The Great Fashion Designers

by Brenda Polan

  The atelier was a hushed environment; work was carried out with rigour and precise attention to detail. Gerber herself was not a dressmaker in the conventional sense. She was interested in construction, developing her ideas by draping fabric on a line model in muslin, then leaving it to her toile maker (Vionnet from 1901 to 1906) to execute her designs. ‘Carried by her creative genius she did not burden herself with the practical side of things,’ said Vionnet. The Callots did, however, face up to the growing challenge of copying or, more seriously, counterfeiting. Fake designer labels were often sewn into garments in America, highlighted in an article written for Ladies’ Home Journal in 1913 by Samuel Hopkins Adams and subtitled ‘How American Women Are Being Fooled by a Country-Wide Swindle’. In response, Callot Soeurs published in Women’s Wear a list of American companies that had made authorised purchases from them in Paris. By the following year Gerber, now fully aware of the originality of her designs, took to registering many of them at the Depot Legal—the records are now housed in the collection of the Musée de la Mode et du Textile in Paris.

  By 1917, Callot Soeurs had added branches in London and Buenos Aires as business continued to flourish. The house’s work had been popular since its early days with Parisian actresses, including Cécile Sorel, Jeanne Graiser and Eve Lavallière, but Callot Soeurs also built a substantial following in America, where their day dresses were well received at the Universal Exhibition in San Francisco in 1915. During the First World War, this support was critical: American buyers would descend on Paris in July and place orders for between 300 and 800 pieces. The house’s greatest supporter in America was Rita de Acosta Lydig. This New York society lady of Spanish heritage had married an ageing millionaire from whom she was divorced within four years, leaving her with money and time aplenty. Camille Janbon points out that Callot Soeurs’ relationship to this flamboyant character was similar to that of a nineteenth-century dressmaker, allowing the rich client to make the demands. This was good business sense because, as Janbon says, ‘she never ordered one single dress but a dozen at a time with variations in the materials and forms.’

  Rita de Acosta Lydig became renowned for her individualistic style, was painted in Callot dresses by the artist Giovanni Boldini, and remained an unwavering enthusiast for the house until her death in 1925. In 1919, Callot Soeurs moved location to 9–11 avenue Matignon, but even bigger change followed in 1920 with the sudden death of Marthe, Madame Bertrand, and the decision of Regine, Madame Chantrell, to retire (she had been widowed early and chose to devote her attention to her son’s education). Gerber continued to run the house single-handedly for a further seven years, displaying a sureness of touch and ability to move with the times. A day suit in white ottoman silk and lace at the Musée de la Mode et du Textile is a striking statement in black and white, and a sumptuous but simple driving coat in soft leather trimmed with astrakhan was among the designs registered at the Depot Legal in 1925.

  Despite the best efforts of Chanel, Orientalism continued to influence fashion well into the 1920s. The Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs in 1925 saw Callot Soeurs imbibing dark lacquer influences from the Far East. A beautiful piece from 1926 by Gerber features Chinese shawl motifs on a dress with an asymmetric hem, rising at the front to well above the knees. Callot Soeurs, as Camille Janbon notes, responded to Orientalism with a deftness of touch that might be contrasted favourably with Poiret’s approach. The woman always came first for Gerber. ‘The dress is everything which should be part of the woman,’ she said. ‘Not the woman part of the dress.’ Callot Soeurs reflected other art movements of the 1920s, including Cubism, in a still preserved dress that mixes lace and embroidery in a collage effect. ‘The dresses of Marie Gerber were true masterpieces,’ reflected Vionnet, ever supportive of her former employer.

  On the death of Gerber in 1927, an obituary in Le Figaro commented: ‘One of the most beautiful figures of the Parisian luxury business has now disappeared.’ Her sons Pierre and Jacques were left in charge. Jacques had focused more on the development of fragrance for Callot Soeurs, launching La Fille du Roi de Chine in 1923 (there was no king of China, but the continuing allure of orientalism made this name sound suitably seductive). Callot continued to sell to a loyal clientele who felt alienated by the unforgiving straight lines of much of 1920s style. As with many other businesses, the economic crash of 1929 had a heavy impact, and the business was finally absorbed by Calvet in 1937. Gerber’s granddaughter published a memoir in 1978, but this did little to revive the reputation of Callot Soeurs until costume museums began to display their work in the 1990s.

