A visitor looks at a portrait of Christian Dior in the gardens of the Dior Museum in Granville, Normandy. Photo: MalcolmFreeman.com/Alamy
As a child, influential mid-century fashion designer Christian Dior found his creative outlet in the family garden. He and his mother Madeleine planted an impressive garden at their clifftop home, called Les Rhumbs, in northern France. The young Christian planted lily of the valley in the gardens; as an adult, Dior wore the flower in his buttonhole.
Dior is said to have drawn much of the inspiration for his perfumes, as well as his favored pink and grey color combination, from fond memories of the gardens of his youth.
Visitors can see the gardens just as they were when Dior was a child, full of jasmine, passion flowers, plum trees and a rose garden with 20 varieties, with a visit to the Christian Dior Museum in Granville, Normandy on the site of Les Rhumbs.
Vincent Leret, curator of the museum, told Britain's Telegraph, "As a child [Dior] was absorbed by seed catalogues from Vilmourin and Andrieu. He rushed to meet the postman every day in case another had arrived. He learnt the plant names by heart; he was choosing plants for the garden as a child, and by the time he was 15 he had designed the pergolas and pool."
Since the 1930s, Les Rhumbs has been a Dior Museum. Photo: Les. Ladbury/Alamy
