The story of the woman who went from being a dishwasher to being Christian Dior’s favorite model

At the height of its popularity, the Asian look is repeating the success of the 1950s, when high cheekbones and slanted eyes, highlighted with cat-eye lines, charmed men and women alike. Half Russian and half Kazakh, Alla Ilchun was the one who brought oriental traits to fashion. What led Christian Dior’s muse and lucky charm to land the job at this famous designer’s fashion house was a great and happy coincidence.

We, from awesome.club, we discovered some information about this mysterious and once incredibly popular woman, who lived a unique destiny. Check out!

Alla Ilchun initially worked as a dishwasher, with a career as a waitress or chef of a French restaurant. She ended up in one casting of Christian Dior by pure coincidence of fate and became his favorite model. However, the origin of this woman remained a secret, and the hidden details of her biography were brought to light only recently. Contemporaries of Alla thought that this Asian beauty was from China, as well as Christian Dior himself who described her in his memoirs as “a Chinese model, hailing from Manchuria”.

Alla Ilchun was actually born in China and had Chinese citizenship. After 1917, she fled with her mother from the city of Harbin to Paris. Her mother was Russian, from a bankrupt aristocratic family, and her father, the son of a Kazakh farmer. So, in fact, she was half Russian and half Kazakh. Already living in Europe, the model kept the secret about her origin and revealed it just two years before she passed away.

France did not welcome immigrant mother and daughter with great enthusiasm, and they had a hard life before settling in their new home. Having taken music lessons in her homeland, Alla’s mother began to earn her living by singing in a cabaret, while the future model got a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant. During World War II, Alla enlisted in the French Resistance as a nurse and in services in the communications sector.

This is how Alla Ilchun describes her first accidental meeting with Christian Dior, which was the great turning point in her life:

Alla conquered Christian Dior at first sight. The combination of an incredibly thin waist (47 cm), a slender body and an exotic oriental face enchanted the designer. He was the first to hire a model with Asian features. Later, Hubert de Givenchy and Cristóbal Balenciaga followed his example. For the first time in history, a woman of a non-Western appearance took the haute couture catwalks. Dior himself admitted that he was taking a big risk by signing an Asian model to walk the show in European clothes, but achieved unprecedented success in doing so.

Christian Dior called Alla Ilchun his muse and talisman. She was the embodiment of style “new look”, created by the master, who brought back the concept of an elegant woman, more feminine and with a thin waist — the look that the stylist and society were looking for, tired of dull and not very elegant dresses, popular during World War II World. Each piece presented by the model entered fashion as quickly as it left stock. British princess Margaret and actress Elizabeth Taylor were among the customers who most chose the dresses worn by Alla Ilchun.

Alla Ilchun was not only the muse of the famous fashion designer, but also the ideal of female beauty. In the 1950s, many models and fashionistas they did the cat eyeliner and even underwent plastic surgery to look like Alla. The press highlighted her unique posture and unique way of walking the catwalk, in addition to a mysterious and impenetrable look that left the public mesmerized.

During the 20 years of work as a model, Alla Ilchun witnessed the leadership of three designers of fashion at the house of Dior — Christian Dior, his successor Yves Saint Laurent and then Marc Bohan. She was married twice: first to the house photographer Mike de Dulmen, and then to the Russian dancer Igor Mukhin.

A curious incident shed light on the biography of Alla Ilchun. Once, in Paris, the Kazakh economist and diplomat Berlin Irishev came across a portrait of Alla, made by Leon Zeitlin. He was interested in the fate of the woman, who had not had her life exposed to the public. In 2019, as a result of in-depth research, including in French archives, Irishev released the book The Muse Of Dior. The Story of Alla Ilchunand in early 2020, the film Alla — Dior’s Oriental Pearl (in free translation).

And you, had you heard of Alla Ilchun? What did you think of this beautiful woman’s life? Comment!