Charles Frederick Worth

The Dressmaker Who Became an Artist

Worth's claim in this definition is a change of status for a whole trade. He completely revolutionised the business of dressmaking and was the first of the couturiers — dressmakers considered artists rather than mere artisans. The mechanism was a reversal of the customer relationship: rather than let the customer dictate the design, as had previously been dressmaking practice, Worth displayed model dresses at fashion shows four times a year, and his patronesses picked a model, which was then sewn in fabrics of their choice and tailored to their figure. Design authority moved from the client to the maker, while fit and fabric choice stayed personal. He gave his customers luxurious materials and meticulous fit, was patronised by the French Empress Eugénie and then by many titled and notable women — Cora Pearl and Pauline de Metternich among them — and customers travelled from as far as New York and Boston. He was sufficiently fashionable that he had to turn customers away.

From Drapery Shops to Worth and Bobergh

The path ran through the cloth trade. Born in Bourne, Lincolnshire, Worth worked at several prosperous London drapery shops before moving to Paris in 1846, where he was hired by Gagelin and Opigez, well-known Parisian drapers. There he married one of the firm's models, Marie Vernet, who modelled shawls and bonnets for prospective customers; Worth made a few simple dresses for his wife, and customers started asking for copies. By then a junior partner, he urged the partners to expand into dressmaking, but they hesitated to risk their reputation in a business then considered as low-class as dressmaking. The wealthy Swede Otto Bobergh bankrolled the venture instead, and Worth and Bobergh opened in 1858. The hesitation of the drapers is the measure of the change: within a generation, the trade they thought beneath them had become haute couture, with Worth named its father.

War, Reopening and a Family House

Worth and Bobergh shut down during the Franco-Prussian War and reopened in 1871, without Bobergh, as the House of Worth. Worth took his sons Gaston — founder of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, the body named in the Givenchy definition as the institution of Paris couture — and Jean-Philippe into the business, and the house continued to flourish after his death on March 10, 1895. An English-born designer thus founded both a Paris house that outlived him and, through his son, the syndicate that organised the industry he had created. His entry is the earliest in this designer section by birth — 1826 — and the couturier definition in this section takes its meaning from his practice: original models shown on a calendar, chosen by clients, and made to their figures in luxurious materials.