Costume designer Jenny Beavan utilized Dior's historical archives, which contained the designer's original sketchbooks, workbooks, and patterns, to recreate the Dior dresses seen in the movie. Some were vintage pieces borrowed from the house of Dior, some were replicas, and some were inventions designed in the Dior tradition.
Christian Dior himself died of a heart attack on October 24th 1957, the same year this film is set. Although only 52 years old at his time of death he nonetheless looked much older, much like the character in this film.
Budapest stood in for some of the Paris settings. Like its French counterpart, it has much of the same architectural style, narrow cobbled streets and lovely old buildings.
The first dress shown at the atelier is the famous 1947 New Look, whose groundbreaking new silhouette entered in fashion history after wartime fabric rationing and made Christian Dior a household name.
This is the first theatrically released version of Paul Gallico's 1958 novel. It had been filmed before for television, firstly in 1958 for CBS television as a one hour drama (with Gracie Fields as the titular character) and more famously as a feature length TV movie in 1992 with Angela Lansbury and Omar Sharif. Note that on all previous occasions it was called 'Mrs 'Arris goes to Paris', which is the same spelling as the novel.
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