  Further reading: There is no full-length monograph on Callot Soeurs, although ‘Callot Soeurs’, an unpublished MA thesis by Camille Janbon at the Courtauld Institute of Art (1999), is informative. Diana de Marly’s The History of Haute Couture 1850–1950 (1980) sets the context authoritatively.

  3 JEANNE PAQUIN (1869–1936)

  Jeanne Paquin was the queen of haute couture for nearly thirty years. She was the first major female couturier, running one of the biggest couture houses of the early twentieth century, employing 2,700 employees at its height. She was also one of the pioneers of the modern fashion business, building her label as an international enterprise—and becoming the first Parisian name to open stores in cities such as London, New York, Madrid and Buenos Aires. Why, then, is so little known about Jeanne Paquin compared with Poiret or Worth? Fashion historian Jan Reeder speculated that she has been largely overlooked simply because she was a woman, lumped in with the myriad of other female Parisian dressmakers who emerged during the belle époque period, sandwiched between two men, Charles Frederick Worth and Paul Poiret, who have received much greater attention from historians.

  Unlike Poiret, Paquin did not believe in dictating to her customers. Paquin’s viewpoint was that designers should reflect and respond to the subtle changes in style initiated by ‘women in the street’, as she put it. Paquin modified the most adventurous of new trends to make them wearable to her customers. Poiret’s controversial hobble skirts, for example, were also produced by Paquin, but, as historian Valerie Steele has highlighted, Paquin’s versions had ingenious hidden pleats to make them more practical. ‘This tendency towards moderation has probably made her seem less significant in the eyes of history,’ suggests Steele. An unpublished paper by Laetitia Elting (Courtauld Institute 1999) makes a strong case for Paquin as a true innovator. In 1912, she produced a collection of coats and skirts for sports, travel and shopping, creating tailleurs (tailored suits) that were both practical and stylish. That same year she opened a sportswear department in her London shop for golf, motoring and shooting clothing. Paquin, it could be argued, predated many of Chanel’s achievements in the 1920s. A report in Health & Home magazine in October 1912 praised Paquin’s ‘simple yet smart gowns, which are the very thing for golfing or motoring and yet will not disgrace their wearer should she elect to lunch at a fashionable restaurant in the meantime.’

  As the fashion historian Diana de Marly has noted, when Paquin made an innovation, it was for very practical reasons. In 1913, she produced a dress that was a blend of tailoring and drapery, formal enough for daytime but soft enough for informal evening occasions. It was the first day-into-evening dress. Her tailoring tended to be less severe than that of English tailoring specialists, with a touch of softness and femininity. Paquin herself often wore dark blue serge suits decorated with black chiffon. Despite her moderation as a designer, Madame Paquin, as she was always known, was no shrinking violet. Interviews with her in the newspapers of the day built a picture of a passionate, highly articulate and confident woman. She could also write well and penned lyrical pieces on fashion and culture. She saw fashion as part of the broader cultural picture and encouraged collaboration and crossfertilisation between designers and artists, theatre designers and architects (contrasting with couture houses such as Redfern, Worth and Doucet, which all rejected the collaborative approach).

  Jeanne Marie Charlotte Becke
rs was born in 1869, the daughter of a physician. In the manner of the time, she was sent out to work while still a young teenager and learned her craft very rapidly, rising through the ranks at Maison Rouff to become première, in charge of the atelier. In 1891 she married Isidore Rene Jacob dit Paquin, an ebullient businessman who owned Paquin Lalanne, a couture house that had grown out of a menswear shop, Paquin Freres, back in the 1840s. They quickly renamed the business just Paquin and set about building the company with impressive energy and verve at 3 rue de la Paix. The success of Charles Frederick Worth, the first modern couturier, which had been continued by his son Jean-Philippe Worth, had overshadowed female dressmakers in Paris. With the arrival of Paquin, the dressmakers began to have their say. Paquin was the first woman to achieve the status of couturière. While the house of Worth bestowed dignity on its customers, the house of Paquin brought lashings of glamour.

