Before 1900: Couture beginnings




During the early 18th-century, the first fashion designers came to the fore as the leaders of fashion. In the 1720s, the queen's dressmaker Françoise Leclerc became sought-after by the women of the French aristocracy, and in the mid century, Marie Madeleine Duchapt, Mademoiselle Alexandre and Le Sieur Beaulard all gained national recognition and expanded their customer base from the French aristocracy to foreign aristocracy. However, Rose Bertin is generally regarded as the first internationally famous fashion designer.

Rose Bertin (July 2, 1747 – September 22, 1813), dubbed the 'Minister of Fashion', was the dressmaker to Marie Antoinette, Queen of France from 1770 to 1793. Bertin opened a shop in Paris and had a considerable influence on Parisian style, until the French Revolution forced her into exile in London.

An outsider in the French Court, Marie Antoinette relied on Bertin's meticulous designs to help her "combat her enemies with style". Marie Antoinette's unique fashion preferences such as masculine riding breeches or simple muslin shift dresses, contrasted sharply with elaborate gowns as the Queen attempted to create a persona that would allow the citizens of France to connect with her and her lifestyle. Although Marie Antoinette's attempts were largely unsuccessful, the way in which Bertin helped the Queen express herself through fashion were groundbreaking and set a precedent for the monarchs who followed, and their designers, such as Louis Hippolyte Leroy. And by the early 19th century, designers such as Ann Margaret Lanchester and Mary Ann Bell were expanding their businesses, and publishing their own designs in fashion magazines. In the first half of the 19th-century fashionable Parisian designers, such as Madame Vignon, Madame Victorine and Madame Palmyre, normally did not independently design a product which their clients could choose to buy, but rather created the product in collaboration with their clients wishes, to produce something unique.

An Englishman living in Paris, Charles Frederick Worth (1825 - 1905) is regarded as the first designer in the modern sense of the term, with a large business employing many largely anonymous tailors and seamstresses. A former draper, Worth's success was such that he was able to dictate what customers should wear. Launched into the spotlight as the Empress Eugénie's primary designer, Worth used his royal connections to gain recognition and clients. The proclamation on February 1, 1853 by Napoleon III that no visitors would be received to his court without formal dress meant that the popularity of Worth-style gowns became overwhelming. Ornately decorated and constructed from the finest materials, Worth's gowns are well known for their crinolines (cage-like metal structures that held the dress out in a stylish shape).

Throughout the early decades of the 20th century, high fashion originated in Paris and, to a lesser extent, London.citation needed Fashion magazines from other countries sent editors to the Paris fashion shows. Department stores also sent buyers to the Paris shows, where they purchased garments to copy (and openly stole the style lines and trim details of others). Both made-to-measure salons and ready-to-wear departments featured the latest Paris trends, adapted to the stores' assumptions about the lifestyles and pocket books of their targeted customers.

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