I LINGERED a little in Scotland,’ wrote Christian Dior in his 1956 memoir, Dior by Dior. ‘I had heard so much about its beauty that I had feared to be disappointed—on the contrary, I was even more struck by the beauty of the country, the castles, and the moors, than I had expected.’
The Normandy-born couturier recorded his lasting impressions following two spectacular charity fashion shows he had held in Scotland the previous year—one at Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire and the other at the Central Hotel in Glasgow. Featuring 172 dresses (many named after Scottish locations, such as Dundee and Edinburgh) and watched by more than 1,000 attendees, including the cream of Scottish Society, Dior’s events were an enormous success, raising £4,000 (more than £88,000 today) for Friends of France, a wartime charity founded in Glasgow. Afterwards, the designer and his guests, such as the ‘delightful’ Duchess of Buccleuch, reeled the night away in the Gleneagles ballroom, enjoying themselves so thoroughly that, as he later recalled, ‘the floor shook and bounced’.
This story is from the October 23, 2024 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the October 23, 2024 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Give it some stick
Galloping through the imagination, competitive hobby-horsing is a gymnastic sport on the rise in Britain, discovers Sybilla Hart
Paper escapes
Steven King selects his best travel books of 2024
For love, not money
This year may have marked the end of brag-art’, bought merely to show off one’s wealth. It’s time for a return to looking for connoisseurship, beauty and taste
Mary I: more bruised than bloody
Cast as a sanguinary tyrant, our first Queen Regnant may not deserve her brutal reputation, believes Geoffrey Munn
A love supreme
Art brought together 19th-century Norwich couple Joseph and Emily Stannard, who shared a passion for painting, but their destiny would be dramatically different
Private views
One of the best ways-often the only way-to visit the finest privately owned gardens in the country is by joining an exclusive tour. Non Morris does exactly that
Shhhhhh...
THERE is great delight to be had poring over the front pages of COUNTRY LIFE each week, dreaming of what life would be like in a Scottish castle (so reasonably priced, but do bear in mind the midges) or a townhouse in London’s Eaton Square (worth a king’s ransom, but, oh dear, the traffic) or perhaps that cottage in the Cotswolds (if you don’t mind standing next to Hollywood A-listers in the queue at Daylesford). The estate agent’s particulars will give you details of acreage, proximity to schools and railway stations, but never—no, never—an indication of noise levels.
Mission impossible
Rubble and ruin were all that remained of the early-19th-century Villa Frere and its gardens, planted by the English diplomat John Hookham Frere, until a group of dedicated volunteers came to its rescue. Josephine Tyndale-Biscoe tells the story
When a perfect storm hits
Weather, wars, elections and financial uncertainty all conspired against high-end house sales this year, but there were still some spectacular deals
Give the dog a bone
Man's best friend still needs to eat like its Lupus forebears, believes Jonathan Self, when it's not guarding food, greeting us or destroying our upholstery, of course
