Regular readers of this blog will not have missed the story about John Galliano, a fashion designer who worked for Christian Dior. It was in a video published on the website of The Sun newspaper where Galliano was caught making a vile rant full of racist abuse and where he declared: “I love Hitler.”
The news of this story makes me recall the case of Françoise Dior, the niece of Christian Dior and a lover of Nazism and Nazis. Ms. Dior was engaged to John Tyndall, described by The Times as someone who “was noted for his virulent anti-semitism, and was regularly photographed in Nazi-style brownshirt getup.” Tyndall was a leader of British National Socialist Movement and for the rest of his life was one of the most prominent, if not most prominent, people on the far-right in British politics. Tyndall founded the British National Socialist Movement with Colin Jordan and Jordan ultimately expelled Tyndall from the organisation. Françoise Dior’s engagement to Tyndall was terminated and on October 5, 1963 she married Jordan.
The wedding ceremony was rather strange. The Times reported (October 7, 1963) that at the ceremony the happy couple “performed a Nordic custom of cutting ring fingers and letting the blood merge.” In his book on the history of British fascism, (Fascism in Britain: A History, 1918-1985, [Basil Blackwell, 1987], p.268) Richard Thurlow adds that Nazi regalia decorated the wedding. He notes also (ibid., p.270) that in 1968 Françoise Dior was sentenced to eighteen months in prison for conspiring to burn a synagogue.
A newsreel clip about the Dior-Jordan wedding has been preserved and uploaded to You Tube. I copy that clip below. The newsreader notes that Dior was reported to have said, “All I want is little Nazi children.” As can be seen in the video, many people came out to demonstrate. What is notably absent are any placards from International Socialists, the forerunner to today’s SWP.
