It made the fortune of the “factory loader” that he still is—he is not yet thirty—but he created, at the beginning of 1917, the company that would allow him to buy many failing businesses at the end of the war."

"“With the sudden eloquence of the shy.” Christian Dior begins by explaining that “his desire was not to resurrect an old house but to create one with his name, in a neighborhood of his choice, where everything would be new” … The house of his dreams “would be very small, very closed, with few workshops; they would work there according to the traditions of the best tailoring intended for a clientele of truly elegant women.” He also explains that he “would only make seemingly simple models, but with very elaborate craftsmanship.” Furthermore and above all, he speaks of the foreign markets lost during the war and says that to reconquer them, we must “return to the tradition of great luxury of French couture.” When, out of breath and surprised by his own boldness, Dior falls silent, he fears greatly that his interlocutor found him a bit presumptuous. Yet…: “I listened,” Boussac told me, “during our conversation that lasted nearly an hour, to Christian Dior analyzing haute couture, describing to me how he conceived his profession, everything that had fascinated him, how he saw the evolution of couture worldwide. Before accompanying him out, I told him that his project was quite different from mine, that it might be ambitious but that after all, his point of view was interesting and needed reflection. After Christian Dior’s departure, Henri Fayol came into my office and immediately asked me: “— Are you considering taking Christian Dior? What impression did he make on you? “— I’m not taking him for the Philippe and Gaston house. “— Why? replied Fayol, surprised, almost worried. “Because I believe he is not made to take over a small house. He needs to create under his own name. So, I have to choose: do I want to create only businesses that bear my name, or does this boy have enough talent for us to consider it? I feel he deserves this chance."

"No matter! All are struck by the knowledge of the trade and the titan strength of this man who “swallows” dozens of workshops without concern for time, fatigue, or even his stomach. While they feel theirs in their heels, the boss will stop for a quarter of an hour, at most, in the middle of the afternoon to ingest a slice of ham and resume his masterful parade with renewed vigor, leaving behind the memory of an exemplary leader: “A boss,” he says, “is merely the one among his workers who works the most!”"

"Directors, workers, foremen, discover an outstanding boss! With an astonishing manual dexterity: with his hypersensitive hands, he feels the density of spindle banks’ coils and judges the appropriate quality; in weaving, he never fails to run his fingers between the warp threads to appreciate their proper arrangement. During these visits, conducted at a brisk pace, nothing escapes the master’s eye, which inevitably falls on the detail that irritates him, the flaw that seemed invisible."

"He therefore does not sell his stable. But the banks? Unable to repay them, he must pull out all the stops. After looking down on them, he still needs to convince them that he is made of rock. Is this strict, muscular little man, tenacious as tempered metal, a gambler or an industrialist? Will he succeed in making those who will decide his survival believe that his gambles—La Toile d’avion, Canadian Pacific, the three Prix du Jockey Club, and exceptional circumstances: war profits, the boom of the Roaring Twenties—are insignificant compared to the solidity of his integrated, profitable, cutting-edge production apparatus, and in view of the invaluable capital represented by his workers who are as precise as machines, conscientious as craftsmen, from his market for mass consumer goods, insured against all misfortunes?"

"I do not want to be told about averages. I do not know what an average is. I want you to explain to me with one of your trades what your unexpected issues are. If your wefts break in some places and not in others, there is a reason and you need to find it. This cannot happen three times per piece. Call the director for me."

"Is it because of this elusive part of himself that his “profile” remains far from the usual caricature of the businessman: a beast relentlessly at work, a fearless promoter of ever-new enterprises, an insatiable devourer of others’ resources? Why is it that this rather short man, bald with an intense but cold gaze, often with a dry tone, has nothing of the self-made adventurer? If he takes on the contours of a flamboyant character, could it be that he embraces the beauty of his passions?"

"The public is quickly won over, the retailers and department stores this time convinced, and the orders pour in. Yielding to the visionary, the era, as if to please him, abandons nightshirts and cotton caps to don pajamas, and no longer waits until Sunday to change shirts. On the back of Mr. Everyman, the metamorphosis of airplane fabric enters industrial history as one of the finest examples of “intuition.”"

"The definition of each production setup becomes a stern negotiation with his technicians, whom he pushes to their limits: — If you leave out one weft there, I can save 5 percent on the entire production without changing the quality at all. — But, sir, it won’t be as durable. — If you twist the thread less, the texture will be fluffier, and you’ll get something just as durable."

