From curtains to couture: the fashion inspiration behind The Paris Model

Alexandra Joel is the former editor of Harper’s Bazaar and of Portfolio, Australia’s first magazine for working women. She has been a regular contributor to The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend Magazine. She is also the author of The Paris Model, a stunning novel of love, betrayal and family secrets.

Today, Alexandra’s on the blog to talk about how her love of fashion inspired her debut novel and how she went about researching for it. Read on!

I first fell in love with fashion when I was still a child. So what? I hear you say. Haven’t plenty of other little girls done the same? True, but for me fashion – whether looking at it, making it, wearing it or, most particularly, studying its history and meaning, became a lifelong passion. It led me to author two books on the history of fashion in Australia, to the editorship of Harper’s Bazaar – and to write my new novel, The Paris Model.

Alexandra Joel

Back when I was very small, I cut up my bedroom curtains with a pair of nail scissors so I could create outfits for my stuffed animals and dolls. Mum was less than impressed, although quite honestly she only had herself to blame. You see, during the late 1940s she’d been a highly successful Sydney model, gracing the covers of Woman and The Australian Women’s Weekly. I remember myself, at only five or six years old, being captivated by faded cuttings that showed her wearing incredible dresses with slim shoulders, tiny waists and huge sweeping skirts. She looked like a princess.

It was not until much later that I learnt my mother had modelled during the era of the New Look. Introduced by Christian Dior in 1947, this revolutionary fashion banished wartime’s dreary suits and meagre dresses, replacing them with garments that were elegant and sumptuous.

Since I first fell for those old pictures of Mum I’ve admired many other styles, but there has always been a special place in my heart for Dior’s New Look. You can imagine then, how delighted I was to learn that Grace Woods, the beautiful, green-eyed woman whose astonishing past inspired me to write The Paris Model had not only been a mannequin herself, but also wore these glamorous designs.

Despite my background, I knew that I’d need to do additional research, for there’s nothing like a telling detail to illuminate a character or a specific time and place – in this case, an Australian mannequin employed by the world’s first post-war emperor of fashion. Unsurprisingly, Dior by Dior, Christian Dior’s autobiography, was the book that provided me with the greatest insights. The designer’s own account of the way a couture collection is created, the formidable women who ran his atelier and the collaborative relationship he formed with his mannequins – even the description of his elegant décor – proved invaluable. Christian Dior: The Man Who Made the World Look New by Marie-France Pochina and Dior in Vogue by Brigid Keenan were among many other helpful resources.

Most inspiring of all, however, were the three stunning exhibitions marking the seventieth anniversary of the House of Dior that I was lucky enough to visit, in Paris, then Melbourne and, just last year, in London.

Soon after I entered the first show, I stopped abruptly in front of a breathtaking red satin gown. As I imagined The Paris Model herself, gliding through Dior’s pearl-grey salon in this exquisite creation, my pulse quickened.

I knew then that I’d fallen in love, all over again.

—Alexandra Joel

Listen to our podcast with Alexandra Joel and Kerri Turner!

The Paris Model

by Alexandra Joel

After a shocking discovery, Grace Woods leaves her vast Australian sheep station and travels to tumultuous post-war Paris in order to find her true identity.

While working as a mannequin for Christian Dior, the world's newly acclaimed emperor of fashion, Grace mixes with counts and princesses, authors and artists, diplomats and politicians. But when Grace falls for handsome Philippe Boyer she doesn't know that he is leading a double life, nor that his past might inflict devastating consequences upon her...

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