In his book, Dior By Dior, the couturier describes the childhood
garden that was to shape his lifelong aesthetic. Here, an
extract:  I have the tenderest and most wonderful memories of my
childhood home. It's not an exaggeration if I say that my very
life and style owe almost everything to its location and its
architecture. My parents, as a young married couple, bought it a
year or two after I was born. It stood on a cliff top, initially
alone, but since joined by many other buildings, and in the
middle of a fairly large plot of land - which today is a public
park - planted with young trees that grew as I grew, strong
against the winds and the tides. Hanging right over the sea,
which was hard to miss through the railings, it was exposed to
every atmospheric upset, mirroring in its way my own far from
calm life.  A pine wood - that must have been only about fifty
centimeters tall - was a virgin forest to my childish eyes. And
it's held that same wonder for me, even though the trees soar
far over my head now. B