"He invents the soft collar and cuff shirt, then the attached collar shirt. Gradually, the stiff collars and cuffs, which had been the only changes made during the week, will go to the accessories store. In a bold move, he invents the pajama, the use of which will spread with astonishing ease."

"The pleasures of the “rear,” while the war brings an extraordinary amount of suffering to the combatants at the front, true misery in the countryside, and ruin to small investors, provoke a feeling of profound injustice in the country. Public opinion targets the profiteers: merchants, small or large, whose profits keep increasing, intermediaries of all kinds, mercenaries, influence peddlers, and industrialists accused of pocketing super-profits."

"The talent lies in knowing how to transform an obstacle into an opportunity. Aircraft fabric is a material not only of legendary strength but with enough flexibility and lightness to serve as the ideal material for making clothing items… Such is at least the idea that arises in Boussac’s mind, the spark, the stroke of genius!"

"⁠In the meantime, the brilliant retailer would have laid the foundations of his textile empire. Being in the right place at the right time: another maxim of success. His own!⁠"

"“One must,” he says, with that slightly sententious tone that will become a flaw for him, “know how to pay a little more for the thread; it is worth the profit gained.” He then takes this carefully selected thread to the best weavers, oversees the fabric production to gradually improve the quality, and finally has them dyed or printed according to his directives by the greatest dye specialist in the Vosges."

"Marcel is quite the opposite. If not aversion, at least no marked interest in knowledge. He won the gymnastics prize several years in a row, but that seems to be the extent of his scholastic laurels. He failed his baccalaureate and will almost make it a point of pride throughout his life. Hundreds of times he will recount this story, drawn here from a speech given in front of English turf enthusiasts [6](private://read/01jjdy9maqdsy9c2bv37rfja01/#bookmark6):"

"“I never trust papers. Statistics, curves, reports reveal whatever you want, except reality. Trust them, and you’ll be wrong two times out of three. Go there. If you can’t go, send someone whose eyes are yours.”"

"the precepts on which his success will depend: “do what others do not.”"

"Eight words sum up one of ⁠"

"He paid an astronomical sum for a product from this stable whose records he tried to equal. Therefore, as early as 1924, having acquired the best bloodlines attested in the world, he established the foundation of his breeding. He would then only strive to extract the quintessence of his breed through expertly studied “presentations” and selections, aided by René Romanet-Riondet who prepared crossing charts for him. From that moment on, Boussac would exploit his mares and stallions, adhering to one guideline: to buy little from then on and above all to sell as little as possible."

"For a long time, American couturiers and manufacturers had been trying to shake off the yoke of Paris. The world of cinema in Hollywood had its own designers who created a fashion more or less detached from ours. In New York, the gigantic clothing industry had established a plan to prevent the return of the “tyranny of Paris.” Millions of dollars had been spent to make Seventh Avenue the exclusive engine of fashion on the American continent. Haute Couture salons were being set up and recruiting Parisian models at great expense. This transfer of creation to the United States would have been a disaster not only for French Haute Couture but for the multitude of industries, craft activities, and services that follow in its wake."

"He shares with his attentive audience his concerns about certain regrettable developments; he is not keen on seeing women in pants even in the Longchamp stands, and deplores even more the disturbances of the hippie fashion!"

"And yet, the industrialist still somewhat confuses matters when he declares: “Dior has never been more than a small bright flower in all my activities. The ‘Dior’ business only takes up a fifth of my working time *.” What is true is that the prestigious designer was able to both create and manage his house in complete freedom. Boussac never attended, during Dior’s lifetime, the “dress rehearsals,” due to an innate respect for creation in him and probably also because the great couturier, fiercely independent, never encouraged him to do so."

"“I have always been interested in haute couture. I needed it for my main business, textiles, and clothing. I had previously followed the creations of Loiret, of Paquin… I wanted to make the street prettier, more attractive. Because it is the fashionable women’s outfits that embellish it. I had founded a small house: ‘Philippe et Gaston,’ on rue Saint-Florentin. In 1946, Mr. and Mrs. Gaston were getting old and asked to retire. I needed a designer. I turned to Lelong, who was president of Haute Couture, whom I knew well: I had provided him with fabric during the time of great shortage. Lelong couldn’t suggest anyone. I turned to Henri Fayol, my general director. He inquired and proposed someone from Lelong, a young designer with a good reputation, Christian Dior. I objected to Fayol that this young man certainly wouldn’t want to leave Lelong for Philippe et Gaston. Fayol insisted. I agreed to meet him.”"