  As a confident and sociable woman, now with the inestimable advantage of a wealthy husband, Jeanne Paquin was well placed to make an impact. Designer Maggy Rouff later recalled: ‘I can still hear the crystal voice of Madame Paquin [saying that fashion] must constantly renew itself, without weakness or fear, even with audacity.’

  Paquin loved colour. She initially embraced the pastel tones that were popular in the early 1900s. Later, she developed her signature red—and often focused on colour as a starting point for her designs. She gave new life to black, associated with mourning and gravitas through most of the nineteenth century, but used by Paquin as a foil for her richer colours. Her dresses reflected the Orientalist fashions of the early 1900s, but there was superbly realised tailoring too, including wool decorated with inserts of crochet lace. She also had a strong eye for contrasting details, such as using fur trims on silk or chiffon rather than wool, raising the ordinary into something extraordinary.

  Paquin focused on design while her husband nurtured the clients. They might range from royalty (the queens of Spain, Portugal and Belgium were all customers) to celebrated courtesans such as La Belle Otero and Liane de Pougy. Indeed, the house was happy to dress everyone who could afford the opulent dresses and fur-trimmed coats. The couple showed an astute touch to their marketing and kept their prices at a more modest level than their competitors. The main events of the social calendar were clearly communicated to the vendeuses at the beginning of every year. An in-house stage was created to serve as an aid for dresses for theatre customers. A Paris guidebook of 1906 praised their open-door policy: ‘From the first this clever and ornamental young couple followed a new system. No haughty seclusion, no barred doors, at the Maison Paquin.’

  By the standards of the time, they were also enlightened in their attitude towards their employees, purchasing a villa in Le Touquet that employees could use for relaxation. When the world of Paris couture was threatened by a strike in 1917, Paquin expressed sympathy for the strikers, a viewpoint that displeased many of her fellow couturiers. Isidore and Jeanne had shrewd business instincts, taking the bold decision to open a London store in 1896. It was here that the young Madeleine Vionnet worked. Stores followed in Madrid and Buenos Aires, plus a furrier on Fifth Avenue, New York, named Paquin-Joire, run with her half-brother Henri Joire. In 1900, she was appointed organiser of the fashion section of the Exposition Universelle, which raised more than a few eyebrows among her rivals. She confidently created a mannequin of herself for the display. By 1907, Paquin was a flourishing business, with customers delighted by the couturière’s new Japanese kimono-sleeved coats. But then tragedy struck: Isidore Paquin fell sick and died at the age of 45. Some 2,000 people attended the funeral. Jeanne was a widow at 38.

  After Isidore’s death, the business became Jeanne’s life more than ever. Henceforth, she dressed mostly in black and white, again predating Chanel. The Prix Isidore Paquin was created in her husband’s memory to recognise gifted young artists. In 1908, she revived the Directoire look and introduced tailoring for the first time, a turning point that made Paquin into a full fashion house, including couture, lingerie, furs and accessories (Jeanne Lanvin went on to take this process further, turning Lanvin into arguably the first lifestyle brand). Between 1910 and 1915, Paquin participated in a number of international exhibitions that were important marketing platforms. The Paquin pavilion, decorated as a Greek temple, was a huge hit at an exhibition in Turin in 1911, and Paquin introduced an entrance fee in an attempt to control the visitor numbers. The same year Paquin’s love for art was given full flower with the creation of an album of designs for accessories, fans and clothes illustrated by artists Paul Iribe, Georges Lepape and Georges Barbier. Paquin was also swept up in the excitement over the arrival of the Ballets Russes in Paris and made up costumes designed by Leon Bakst and Paul Iribe. As historian Nancy Troy has made clear, beneath Paquin’s genuine enthusiasm for the arts, she was well aware of the commercial advantages of such associations and was also aware of the complex balancing act that was required to appeal both to the avant-garde and to more traditionally minded customers. An astute reporter for The New York Times, writing in 1913, commented: ‘She maintains the attitude of an artist, but we know she is the most commercial artist alive.’

