1912-1954 Jacques Fath

[Estella*]

[size=-1]September 1912 - 13 November 1954[/size]

 

[Estella*]

moira shearer in a jacques fath dress for 'the red shoes'

for some reason i am unable to find a good article on fath, besides the one on fashionfinds.com which focuses on 'the red shoes'

Jacques Fath

His father wanted Jacques to join him in the insurance brokerage business, and for a while Jacques worked as a bookkeeper at the Paris Bourse, and later, briefly, as a broker. But there was too much of the artist in Jacques’ genetic pool for brokerage work to be completely satisfying. His great-grandmother was a dressmaker who was very popular during the time of Empress Eugenie, the great beauty and consort of Napoleon III. Jacques’ great-grandfather was a writer, and his grandfather a landscape painter. From early childhood Jacques wanted to be a dress designer. He often criticized his elder sister’s clothing. This blond-haired young child had been born with a heightened artistic sensibility.

Empress Eugenie After two years working at the Paris Bourse, Jacques took his required one year of military training. As soon as Jacques returned to civilian life, he furiously prepared for his career as a couturier. Fath was entirely self-taught; he threw himself into studying designs, studying costumes, studying fashion, going to museums and reading books.

In 1937, at the age of 25, Fath opened his first salon on the Rue de la Boetie, where he employed 10 workers. His first collection of twenty dresses brought in enough profit to enable him to plan a more ambitious collection for the next season. An offer of a role in a movie helped Jacques subsidize his growing business. The director of the movie, Leonide Moguey, paid for Jacques' lessons in diction and acting with a well-known acting teacher, Eve Francis. Francis became interested in Jacques’ dress designs, and brought her circle of friends to Jacques’ salon. Jacques’ world was expanding.

While at acting school, Fath met a young drama student, Genevieve Boucher de la Bruyere, who had been a photographer's model and a secretary for Chanel. They fell in love, and shortly after, Genevieve became Madame Fath. She was to be Fath's favorite model and his muse. The young bride also took over the business end of their enterprise, and successfully built it up.

Two years later, in 1939, the war came. Fath served in the army as a gunner, second class. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre with Palm, and the Legion d'Honneur for his gallantry in action. During the German conquest of France, Fath was briefly a prisoner of war, and was released when France fell. Fath returned to Paris and reopened his dressmaking business. He is credited with innovating the wide fluttering skirts worn by women throughout Paris during wartime. Fath conceived the shape of the skirts for women forced to ride bicycles because of gasoline shortages.

When the war ended Jacques desperately wanted to become a leader of French haute couture. Instinctively flamboyant, he launched a publicity campaign that rivals modern day publicists’ acumen. Fath made sure all the great society women were seen in Fath creations. He held lavish parties that were the talk of Paris. He moved his salon to more fashionable quarters on Avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie, and purchased a chateau in the country. Fath’s good looks, his charm, his charisma, his good humor all helped to make him immensely popular. Described by one reporter at the time, "Fath and his wife live in an atmosphere of glitter, chic, and perfumed excitement."

Jacques was one of the founders of the Chambre de Syndicale, a consortium of haute couture designers. Fath had become one third of the triumvirate known as "the big three" -- Dior, Fath, and Balmain. His salon was the apprenticeship training ground for such future luminaries as Givenchy and Guy Laroche. Fath's star was on the rise.

1947 "Gibson Girl" striped shirt,
grey and white cross-striped skirt.

 

[Estella*]

more fath from 1951 and 1954:

 

[Estella*]

he also designed his wife's wedding gown:

 

[Estella*]

to ballgowns

 

[Estella*]

more

 

[fashionist]

Great Pictures Anna Karina! I especially love the Black and Red dress

 

[marrimoda]

beautiful images!

 

[Lena]

i like the black dress on the third post, the one shot by the river..
he was a great master, sad to see there arent too many photos/info on him on the web

thanks for the article/visuals anna

 

[metal-on-metal]

Scott or Lena or anyone who might know,

Does Lizzy Disney still design for Fath? I know they brought her in a couple years ago but was just scrolling through the Paris calendar and realized they no longer show. Did they fire her and close the house?

 

[SiennaInLondon]

Goodness all his clothes are very 'Red Shoes'! Not my thing of late but I would have once loved this stuff.

