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To say that
French haute couture owes its origin to the English may sound sacrilegious. On
the other hand though, history does tell us the saying has at least an iota of truth.
After reading
Emile Zola’s La Curee (“The Kill”), I became most intrigued
about the French Second Empire epoch. At one of the Vancouver Public Library
periodic book sales, I spotted John Bierman’s Napoleon III and His Carnival Empire and lost no time in grabbing
it.
In La Curee, I had read about the heroine’s
lavish addiction to her “Worth” gowns. From Bierman’s interesting book, I came
to know that Charles Frederick Worth, an Englishman born in Bourne,
Lincolnshire, England, was the grumpy couturier who was the craze of upper-class
Europe during the French Second Empire. The most renowned of his customers was French
Empress Eugenie, and it was the Austrian princess Pauline von Metternich who
introduced Worth to her.
Though described
by Bierman as an “unfulfilled, neurotic woman of limited talents”, Eugenie was
nevertheless the woman who instigated a passionate fashion sense not only in
ladies of the outgoing aristocracy, but also those in the up-and-coming
bourgeoisie in post-revolution France.
“If the
emperor’s example inspired Parisiens of all classes to new levels of sexual
activity, Eugenie’s example gave similar impetus to another form of commerce
for which Paris had long been famous: fashion. While disdaining sex, she was
obsessed with clothes and coiffure and set the standard for all – from the
haughty ladies of the old aristocracy, who disdained the parvenu court of the
Bonapartes, to the grisettes in the neighborhood dance halls.”
Worth started
out as a drapery maker in England and moved to Paris in 1846. Having teamed up
with a wealthy Swede, Otto Bobergh, who acted as his financier, he opened a
shop at 7, Rue de la Paix, Paris. Before long, the Empress became one of his
admiring patronesses.
The Empress’s
relationship with Worth was much like the mutually enhancing relationship
between Audrey Hepburn and Hubert de Givenchy, in terms of augmenting each
other’s fame, as Eugenie was fast becoming a fashion icon for the whole of
France.
After being
propelled onto a pedestal by the patronage of the Empress, Worth turned into a
dictator in the world of fashion, treating his customers with utter disdain –
they were not able to choose their own clothes; he would decide for them. He
would usually hold fashion shows four times a year, during which he would
display model dresses. Each of his patronesses would be allowed to pick one
model dress, which would be sewn in the fabrics of her choice and tailored to
her figure. But the ladies of Paris did not seem to mind his haughtiness and
outrageous prices, as long as he was willing to dress them. At the height of
his career, he did not deign to accept new customers unless they were
introduced by an old client.
The zesty
obsession with clothes, for better or worse, did bring into existence many
grand department stores, like Le Bon Marche, La Samaritaine and Le Printemps, some
of which have survived to this day. Critics, however, labeled such obsessive
concern with outward appearance and embellishment as destructive and
demoralizing, and as a reflection of the Second Empire’s predilection for style
over substance. Indeed, the unabashed decadence and flagrant materialism of the
era was the subject of excoriation in the works of many intellectuals of the
time.
All said, the
legacy left by Worth still blazed a trail for the numerous French designer houses
that followed, which subsequently dominated the scene of European high fashion.
His son, Gaston, actually founded the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in
1868, which was the precursor to the present day’s Federation Francaise de la
Couture, du Pret-a-Porter des Couturiers et des Createurs de Mode. The Federation
is responsible for setting the dates and location of the French fashion weeks,
for establishing industry standards on quality and on the use of the word “haute
couture”. Those once disdainful French haute couture houses, which have now
become the craze of an oriental nation, seem to have lost a little bit of their
cool hauteur of yesteryears.
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