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Marc Bohan, Former Dior Creative Director and Friend to the Stars, Dies at age 97

File photo: French fashion designer Marc Bohan is pictured with his models after the Dior collection presentation in Paris, Jan. 29, 1970. (AP Photo/Jean-Jacques Levy)
File photo: French fashion designer Marc Bohan is pictured with his models after the Dior collection presentation in Paris, Jan. 29, 1970. (AP Photo/Jean-Jacques Levy)
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Marc Bohan, Former Dior Creative Director and Friend to the Stars, Dies at age 97

File photo: French fashion designer Marc Bohan is pictured with his models after the Dior collection presentation in Paris, Jan. 29, 1970. (AP Photo/Jean-Jacques Levy)
File photo: French fashion designer Marc Bohan is pictured with his models after the Dior collection presentation in Paris, Jan. 29, 1970. (AP Photo/Jean-Jacques Levy)

Dior’s longest-serving creative director Marc Bohan, whose slim silhouette designs dressed the likes of Hollywood royalty including Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor, has died at 97, the luxury fashion house confirmed Friday.
The son of a milliner, Bohan was asked to lead the French label after his predecessor Yves Saint Laurent was drafted into the French military in 1960. He would go on to oversee the brand as artistic director for nearly three decades, from 1961 to 1989, delivering elegant and tasteful tailored looks for the modern woman, The Associated Press said.
In his first couture collection for the house in 1961, he debuted the “slim” look, a slender take on Dior’s classic silhouette with feminine shoulders and sensibly sophisticated skirts.
Dior announced Bohan's death Friday, calling him an “immense visionary and passionate creator" who left his mark on the fashion house.
“Marc Bohan was a unique creator dear to the heart of our House, infusing Dior elegance with his free spirit," Delphine Arnault, Dior CEO, said in a statement. "A man of immense talent who profoundly marked both our history and that of fashion.”
At Dior, the couturier would become close friends with Princess Grace of Monaco; hence, her closet paid homage to his work as the pair shared the same vision of elegance and style. Even outside of his friendship circle, Hollywood played a part in Bohan's work: He crafted a collection in 1966 where he incorporated fur trim and long coats after pulling inspiration from “Doctor Zhivago.”
Although Bohan preferred to stay out of the limelight — he was often referred to as private and discreet — his designs kept him in the spotlight. In 1967, Bohan was asked to design the lavish coronation dress for Iran’s then-empress, Farah Diba Pahlavi.
During his time at Dior, Bohan took the brand into new avenues, from launching Dior’s baby boutique to developing a line for young women, Miss Dior, and for men, Dior Monsieur. He was also heralded for staging Dior’s first shows in India.
Gianfranco Ferré replaced Bohan at the fashion house in 1989. Leaving behind Dior, Bohan moved to London where he joined the prestigious house of Norman Hartnell, a couturier for Britain's royal family. He is survived by his daughter.

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As Fast Fashion's Waste Pollutes Africa's Environment, Designers in Ghana are Finding a Solution

Attendees at a thrift and an upcycle show pose for a photograph in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Attendees at a thrift and an upcycle show pose for a photograph in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
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As Fast Fashion's Waste Pollutes Africa's Environment, Designers in Ghana are Finding a Solution

Attendees at a thrift and an upcycle show pose for a photograph in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Attendees at a thrift and an upcycle show pose for a photograph in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)

In a sprawling secondhand clothing market in Ghana’s capital, early morning shoppers jostle as they search through piles of garments, eager to pluck a bargain or a designer find from the stalls selling used and low-quality apparel imported from the West.
At the other end of the street, an upcycled fashion and thrifting festival unfolds with glamour and glitz, The Associated Press reported. Models parade along a makeshift runway in outfits that designers created out of discarded materials from the Kantamanto market, ranging from floral blouses and denim jeans to leather bags, caps and socks.
The festival is called Obroni Wawu October, using a phrase that in the local Akan language means “dead white man’s clothes.” Organizers see the event as a small way to disrupt a destructive cycle that has made Western overconsumption into an environmental problem in Africa, where some of the worn-out clothes end up in waterways and garbage dumps.
“Instead of allowing (textile waste) to choke our gutters or beaches or landfills, I decided to use it to create something ... for us to use again,” said Richard Asante Palmer, one of the designers at the annual festival organized by the Or Foundation, a nonprofit that works at the intersection of environmental justice and fashion development.
Ghana is one of Africa's leading importers of used clothing. It also ships some of what it gets from the United Kingdom, Canada, China and elsewhere to other West African nations, the United States and the UK, according to the Ghana Used Clothing Dealers Association.
Some of the imported clothes arrive in such poor shape, however, that vendors dispose of them to make room for the next shipments. On average, 40% of the millions of garments exported weekly to Ghana end up as waste, according to Neesha-Ann Longdon, the business manager for the Or Foundation’s executive director.
The clothing dealers association, in a report published earlier this year on the socioeconomic and environmental impact of the nation’s secondhand clothing trade, cited a much lower estimate, saying only 5% of the items that reach Ghana in bulk are thrown out because they cannot be sold or reused.
In many African countries, citizens typically buy preowned clothes — as well as used cars, phones and other necessities — because they cost less than new ones. Secondhand shopping also gives them a chance to score designer goods that most people in the region can only dream of.
But neither Ghana's fast-growing population of 34 million people nor its overtaxed infrastructure is equipped to absorb the amount of cast-off attire entering the country. Mounds of textile waste litter beaches across the capital, Accra, and the lagoon which serves as the main outlet through which the city’s major drainage channels empty into the Gulf of Guinea.
“Fast fashion has taken over as the dominant mode of production, which is characterized here as higher volumes of lower-quality goods,” Longdon said.
Jonathan Abbey, a fisherman in the area, said his nets often capture textile waste from the sea. Unsold used clothes “aren’t even burned but are thrown into the Korle Lagoon, which then goes into the sea,” Abbey said.
The ease of online shopping has sped up this waste cycle, according to Andrew Brooks, a King’s College London researcher and the author of “Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-hand Clothes.”
In countries like the UK, unwanted purchases often end up as charity donations, but clothes are sometimes stolen from street donation bins and exported to places where the consumer demand is perceived to be higher, Brooks said. Authorities rarely investigate such theft because the clothes are "seen as low-value items,” he said.
Donors, meanwhile, think their castoffs are “going to be recycled rather than reused, or given away rather than sold, or sold in the UK rather than exported overseas,” Brooks said.
The volume of secondhand clothing sent to Africa has led to complaints of the continent being used as a dumping ground. In 2018, Rwanda raised tariffs on such imports in defiance of US pressure, citing concerns the West's refuse undermined efforts to strengthen the domestic textile industry. Last year, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said he would ban imports of clothing “from dead people.”
Trade restrictions might not go far in either reducing textile pollution or encouraging clothing production in Africa, where profits are low and incentives for designers are few, experts say.
In the absence of adequate measures to stop the pollution, organizations like the Or Foundation are trying to make a difference by rallying young people and fashion creators to find a good use for scrapped materials.
Ghana's beaches had hardly any discarded clothes on them before the country's waste management problems worsened in recent years, foundation co-founder Allison Bartella said.
“Fast forward to today, 2024, there are mountains of textile waste on the beaches,” she said.