 

[Whitelinen]

A model wearing Jacques Fath in Paris, 1955.
www.arsproto-to-magazin.de

White gown
www.bowers.org

Evening Gown by Jacques Fath, 1958. Gift of Mrs. Kris Taylor - Cornell Costume and Textile Collection.
www.humancornell.edu

A Gruau litograph
www.barths-chariau.de

Jacques Fath Reversible Linen Dress, 1949
Session 2 - Lot 704 - $850
www.whitakerauction.com

 

[SomethingElse]

1956 Fashion Show

 

[SomethingElse]

Ribbed silk.





swankvintage.com

 

[SomethingElse]

http://www.fashionencyclopedia.com/Es-Fo/Fath-Jacques.html - —by Valerie Steele

Born: Lafitte, France, 12 September 1912. Education: Studied bookkeeping and law, Commercial Institute, Vincennes, France. Family: Married Geneviéve Boucher de la Bruyére, 1939; son: Philippe. Military Service: Completed required military service and served again in the artillery during World War II. Career: Book-keeper, then trader at the Paris Bourse, 1930-32; showed first collection, Paris, 1937; reopened salon, 1940; designed ready-to-wear collection for American manufacturer Joseph Halpert, 1948; formed own company in the U.S., 1951; developed ready-to-wear collection in Paris, 1954, including Fath scarves and hosiery; business sold, 1957; fragrance license bought back from L'Oreal, 1992; Tom Van Lingen hired as designer, 1992; relaunched several fragrances, from 1993; company bought by Groupe Emanuelle Khanh, 1997; Elena Nazarhoff replaced Van Lingen as artistic director, 1997; Nazarhoff fired and Octavio Pizarro hired, 1998; fragrances include: Green Water, reissued 1993; Fath de Fath, 1957 and 1995; Yin and Yang, 2000. Exhibitions: Jacques Fath Création-Couture des Années 50 (retrospective), Palais Galleria, Paris, 1993. Awards: Neiman Marcus award, Dallas, 1949. Died: 13 November 1954, in Paris.

PUBLICATIONS
On FATH:

Books
Bertin, Célia, Paris á la Mode, London, 1956.

Ballard, Bettina, In My Fashion, New York, 1960.

Oster, André, "Jacques Fath Recalled," in Ruth Lynam, ed., Couture: An Illustrated History of the Great Paris Designers and Their Creations, New York, 1972.

Milbank, Caroline Rennolds, Couture: The Great Designers, New York, 1985.

Veillon, Dominique, La mode sous l'occupation, Paris, 1990.

Guillaume, Valérie, Jacques Fath (exhibition catalogue), Paris, 1993.

Stegemeyer, Anne, Who's Who in Fashion, Third Edition, New York,1996.

Jacques Fath had a short career—from 1937 until his death in 1954—and after he died his name fell into obscurity. In contrast to his great contemporaries, Christian Dior and Cristobal Balenciaga, Fath has been largely forgotten, but he deserves to be rediscovered as a talented creator.

Fath was born in 1912 into a Protestant family of Flemish and Alsatian origin. His great-grandmother had been a dressmaker to the empress Eugéne and, from an early age, he showed an interest in designing clothes. He also toyed with the idea of becoming an actor, a craving he later indulged in private theatricals and costume parties.

Fath had "the showy elegance of a character from a Cocteau play and the charm of an enfant terrible, " recalled Célia Bertin in Paris á la Mode, in London, in 1956. But fashion editors like Bettina Ballard and Carmel Snow (of Harper's Bazaar) tended to dismiss Fath as "a good-looking child prodigy…with slightly theatrical fashion ideas not worthy of the hallowed pages of Vogue or Harper's Bazaar."

Fath's career was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. Taken prisoner in 1940, he was, however, soon back in Paris, where he reopened his couture house with his wife Geneviéve. A book on fashion during the Nazi Occupation noted that scruples of conscience did not embarrass Fath, who was closely associated with various Franco-German groups and whose clientéle consisted heavily of Germans, wealthy collaborators, and black marketeers. Unlike Chanel, however, whose reputation as a Nazi sympathizer temporarily injured her postwar career, Fath's image emerged intact, and after the war, his international career took off.

His glove-fitted dresses glorified the female form, and some have said Fath even inspired Dior's New Look. Certainly, Fath designed some of the sexiest and most glamorous dresses to come out of Paris. The typical Fath dress featured a fitted bodice that molded a slender waistline and emphasized the swelling curves of bosom and hips. Sleeve and collar treatments were important to Fath, and he favored irregular necklines that drew attention to the breasts. Skirts were either very slim or very full, characterized perhaps by a whirlpool of pleats or interesting draped effects.

If Dior and Balenciaga were known for the architectural beauty of their designs, Fath's style was praised for its glamor and vivacity. He often used diagonal lines, asymmetrical drapery, and floating panels to give a sense of movement. Nor was he afraid of color, even using such daring combinations as bright blue and green. (He himself liked to wear a red tartan jacket.) Whereas Dior's career was characterized by striking shifts of silhouette (the A-line, the H-line, etc.), Fath maintained an unswerving fidelity to the female form divine, focusing on sexy lines and novel decorative details, such as rows of nonfunctional buttons. Fath's style of wearable glamor had a wide appeal, and in 1948 he signed an agreement with the American manufacturer, Joseph Halpert. Henceforth, in addition to his own couture collections, Fath produced a low-priced American line as well.

