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The first
fashion designer who was not merely a dressmaker was
Charles Frederick Worth (1826-1895). Before the former
draper set up his fashion house in Paris, clothing
design and creation was handled by largely anonymous
seamstresses, and high fashion descended from styles
worn at royal courts. Worth's success was such that he
was able to dictate the fashion to his customers what
they should wear, instead of following their lead as
earlier dressmakers had done.
Later many fashion
design houses began to hire artists to sketch or paint
designs for garments. Their fashion images alone could
be presented to clients much more cheaply than by
producing an actual sample garment in the workroom. If
the client liked the fashion design, they ordered it and
the resulting garment made money for the house. Thus,
the tradition of designers sketching out fashion garment
designs instead of presenting completed garments on
models to customers began as an
economy.
Throughout the early 20th century,
practically all high fashion originated in Paris, and to
a lesser extent London. Fashion magazines from other
countries sent editors to the Paris fashion shows.
Department stores 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 fashions, adapted to the
stores' assumptions about the lifestyles and pocket
books of their targeted customers.
At this time
in fashion history the division between haute couture
and ready-to-wear was not sharply defined. The two
separate modes of production were still far from being
competitors, and, indeed, they often co-existed in
fashion houses where the seamstresses moved freely
between made-to-measure and ready-made
fashions.
Around the start of the twentieth-century
fashion magazines began to include photographs and
became even more influential in the fashion world than
in the past. In cities throughout the world these
fashion magazines were greatly sought-after and had a
profound effect on public taste.
The Second
World War created many radical changes in the fashion
industry. After the War, Paris's reputation as the
global center of fashion began to crumble and
off-the-peg and mass-manufactured fashions became
increasingly popular. A new youth style emerged in the
Fifties, changing the focus of fashion forever. As the
installation of central heating became more widespread
the age of minimum-care garments began and lighter
textiles and, eventually, synthetics, were introduced
into the fashion scene.
During the late
twentieth century, fashions began to cris-cross
international boundaries with rapidity. Popular Western
fashions were adopted all over the world, and many
designers from outside of the West had a profound impact
on fashion. Synthetic materials such as Lycra, Spandex,
and viscose became widely-used, and fashion, after two
decades of looking to the future, once again turned to
the past for
inspiration.
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