The great "what if?" photographs of fashion are those taken in Paris between liberation in August 1944 and Christian Dior's New Look in February 1947. There was very little fabric available, and the clothes are functional a white blouse, simple dress, gallant coat yet the style is intelligent and feminine (dressmaker- or home-made, by women for women). Gaby Aghion, founder of the Chloé label, settled in Paris in 1945, and adopted that soft blouse, worn with a dark tunic, as uniform until her death at the age of 93. Chloé clothes still keep faith with those free, Left Bank-spirited styles.
She was born Gabrielle Hanoka in Alexandria, the most fashionable Middle Eastern city (where her father managed a cigarette factory), had a French-style education and first saw Paris at the age of 18 as a student, the year before her marriage to Raymond Aghion, whom she had met when they were both at school. He had family wealth, leftwing convictions, and went into political exile from Egypt at the end of the war: the couple were Jewish.
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