From Miami to Tangier, via the French Riviera, Cascais and the Hamptons, the biggest names in fashion have found summer retreats far from the catwalks and spotlights where they can express their creative genius.
Legendary villas, family homes, secret workshops, and castles—each of these exceptional places embodies the spirit, audacity, and art of living of their famous owners. This summer, LUXUS MAGAZINE takes you on a weekly tour of a prestigious residence: a journey in nine episodes through the iconic vacation spots of the world’s greatest fashion designers.
Our journey continues at the Château de la Colle Noire in Montauroux in the Var region, the Provençal retreat surrounded by fragrant gardens of Christian Dior.
In the glittering world of Haute Couture, where spotlights illuminate Parisian salons and needles work tirelessly in the workshops of Avenue Montaigne, few places offer Christian Dior a real respite. La Colle Noire, discreetly nestled in the hills of the Var, in the fragrant heart of the Pays de Fayence, was his precious refuge, far from the hustle and bustle of fashion.
Acquired in 1950, this rural property with its raw elegance became much more than a simple vacation home. It was a sanctuary, an intimate mirror of his soul, a silent manifesto of his art of living. In this stone haven, bathed in light and nature, Dior aspired to rediscover simplicity and the essential beauty of real things. This place, he wrote, was where he could finally live peacefully, “forgetting Christian Dior to simply become Christian again.”
A Provence of childhood and rebirth
Christian Dior, born in Normandy, became almost naturally Provençal at heart. The story began in pain in the 1930s. Dior, then a young man, discovered Provence, an unexpected paradise in the midst of a descent into hell. His mother Madeleine had died the previous year, just before his father Maurice went bankrupt, ruined by the aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash. The fertilizer company boss could no longer finance his son’s art gallery in Paris. He couldn’t even save the family home in Granville, the splendid villa Les Rhumbs, with its view of the English Channel. It was heartbreaking. “The house of my childhood… I have the fondest and most wonderful memories of it,” wrote the couturier. “What am I saying? My life, my style, owe almost everything to its location and architecture.”
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Featured photo: © Luxus Magazine: montage of Christian Dior’s portrait and the Château de la Colle Noire