  Paquin was also tough-minded, proving just as ready to protect her designs as her rival Paul Poiret. In 1906, she took legal action against two magazines for publishing photographs of new models before they were displayed. She also won a long-running action against the Beer couture house for copying and was awarded 8,000 francs in damages. Yet another legal case, against a Paris-based tailoring house, launched in 1911, resulted in victory seven years later. Paquin was nothing if not dogged. The period leading up to the First World War was golden for Paquin, who became the first woman dressmaker to be awarded the Légion d’Honneur. That was in 1913, a year in which shareholders in the company received a 211 per cent return on their investment. ‘I am glad that the government has acknowledged my work quite irrespective of sex,’ she said. ‘That is as far as my feminism goes. I only want justice, that work in any particular branch in which a woman excels shall be recognised.’

  The tango dress of 1913 was one of her most celebrated designs, created for dancing the tango, a craze which was sweeping Paris. A typical Paquin design, it comprised a tunic and double skirt, including a chiffon underskirt, and made generous use of pleats and godets to ensure freedom of movement. In Paquin’s hands, women did not need to fear ridicule—fashion was never allowed to triumph over function. The tango dresses featured in a tango fashion show at the Palace Theatre in London. The Daily Express newspaper, impressed by the public interest in the event, wrote that ‘these new fashion shows were rivalling in popularity the ordinary theatre play.’ The outbreak of war encouraged Paquin to develop new markets, including America, where the Paquin-Joire shop had thrived since opening in 1912. In 1914, four of Paquin’s best mannequins toured America for three weeks with her sister-in-law, Madame Joire, to drum up publicity. The so-called croisade de l’élégance visited New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago and New York, charging $3 a ticket, later raised to $5, and crowds were still turned away. This successful marketing ploy had been first initiated by Poiret, but Paquin appears to have been no less successful. The models’ coloured wigs drew particular comment for their modern spirit.

  Paquin’s status was recognised in 1917 when she was appointed president of the Chambre Syndicale, which represented the couturiers of Paris, a post she held until 1919. By then, she had retired as house designer in favour of Madeleine Wallis, whose particular skill was in furs, which became the signature of Paquin. She finally retired altogether in the early 1930s and died in 1936. The house lasted twenty years after her death, continuing to make her celebrated fur-trimmed coats. In 1953, it acquired the French business of Worth, its old rival, before both were forced to recognise their time was past, closing in 1956.

  Further reading: There is little on Paquin in English, but Dominique Sirop wrote her biography, Paquin (1989), in French. An unpublished paper by Laetitia Elting,
Revealing the Accomplishments of Madame Paquin, the Very Queen of Dressmakers (1999), is at the Courtauld Institute in London.

  4 PAUL POIRET (1879–1944)

  To describe Paul Poiret as a fashion designer may be to do him an injustice. Consider the achievements of the year 1911, his annus mirabilis, when he created the Rosine house of perfume, the Martine school of decorative arts (with accompanying shop), the Colin paper and packaging workshop, and a fabric printing factory in collaboration with the artist Raoul Dufy. That same year also saw his publication of Les choses de Paul Poiret vues par Georges Lepape, a book of exquisite fashion drawings that did much to fuel the revival of fashion illustration. All this, combined with his achievements as a couturier, made Paul Poiret a central figure in the artistic and creative development of Paris in the early twentieth century. In the 1910s, he was known in America as the King of Fashion, while in Paris he was Le Magnifique. To cap it all, he was also an outstanding cook.

  As a couturier, his list of accomplishments was spectacular, led by his championing of a revival of the neoclassical style of 1790s France—high-waisted flowing clothes that followed the fluid, natural lines of the body. This revival swept away in a few short years most of the nineteenth-century styles that squeezed, exaggerated or disguised the body. Paradoxically, Poiret was also responsible for the hobble skirt, cut so tight that the wearer could barely walk, an innovation that aroused ridicule while fuelling the oxygen of publicity for the designer. More positively, his enthusiasm for Orientalism, drawing on influences from India to China and Japan, infused fashion and interior design with a burst of strong, dynamic colours, even before the Ballets Russes and Bakst had reached Paris. He paved the way for the style known as Art Deco, making a spectacular contribution both in terms of fashion and interior decoration to the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs in 1925, the event that gave the movement its name.