Ciba review 1939-1940/25-36. [antikvár]

The Rise of the French Fashion Artist Bj A. Varron Foreword. There is scarcely a chapter in the history of fashions which has not been treated in more or less exhaustive publications. However varied the point of view of these publications may be, they rarely reveal the dress-designer as a creative artist and a craftsman of great technical skill, or make plain his social position and his relations to his customers. The object of this number is to describe great Paris tailors and milliners of the i8th century at work. Memoirs, letters, contemporary fashion journals, etc. served as materials for the following articles. The 18 th century, that age of luxury and refinement, in which sense and intellect were united in a harmonious philosophy of life, produced as one of its most typical representatives the fashion artist, who emerges as a conscious artist from the trifles of gauze and tulle which he created. The undisputed rule of French fashions, which was acknowledged the world over, lay in his hands. The period in which the fashion artists of Paris first achieved supremacy was only a few decades before the Revolution. The first threatening signs of the upheaval which was to sweep away the nobility of the "Ancien re- gime", who were the best customers of the Paris dress-designers and milliners, were already to be observed. The latter were, however, destined to pass through the storm unscathed. The fashion artist, whose word was law even to the most exalted personages in the land, and whose decrees had begun to undermine the rigid etiquette of the court, was in reality a democratic figure; he was a representative of the bourgeois element, who, thanks to his inventive talents, was able to create and maintain for himself a position of importance to the privileged classes. Thus, the fashion artists continued ' their activities throughout the revolutionary period and into the 19th century, the period when the "haute couture" began to play an important part in the econoiTiic system of France. At all times there have been tailors whose creations were in advance of those of their colleagues. But as late as the 17th century skilled and original tailors had no directive iti-fluence on the trend of fashions. Very little is known of their personalities; where their names were recorded in memoirs or elsewhere, it is usually a brief and casual mention. Furthermore, they were restricted in their activities by the regulations of their guilds. Until ll" .1 ¦¦ I . ritcLii-.—jJH 1655, when the "tailleurs d'habits et maîtres marchands pourpointiers et chaussetiers" were united in a single guild, many hands collaborated in the making of a suit of clothes. The "pourpointier" made the doublet, the "cul-lotier" or the "chaussetier" the breeches, whilst only the coat was made by the "tailleur de robes". Until the early years of the mercantile system (cf. Ciba Review No. 18) each article of clothing was made by a different craftsman. It was this division of labour which caused the tailors to remain anonymous. The new regulations of rö;;, which were designed to reorganize the tailors' guild, did little to improve matters; the statutes of the merchant-tailors, doublet-makers, and breeches-makers, which were published in 1742 (see ill. adjoining), make strange reading. Their strict laws, which imposed galling restrictions on the liberty of the individual, the pedantic definition of the craft, and the deep-rooted prejudice against outsiders, all seem strangely out of place. In the i8th century the statutes of the guilds were out of date, remnants of a bygone age, which were unsuited to the requirements of a period entirely different in social and economic structure. In the 16th century, they were rich and powerful, of an importance in keeping with their real purpose. Being powerful and well organized, they formed a counterbalance to the feudal lords, giving protection to the individual, and drawing strength from their unity. The 17th century brought a weakening of this position; the Crown regarded the guilds solely as a source of revenue. A pretext for the extortion of money was always forthcoming. Louis XIV, who, particularly towards the end of his reign, required vast sums for his wars, mulcted the guilds time after time. In 1690 the tailors were obliged to accept as masters of their company men who were not of their craft. As they did not wish to have men at the head of their organization who knew nothing of their trade, they were obliged to pay a high price for the recovery of this office. Taxes, too, were a heavy burden. Like many other guilds, the tailor's company was obliged to sell its silver, in order to meet the king's ever increasing demands for money. Thus it came about that at the beginning of the 18th century the once so powerful guilds were the helpless objects of autocratic exploitation. Deprived of all other influence STATUTS i ET ORDONNANCES Des Marchands - Maîtres Tailîeurs, d'Habits , Po-jr-pointiers-CliaulIetiers de la Ville, Fiiiixbourgs Si Ban- , Jieue de Paris. Imprimez du tcms dc la Comptabilité dci 5;ciîi- Antoine Pailliet. ¦sf i" A P A R I Si ;Chas h Vw.t« d'Ahi-rb' Knîibn,^» bas du Vont S. Michel, au lion Ptoredcur, M. p C C, X i. I I, ' Title-page of the collection of guild for regulations the tailors, breeches-makers, and stocking-weavers of Paris. they sought to assert themselves by means of strict discipline and supervision of their members. Great care was taken to ensure that no rule was disregarded, and that no outsider was admitted to the company. Personal liberty was considerably curtailed. The position of the guilds remained unchanged for a long time. It was Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727-1781), Minister of Finances to Louis XVI, who first attempted to free trade and the crafts from these obsolete or obsolescent restrictions. Turgot may be regarded as an 18 th century Colbert, with the difference, however, that his economic measures were not destined to remain in force for very long. Contrary to Colbert, Turgot was a disciple of the "physio-cratic" school of political economy, which sought before everything else to promote agriculture. Trade and industry were secondary considerations for him. His ruling principle was that agriculture should be the foundation of the economic system; he condemned as stupidity the manufacture of silk attire for 879