Fashion In Paris France

Paris has been known as the world Mecca of fashion and has been setting the trends with names like Cardin, Dior, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Lacroix right on or near its famed Champs-Elysées Avenue. Not surprisingly, Paris also attracts international fashion firms like Kenzo from Japan and the Italians Armani and Versace. And for accessorizing with jewelry Rue de la Paix is the place.

You can buy the most astounding clothes in Paris if you are well endowed financially. But if you are sadly not, do not despair. You can still find plenty of the inexpensive fashionable clothes from famous brands. Just visit the Boulevard Haussman department stores or the Bon Marchè department store in the Saint-Germain de Près district on the left bank.

But how did it all start? When did it begin?

The first fashion designer who was not just a tailor or a dressmaker was Charles Frederick Worth (1826-1895) who was at the time a draper who set up a fashion house in Paris. Before then, clothes were largely designed by unknown seamstresses who were looked upon as mere servants and high fashion was dictated by the styles worn at royal courts or wealthy households. Worth and his Parisian fashion house were so successful that he was able to command what his customers should wear rather than follow their lead as dressmakers had done in the past. He was the original trendsetter.

Other design houses soon opened their doors for business and hired artists to sketch or paint designs that were presented to customers. Hence, the tradition of designers sketching garment designs instead of presenting completed garments was born.

The outfits worn by the fashionable women of the “Belle Époque” era of the 1900s were similar to those worn pioneer Charles Worth and his fashion house. By the end of the nineteenth century, women demanded more practical clothes but the fashions of the “Belle Époque” persisted with the elaborate, upholstered, hourglass-shapes that rendered women unable to dress or undress by themselves. The need for radical changes in fashion was still unthinkable at the time—changing trimmings was all they could bear.
The Maison Redfern in Paris, of course, was the first fashion house to offer women a tailored suit based on men’s fashion and the designer hats.

Beginning with 1910, the first real fashion shows were organized by Jeanne Paguin, the first female couturier who was also the first Parisian couturier to open foreign branches in London, Buenos Aires, and Madrid. During the same period the couturier Paul Poiret was the first designer to answer the Parisian call for Orientalism and designed the first outfit that women could put on and take off without assistance.

The years between the two World Wars, are considered to be the Golden Age of Parisian fashion when fashion designers found new clients among film actresses, American heiresses, and the wives and daughters of wealthy industrialists.

During the German occupation of Paris in World War II the Parisian monopoly over the world of fashion was broken and nearly collapsed. In 1947, however, it was revived with Christian Dior’s first collection and continued to grow rapidly until the 1960s and the onset of the hippie look.

Today, Paris still has an unquestionably strong footing in the fashion industry but it must complete to some extent with London, Rome, Milan, Madrid, New York, Buenos Aires, and the Orient.

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