The fashion model was born in the late 19th century, a product of the Industrial Revolution. Her role did not exit, as at that time, there were simply no clothes to sell. Fashion had been the reserved for the aristocracy and its influence reached no further than the palace wall. Up until the 19th century, fashion had been prescribed by the client and made to order by dressmakers. Once clothes and designs were available forselling, then the fashion model became a necessity.
An Englishman named Charles Fredrick Worth, the first names couturier, ‘invented’ the Fashion Model. Worth began his legendary career as a salesman in a fabric shop in Paris. The shop initially sold readymade garments, capes and shawls and it was Worth’s idea to show the clothes in motion to the clients. He chose his models and mannequins as they were known, from the ranks of sales girls and assistants. Marie Vernet, a daughter of a provincial tax officer, was one. Vernet was the first named Fashion Model. She married Worth and moved with him to set up a dressmaking business in a small studio in 1858.
Worth was a radical in his approach to design. Dressmaking had been a purely service led business – the clients prescribed the outfits, the dressmaker put it together – the business was dominated by women, until Worth, male dressmakers were unheard of. It was simply taboo to expose skin or let it be touched by any man outside wedlock. To overcome this sexual prejudice Worth ‘employed’ his wife Vernet to model his designs.
Initially, business was tough. Marie Vernet was sent out in public to exhibit her husband’s gowns. But gradually Worth’s reputation spread, and society’s more outlandish women were dressed by him. His brilliantly inventive designs eventually attracted the attention of Princess Eugenie, the wife of the emperor Napoleon III. Vernet herself was sent as an envoy to Court, in order to present her husband’s ideas to the Princess. Wroth followed, with a good line in self promotion and diplomatic skills. Once the imperial deal was clinched, Worth’s reputation was made.
Born: October 13, 1825
Bourne, Lincolnshire, England
Died: March 10, 1895 (aged 69)
Paris, France
Occupation: Fashion Designer
Labels: House of Worth
Known for: creating Haute Couture
Children: Gaston, Jean-Philippe
Parents: William Worth
Business thrived. In 1858, Worth employed twenty seamstresses, by 1870 the count was 1,200. Madame Worth remained his first and best advertisement. She attended race meetings and society events, she was the first to wear his walking skirt, crinoline free dress and day time separates. Amongst polite society Vernet’s face soon became known, and her fashion widely copied.
It is down to Worth’s genius at self publicity that the first couture shows come into being. He developed the moving mannequins idea which he first introduced for his own business. At each season he invited his clients to view his latest designs in informal presentations at his studio. Initially the invitations were turned down; the notion of the client visiting the dressmaker with other clients was deemed a low class act. But Worth was uncompromising, if women wanted to employ his skills, they had to come to him. The shows soon became a diary date on society’s calendar. Madame Wroth trained the models selected from the workshop floor. They were neither toll nor necessarily beautiful. As long as they showed off the clothes, and walked in a straight line, that was enough. Worth’s spectacle was a novelty in Parisian society and attracted voyeurs as well as many clients.
At the couturier’s death in 1895, Worth was a household fashion name. he established the Fashion Model, in his wife Marie Vernet, the Fashion Show and foundations of the fashion business in the twentieth century.
Marie vernet was the blueprint Fashion Model but she was accepted by society only as Worth’s wife. The fashion model was to remain a figure of scorn and scandal for another twenty five years. It took the devastation of the World War l and the challenges of the suffragette movement to shift perceptions, and radical work by the next generation of couturiers before the fashion model was finally recognized.
