If you love beautiful
garments, you will swoon over the confections in The House of Worth, 1858-1954: The Birth of Haute Couture. Certainly you
might have swooned while corseted into one of the boned bodices and
metal-hooped cage crinolines which supported the yards and yards of
fabric and trim that comprised one of these dresses. But how
sumptuous, how splendid, how breath-taking the result! Each garment
shown in this richly-illustrated tome will have you marveling at its
design and details. 
In addition to all this
visual delight, the book presents the story of the Englishman Charles
Frederick Worth who came to Paris as a young man in 1846 and by 1858
had established what would eventually become the famous House of
Worth. It's also a fascinating look into the fashion life of royal
and aristocratic ladies as well as those from the artistic and
demi-mondaine worlds, beginning at the time of the extravagant Second
Empire in France, when the Empress Eugénie became Worth's loyal
client.
From the
voluminously-skirted gowns of this era to the bustle-backed styles of
the later 1800s, Worth's creativity and his love of opulence and
ornamentation is magnificently demonstrated. His son, Jean-Philippe,
entered the business as a designer, and I do admire some of these
later turn-of-the century designs, executed after Charles Frederick
had died in 1895.
Looking at all these
frilled, embroidered, bejeweled, lace-adorned silks and velvets, I
could not help but muse on the woman that they presented and the
woman that wore them, for they surely would shape both outward and
inward concepts of the wearer. Such perfection, such utter
femininity. But also, such artificiality, such discomfort!
One passage from the book
especially stays in my mind. “The empress [Eugénie] was fond of
an active lifestyle and liked to dress very simply when she was not
engaged in public duties, often in a black skirt caught up over a red
underskirt, worn with a loose-fitting shirt... It was wearing a
similar outfit that she scaled the Mer de Glace glacier near Mont
Blanc.” Can you imagine doing that in skirts!? It
made me think of the famous quip about Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire,
that she did everything he did, but backwards and in heels.
So it
is easy to see how women embraced the flapper fashions of the Twenties.
About one dress from 1924-27 the description concludes: “Dresses of
this kind have no internal structure and rely entirely on the body to
support them.” How wonderful that must have felt after all the
tortuous shaping the body had previously been subjected to. But I
have to admit that for ahh-inspiring beauty, these shapeless
dresses, however artistically adorned, can't compete with those
incredible clothes from decades before. Even the more lavish New Look styles with which the history of the House of Worth closes in 1954
pale in comparison.
Yes, I
am grateful I live in the age of knits and spandex and denim, and
linen that is allowed to wrinkle. But The House of Worth will make
you yearn, if only for a moment, to be swathed in a luscious silk, a
froth of delicate lace at your bosom, embroidered blossoms entwining
with pearls down the front, some ruching perhaps, and tassels and
ribbons, the skirt spilling out gracefully about you. Just page through this wonderful
book and let your imagination waltz away.