"Everything must depend on him and him alone, for he is the only one to decide. Proud of having organized his empire based on the power of his brain, he intends to have knowledge of all the  necessary elements and to be the only one to possess them all at once, for he should not—nay, does not want to render accounts to anyone."

"The younger brother, who joined the business before the war, is, according to unanimous opinion, a commercial genius, gifted with an extraordinary intuition, capable of telling at a glance of a sample how much can be sold. An excellent creator as well as a remarkable salesman, a stubborn worker, he is his brother’s great teammate in this policy that could have led others to ruin, the one who made it possible. Marcel’s leitmotif is: — I want more choice in my collections."

"1909-1949: forty years separate this time from the consecration of the arrival in Paris of the young provincial, possessing a considerable start-up gift from his father, but rich above all with that treasure that has no use for inheritances and that alone can multiply them a hundredfold: ambition. Today, with a fortune estimated at 52.5 billion [1](private://read/01jjdy9maqdsy9c2bv37rfja01/#bookmark1) of the time, equivalent to two billion of our francs, he is undoubtedly the richest man in France. He held power, now he has reached the hour of glory."

"He discovered a passion: horse racing. In Châteauroux, he never misses one. In Paris, when his father takes him there, these are moments of revelation. On such occasions, the preparation of attire, for young Marcel, is not taken lightly. A photo shows him at fifteen, impeccably dressed in a neat and well-tailored suit with a vest, from which a gold watch chain is prominently hanging. Wearing a straw boater with a silk ribbon, his binocular strap slung over his shoulder, he poses with a very studied stance on a cane that is too tall for him."

"He manufactures goods before being assured of selling them, whereas normally this entire industry, compartmentalized among spinners, weavers, bleachers, dyers, only works on order, never on speculation. Entering the trade through the narrow door of commerce, young Boussac imposed his ideas. But now he is embarking on a completely different maneuver: accessing the industrial Vosges, in a way, through their peaks."

"In Paris, urgency makes one forget the rule of “lowest bidder” awarding. Everything is handled by mutual agreement, without serious discussion of prices. The administration is lavish with its “approvals.” The wheeler-dealer proliferates. Abuses are so flagrant that Parliament becomes agitated. On December 14, 1915, a deputy questions the responsible minister [1](private://read/01jjdy9maqdsy9c2bv37rfja01/#bookmark1): “If you are fond of details, I refer you to the very documented report by Mr. Controller Bossut. There you will find a certain lady, maybe a meritorious artist, who proposed… camp effects and items, tents, flannel, blankets, socks, barbed wire, two salon wagons, etc.”"

"Three residences, including this one, had been left at his disposal by the buyers of his possessions. More than the villa in Deauville, even more than the château of Mivoisin, the apartment at 74, boulevard Maurice-Barres, had been his “palace”. It is true that these three floors in a triplex, overlooking the Jardin d’Acclimatation from on high, deserved the appellation: the measured opulence of ancient woodwork, the sumptuousness of the bronzes and cartels, the muted ambiance of Aubusson and Savonneries… A half-light added to this decor the depth of a sanctuary."

"The Evening Standard, March 18, 1927, and June 16, 1927. A white silk scarf, which he wears indoors and out, in all seasons. More than for his fashion sense, the character strikes the British by his dissimilarity to the idea they have of the French: “Contrary to our usual conception of the French, firstly, he has fair skin and his hair is almost red; secondly, he speaks little; thirdly, he is never seen gesticulating.” The columnists have nicknamed him “The impassive French man.”"

"He draws from Dior’s experience a distorted lesson that prioritizes the role of the creator and underestimates the influence of the public. It escapes him that fashion is a two-way street, and now he thinks that, in all his ventures, he can dictate his conception!"

"His persona was multifaceted: a gray eminence of politics and the press, he was also the founder of “Christian Dior,” the creator of the world’s most famous racing stable, a billionaire like those only found in America, and finally, the happy husband of a diva whose voice and beauty had enchanted Europe in the roaring twenties. Through his single and long life, the history of this century appeared with all its proliferation of political, economic, and social events. Sacred monsters have always fascinated me. I resolved to write the biography of this one."

"First the congratulations and encouragements, Jacques Rouët testifies: “He always had a deep respect for creation and always paid great attention to it. He believed that prestige would come from the creator’s freedom. He was not afraid if a collection did less well. He always supported all collections because he believed that the creator needs to be supported.” The couturier sometimes receives a few observations, always very courteous. This very strict gentleman does not like seeing models in shows whose designs reveal bare breasts, recommending always “not to do like the Rue d’Aboukir!”"