Fath was increasingly regarded as the "heir apparent to Dior's throne." As Life Magazine said in 1949: "Dior is still generally acknowledged to be the head man, so to speak, of the fashion world, but Fath has recently had a spectacular rise in prestige, and it now seems likely that the next look to confront and impoverish the U.S. male will be the Fath look." Carmel Snow, editor of Harper's Bazaar, revised her earlier opinion of Fath, declaring, "He makes you look like you have sex appeal—and believe me, that's important."

Fath himself had tremendous personal appeal, with his blond wavy hair and slender physique (a 28-inch waist, claimed one source). He was also very much a social personality; he and his pretty wife loved throwing lavish and imaginative parties, which had the pleasant side-effect of providing excellent publicity. "An atmosphere of glitter, chic, and perfumed excitement permeates both his personal and business affairs," observed Life magazine in October 1949. Yet behind the scenes, Fath was struggling with illness. Only a year before his death in 1954, the American press had hailed him as the "fabulous young French designer who…is out to make every woman look like a great beauty." This promise was tragically cut short; Fath died of leukemia at the age of 42.

Though the Fath house languished for some time, the firm was revived by new designer Tom Van Lingen, who came aboard in 1992, and the relaunch of several of the firm's early fragrances. In 1997, Groupe Emanuelle Khanh and its subsidiary, Jean-Louis Scherrer, bought the fashion house and installed Elena Nazaroff as its ready-to-wear designer, replacing Van Lingen. Yet Nazaroff was fired after one season and Fath hired Octavio Pizarro, who had designed his own label in Chile before working at Jean-Louis Scherrer with Bernard Perris. Two new complementary fragrances, his-and-hers fragrances, Yin and Yang were released in 2000.

 

[SomethingElse]

Silk - S/S 1947: The corset is a fashion convention to define the waist and project the bosom. Challenged by nature, reason, and gender rights, the corsetted silhouette remained a persistent aesthetic ideal of the twentieth century. During the 1940s and 1950s, in particular, ideas of femininity were expressed fashion-wise in a cinched waist akin to the corsetted construction of the past, as in this evening gown by Jacques Fath. Despite the anachronistic lacing, this dress reveals its structure like a modernist building. Pink, a color of twentieth-century lingerie, is combined with a traditional lacing in an evening silhouette of the postwar years, here given deeper historical resonance. In 1954, just before his death, Fath returned to the representation of the corset as a means of reationalizing the wasp waist he preferred.

metmuseum.org

 

[DosViolines]

Jacques Fath Tweed Suit
1950s
Green and brown checkerboard weave wool, the cape style jacket double breasted, with round pleated sculptural collar, leather buttons, curved pockets, with straight skirt, size 8, labeled: Jacques Fath/Paris/Made In France.
Excellent condition.

doylenewyork

 

[SomethingElse]

I think this is the image that's missing from one of the previous posts.

1940-45 Set of jacket and skirt; navy wool flannel; velvet trim; pleats at front of skirt.

kci.or.jp

 

[DosViolines]

Fath Black Lace Bouffant Dress
French, 1951
Black Alencon style lace over blush pink silk tulle, slender bodice, scoop neck, boned foundation, short kimono wheel sleeve with two-tier underlay of organza wraped tulle concluding in a revealed four inch ruffle of four layers of crystal pleated tulle, the bias skirt full from dropped yoke, self covered belt at natural waistline, five layers of tulle, a buckram petticoat and pale pink silk taffeta slip stiffened with net, size 4, labeled: Jacques Fath/Paris, pencil markings W504.
See Harper's Bazaar, September 1951, p.218 for photograph by Louise Dahl-Wolfe.
Only 42 when he died tragically of leukemia in 1954, Jacques Fath was in his ascendancy. The epitome of chic, considered by many as the fashion heir apparent to Dior, his ravishing good looks and charm combined with his exquisite couture resulted in a stunning post war rise in popularity so swift Vogue likened it to a comet. He designed the costumes for the Powell and Pressburger movie, The Red Shoes, which brought his designs to the attention of American society women and Hollywood stars, including Mrs. Vincent Astor, Mrs. Thompson Biddle, Marlene Dietrich, Ava Gardner, Greta Garbo and Rita Hayworth (he designed her trousseau when she married Aly Khan), as well as the aforementioned Eva Peron.

doylenewyork

 

[DosViolines]

Jacques Fath Silk Two-Piece Evening Dress
French, 1950/51
Comprising a black crystal pleated silk voile blouse with set in full elbow length sleeves, black buttons at front closure, black velvet ribbon sewn bow at neck, removable ivory cotton collar and cuffs, an emerald silk faille floor length skirt falling full from small tight gathers at waistband, zip and buttoned placket closure at rear, the hem a thirteen inch applied border of black silk satin and emerald faille alternating stripes, black stiffened net petticoat, two inch wide black patent leather belt, size 4, labeled: Jacques Fath/Paris/20505.

doylenewyork