Dior, Diana, and Doody...

Last month, on a sunny spring day in May, a few of us decided to go on a day trip. I found a mini-coach and a lovely driver and we trundled out of Paris and wound our way through the countryside to the far coast of Normandy.

 It was French equivalent of a sartorial road trip: a 6-hour return journey to see the home and garden of a designer we all deeply adore.

Monsieur Christian Dior.

Monsieur Dior's childhood home isn't really on the tourist radar. It's really only for devoted Dioristas. But we had an extra special reason for going: a woman who made the entire day worthwhile. 

Ms Doody Taylor.

Now Doody Taylor (such a fabulous name) is one of the most glamorous woman I've ever come across: imbued with the kind of innate elegance, style and grace you used to see in the 1950s but don't really come across anymore. 

Her sense of aesthetics shouldn't have come as such a surprise, because her godmother, Diana Gregory (above), was one of Christian Dior's most loved mannequins. 

Diana Gregory was one of the few Australian girls to model for Dior. She also became one of the couturier's favourites, thanks to her down-to-earth personality and refined sense of style. 

Doody remembers living in Europe in 1968, when she was working in London and newly engaged to her husband Jim, and being invited by Diana to visit her in Paris for the weekend. Diana was, says Doody, "divinely eccentric". 

"I remember she often wore a little black Dior shift dress with long string of pearls, which she wore draped down her back, with a choker at the front. And she loved to carry a long tapered tortoise-shell cigarette holder, which she waved all over the place, tossing ash everywhere! She was so effortlessly glamorous," says Doody. "She really had that kind of throw-away elegance that can't be bought."

Indeed, Diana only ever wore little black Dior dresses; "sometimes with heels; sometimes with long knee-high boots." 

It was a wardrobe that was one part sophistication and three parts pure fun.

On the weekend that Doody and Jim travelled to Paris, Diana arranged for them to visit the Dior salon for a special showing. 

"It was a tiny salon but oh, so elegant," recalls Doody, "and we sat perched on a staircase, goggle-eyed, as the impossibly tall, incredibly slim mannequins swished past us in swirls of silk. I remember their perfume wafting over us." For a relatively naive 21-year-old girl from Adelaide it was a wonderful experience. "I was in a state of euphoria!" she recalls.

Can you imagine?

For much of the bus trip back to Paris from Normandy, we grilled Doody on her glorious godmother Diana, and on Diana's wardrobe; shoes; boyfriends; job (imagine the fashion perks?), and her soignee lifestyle. It was a rare insight into the world of haute couture fashion, and by the end of it, we were as in awe of Doody as we were of Diana.

The tragic thing is, while Diana's archives are now with the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, nobody knows what became of all her Dior gowns. They simply disappeared. 

But Doody remains philosophical. 

"Wherever they are," she says, "I am sure they will be as loved as when Diana wore them..."

'Dior Impressions', an exhibition of Dior gowns through the decades, is now showing at Dior's house and garden in Granville, Normandy, until September 2013.

The Surprises & Delights of London

No matter how much you think you know London, this city still has the ability to surprise and delight... 

The Lessons of Spring

This past week has been something of an epiphany.

You know those periods when life throws everything at you and you're so exhausted you can't even think straight? (Although some of that is due to intense jetlag at the moment.) Well triple that feeling and then toss in a terrible head cold, a beloved relative dying (the second obviously more devastating than the first), and a whole lot of personal life decisions that need to be made and you're getting close to how I feel this week.

But rather than sink into solemnity, I've tried a new tact.

Gratitude.

Gratitude is a funny thing. It's when you feel grateful for life that you start to really appreciate what you have. Indeed, you start to notice things you didn't notice in the fog of worry and stress. You remember the lovely people you've met on your travels; the joyous surprises; the laughter; the unexpected delights of the day.

The potential of life returns. 

And if you can't do gratitude, then gardens offer a good remedy too. In fact, immerse yourself in a garden and your spirits will return. I guarantee it. 

I've discovered that this week. So, too, have a few others.

Just look at the happy faces of these people. These charming women are some of the loveliest people I've met recently. (Their wardrobes were almost as impressive as the floral borders.) Seeing their delighted faces made me quietly delighted too. And then everything seemed okay again.

There is a well-known Vogue editor that I've come to know because she's a friend of a new friend. I used to think she was brittle. Perhaps even arrogant. And living an existence entirely separate from the rest of us, which perhaps made her seem even more remote and unapproachable. 

But then my friend said she puts out a shield to defend herself from criticism. This Vogue editor has chosen to deflect the negativity of life in order to concentrate on the bright, the good, the beautiful, and the inspirational. After all, said my friend, there is only so much negativity a person can take. 

The result, added this friend, is that she comes across as being superior and full of froideur but is actually one of the kindest and loveliest people you can imagine meeting. 

(And her garden is simply glorious.)

So many of us become caught up in what another friend calls "the gloominess of life": the pessimism, the criticism, even the gossip of society. We do it because a) it is encouraged and b) it gives us a kind of psychological 'lift'. As this same friend suggests: "People put others down to make themselves feel better." But I prefer to focus on the positive. It is far more gracious. And far more rewarding.

Wandering through these gardens this week has made me realise that life doesn't need to be hard. And that you can achieve what you want – if you're courageous enough, tenacious enough, and – perhaps most importantly – positive enough to go after it. 

I think gardens teach you that. The art of optimism.

I'll aways remember a wonderful anecdote by the landscape architect and gardening blogger Tara Dillard. Tara was designing the garden of a woman who had been through cancer. Treatments had already taken the client's hair, and made the tips of her fingers and toes blue.  Just walking was treacherous. 

When Tara was installing the garden, the client asked, "How long till the azaleas cover the wall?"  

"Well, with the drought and everything..."said Tara nervously.

But the client interrupted with a smile.

"Tara," she said firmly. "We must always be optimistic!"