History of fashion design

 History of fashion design refers specifically to the development of the purpose and intention behind garments, shoes, accessories, and their design and construction. The modern industry, based around firms or fashion houses run by individual designers, started in the 19th century with Charles Frederick Worth.

Fashion started when humans began wearing clothes, which were typically made from plants, animal skins and bone. Before the mid-19th century, the division between haute couture and ready-to-wear did not really exist, but the most basic pieces of female clothing were made-to-measure by dressmakers and seamstresses dealing directly with the client. Tailors made some female clothing from woollen cloth.[1]

More is known about elite women's fashion than the dress of any other social group. Early studies of children’s fashion typically pulled from sources of folklore, cultural studies, and anthropology field-based works.[2] One trend across centuries was that Christian people typically dressed best on Sundays for religious purposes.[3] Another is the importance of ‘hand-me-downs,’ receiving used clothing.[4] In addition to hand-me-downs, sharing clothing among siblings has also been a trend throughout history.[5] Prior to the nineteenth century, European and North American children’s clothing patterns were often similar to adult’s clothing, with children dressed as miniature adults.[3] Textiles have also always been a major part of any fashion as textiles could express the wearer's wealth.[6]

From the late nineteenth century onwards, clothing was increasingly inspired by fashion plates, especially from Paris, which were circulated throughout Europe and eagerly anticipated in the regional areas. Dressmakers would then interpret these images. The origin of these designs lay in the clothing created by the most fashionable figures, typically those at court, along with their Dressmakers and tailors. Though there had been distribution of dressed dolls from France since the 16th century and Abraham Bosse had produced engravings of fashion in the 1620s, the pace of change picked up in the 1780s with increased publication of French engravings illustrating the latest Paris styles, followed by fashion magazines such as Cabinet des Modes. In Britain, The Lady's Magazine fulfilled a similar function.

In the 20th century, fashion magazines and, with rotogravure, newspapers, began to include photographs and became even more influential. Throughout the world these magazines were greatly sought-after and had a profound effect on public taste. Talented illustrators – among them Paul Iribe, Georges Lepape, Erté, and George Barbier – drew attractive fashion plates for these publications, which covered the most recent developments in fashion and beauty. Perhaps the most famous of these magazines was La Gazette du Bon Ton which was founded in 1912 by Lucien Vogel and regularly published until 1925.

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 (2 July 1747 – 22 September 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 1 February 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.[7] 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 people.

1900s

Main article: 1900s in fashion

Fashionable lady of the era: portrait by Giovanni Boldini (1845–1931) showing Elizabeth Wharton Drexel in 1905.

The outfits worn by fashionable women of during the Belle Époque (1871–1914) were strikingly similar to those worn in the heyday of the fashion pioneer Charles Worth. By the end of the 19th century, the horizons of the fashion industry had broadened, due to the more stable and independent lifestyles of well-off women and the practical clothes they demanded. However, the fashions of the Belle Époque still retained the elaborate, upholstered style of the 19th century. The changing of fashion was unthinkable, so the use of different trimmings was all that distinguished clothing from one season to the next.

Conspicuous waste and conspicuous consumption defined the fashions of the decade and the outfits of the couturiers of the time were extravagant, ornate, and painstakingly made. The curvaceous S-Bend silhouette dominated fashion up until around 1908. The S-Bend corset thrust the chest forward into the mono-bosom, and, with the aid of padding, judicious placement of trim in clothing, and, most especially, a particular posture entirely independent of the corset, created the illusion of an "S" silhouette. Toward the end of the decade Paul Poiret introduced designs that did not include a petticoat or a corset, taking the S shape out of fashion. This was a big change, as women's waists had been shaped by corsets since the Renaissance.

The Maison Redfern, founded by the English tailor John Redfern (1820–1895), was the first fashion house to offer women sportswear and tailored suits based on their male counterparts, and his practical and soberly elegant garments soon became indispensable to the wardrobes of well-dressed women.

Prior to World War I, infant boys at times were dressed in skirts and had longer hair.[8] Contemporary color coding for genders was not common until the 1920s.[8] The design of white dresses for girls was popular during this time frame because it was practical and simple, not only to make but increasingly to purchase readymade. Clothing for both genders typically covered the whole body as it was a practice of modesty.[9] Textiles used for children’s clothing usually consisted of linen, lightweight cotton, or silk.[10]

1910s

Main article: 1910s in fashion

During the early years of the 1910s the fashionable silhouette became much more lithe and fluid, and softer than in the 19th century. When the Ballets Russes performed Scheherazade in Paris in 1910, a craze for Orientalism ensued. The couturier Paul Poiret was one of the first designers to translate this into the fashion world. Poiret's clients were at once transformed into harem girls in flowing pantaloons, turbans, and vivid colors and geisha in exotic kimono. Poiret also devised the first outfit which women could put on without the help of a maid.[11]

The Art Deco movement began to emerge at this time and its influence was evident in the designs of many couturiers of the time. Simple felt hats, turbans, and clouds of tulle replaced the styles of headgear popular in the 19th century. It is also notable that the first real fashion shows were organized during this period, by Jeanne Paquin, one of the first female couturiers, who was also the first Parisian couturier to open foreign branches in London, Buenos Aires, and Madrid.[12]

Two of the most influential fashion designers of the time were Jacques Doucet and Mariano Fortuny. Doucet excelled in layering pastel colors and his elaborate gossamer dresses suggested the Impressionist shimmers of reflected light. His distinguished customers never lost a taste for his fluid lines and flimsy, diaphanous materials. While obeying imperatives that left little to the imagination of the couturier, Doucet was nonetheless a designer of immense taste and discrimination, a role many have tried since, but rarely with Doucet's level of success.

The Venice-based designer Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, was a curious figure, with very few parallels in any age. For his dress designs he conceived a special pleating process and new dyeing techniques. He gave the name Delphos to his long clinging sheath dresses that undulated with color. Each garment was made of a single piece of the finest silk, its unique color acquired by repeated immersions in dyes whose shades were suggestive of moonlight or of the watery reflections of the Venetian lagoon. Breton straw, Mexican cochineal, and indigo from the Far East were among the ingredients that Fortuny used. Among his many devotees were Eleonora Duse, Isadora Duncan, Cléo de Mérode, the Marchesa Casati, Émilienne d'Alençon, and Liane de Pougy.

Changes in dress during World War I were dictated more by necessity than fashion. As more and more women were forced to work, they demanded clothes that were better suited to their new activities. Social events had to be postponed in favor of more pressing work and the need to mourn the increasing numbers of dead, visits to the wounded, and the general gravity of the time meant that darker colors became the norm. A new monochrome look emerged that was unfamiliar to young women in comfortable circumstances. By 1915 fashionable skirts had risen above the ankle and, by 1920, to mid-calf.

For boys, clothes switched to being more neutral and plain, which did resemble some of the men’s fashion during this era.[8] Female infants during this decade wore loose-fitting dresses until the ages of two or three.[8] After that age range, little girls shifted into wearing dresses with suits or skirts that were similar to women’s skirts.