Her expression – fixed gaze, mid-cigarette puff, idly picking her thumbnail – says she's taking the wardrobe advice she's hearing seriously. But then Sophia Loren isn't listening to her husband, film producer Carlo Ponti, glimpsed in the mirror. She's taking advice from the Christian Dior studio during a fitting in 1960. The casual way she is seated on the floor suggests an intimacy. Unsurprising, given that the designer dressed her and countless other Hollywood stars for screenings, society events and general movie star gadding around. Dior also dressed the cinematic elite in their films: "Miss Sophia Loren's wardrobe specially created by Christian Dior" announce the credits for Stanley Donen's 1966 film Arabesque.
This image is taken from the book Stars In Dior, which aims to highlight the relationship between the House of Dior and Hollywood. They're all in there – from old-school cinematic goddesses such as Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly and Liz Taylor, with whom Dior became great friends (hence the floor and fag ambience), to those who favour the label for the red carpet today – Penélope Cruz, Marion Cotillard and Natalie Portman (the latter was quick to speak out against then Dior designer John Galliano in the wake of last year's scandal).
Cynics may see the book's timing as an attempt to shut the door on a bad year in terms of image (though not sales) for the fashion house, focusing as it does on all that is chic and glamorous about the brand. With a newly installed designer Raf Simons at the helm, poised to show his first couture collection in Paris next month, Dior is looking forward to rave reviews again. If all goes to plan, there is another chapter of Stars In Dior yet to be played out.
• Stars In Dior: From Screen To Streets is published by Rizzoli at £40. To order a copy for £32, including UK mainland p&p, go to theguardian.com/bookshop.
• This article was edited on 18 June 2012. In the original, we said that Loren was taking advice from Christian Dior himself, but the great couturier had died some years earlier, in 1957. This has been corrected.
