"What the Parisienne is Wearing" (Woman's Journal, May 1939)

 I'm going to have one last fling with the frivolities of Haute Couture, before I settle down to the years of austerity, rationing and "make do and mend".  And it seems that the designers of 1939 were also having a last fling in the shadow of war.  Moma Clarke wrote in the May issue of Woman's Journal:

All the Paris dressmakers have "gone" womanly in the most feminine sense of the word... Schiaparelli announces that "women are ladies again".  One dares not reflect on the interim.  Better not...

It's one of the minor what-ifs of history: if there had been no Second World War, would fashion have given us a "New Look" a decade earlier than it did?

On to the designers—and we have some familiar names at this point.

Summer fashion plans have turned topsey-turvey. Instead of a plain suit with a figured blouse it is the other way about, and a gaily flowered tailor-made is the order of the going.  Jean Patou makes this delectable suit of brown and white figured crêpe with a white crêpe blouse, and the blue flowered ensemble of glazed cotton with a white piqué waistcoat.  Never have pastel shades been so loved.  A dress and coat matching in a pastel coloured crêpe is as chic as anything can be—especially when trimmed with scalloping, as in this lovely pastel blue dress and coat by Patou.

Patou died in 1936, but the house he founded lived on.  I have no information on who actually designed these dresses. 

"Modèle de Jean Patou" (Modes & Travaux, Avril 1932)

 From mass produced fashion to haute couture... Up to the mid-1950s, Modes et Travaux always featured a model from one of the great Paris designers on its cover.  In April 1932 this was a dress and jacket ensemble by Jean Patou.  Unfortunately, Modes et Travaux didn't provide any information about the outfit, so I am unable to determine what it was made of and where and when it was supposed to be worn.

Vogue did give us some details about Patou's Spring 1932 collection, from which I summarise: high waists, a liberal use of blue and elaborate belts (all of which can be seen here).

Modes et Travaux did dedicate several pages to giving an overview of the Spring collections (though it didn't single out any particular designers).

"Paris Plays With The Eternal Feminine" (Woman's Journal, November 1938)

 Now for another look at high fashion in the final months leading up to World War II.

Creed

A year of browns, but all sorts of warm, alive browns, and a year of long coats, and all sorts of outlines in coats.  These three from that great tailor Creed show one fitted, and two straight and concealing.  There is a Magyar cut in the tweed coat on the left with a silk cord fastening twisted round the golden seal collar.  The centre model, in a brown that Paris calls brick, is one of those neat tailored sports coats of which no one tires.  The third model shows the new trim waist and the favourite seal fur on blue and beige tweed.

"Creed"was a French firm founded by an English tailor in the 19th century.  In 1938 most of the fashions produced by Creed were designed by the founder's son Henry and his grandson Charles.  Looking to the future, Charles Creed relocated to London after the fall of France, where he became the the first elected member of the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers.

"Couture" edited by Ruth Lyman; "Patou" by Meredith Etherington-Smith

Couture: an illustrated history of the great Paris designers and their creations was published 1972, which was ironically around the time that Paris haute couture stopped being the main source of fashion ideas.   This book by a number of well-known fashion writers traces the history of Paris fashion from Worth in the late 19th century to Saint Laurent in the 1970s.   It is somewhat of a patchwork, covering a number of designers from overlapping perspectives.  Perhaps my favourite essay in this book is "A Paris model: the world of the mannequins" by Penelope Portrait, which describes her life as a model in the 1950s.

Along with his rival, Chanel, Patou was one of the designers who created the "look" of the 1920s, and this book is a history of his career.  He specialised in jaunty modern "sports" clothes designed for the active postwar woman, was the first person to introduce the concept of monogrammed designer wear and created a house perfume, "Joy", which is still one of the most expensive and desirable in the world.  He also shocked the French fashion world by introducing a stable of American mannequins to model his clothes - his argument being that since American women bought his clothes they would want to see them modelled on leggy American figures.  His clients included sports, screen and stage stars such as Suzanne Lenglen, Louise Brooks, Constance Bennett and Josephine Baker. 

Though he was the first designer to introduce longer hemlines at the end of the 1920s he didn't manage to retain his popularity into the 1930s, gradually falling out of step with the spirit of the era.  By the time he died in 1936 he was close to bankruptcy, and it is probably this decline in his fortunes and his premature death which accounts for him being not very well known today.   Meredith Etherington-Smith's book is therefore a bit of a rarity, being one of the few books dedicated to this designer.

(Couture published Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1972.

Patou published New York : St Martin's / Marek, c1983. ISBN 0312598165)