France Fashion History

Paris is the vanguard of fashion since the Romans got tunic making tips from the Gauls. Things really took off during the 17th century, the costumes of royals and aristocrats inspired the envy of both the wealthy and the lowly, eventually got so fed up the those 5ft. high powdered wigs and 10ft. wide bejeweled skirts that they started a Revolution. Post Revolutionary Empire style, perhaps aware the decadent fastidiousness of the previous century, all about simple Neoclassical ideal. Fashion we know it today came into being in the 1800 since, the first department stores built. The bourgeoisie became consummate consumers artists like Edouard Manet and writers like Charles Baudelaire began represent fashion harbinger of modernitya unique expression the moral and aesthetic feeling the era. Soon thereafter the couturier designer see Couture was born.

Fashion design is generally considered to started the 19th century Charles Frederick Worth the first designer label sewn into the garments that he created. Before the former draper set up maison couture fashion house in Paris, clothing design and creation handled by largely anonymous seamstresses and high fashion descended from that worn at royal courts. Worth success such that he also able dictate customers they should wear,instead of following their lead as earlier dressmakers done. The term couturier in fact first created in order to describe. While all articles of clothing from any time period are studied by academics costume design, only clothing created after 1858 could be considered as fashion design.

It was during this period that many design houses began to hire artists to sketch or paint designs for garments. The images shown to clients much cheaper than producing an actual sample garment in the workroom. If the client liked their design, they ordered it and the resulting garment made money the house.The tradition of designers sketching out garment designs instead of presenting completed garments on models to customers began an economy.