dating help on worth label?

Hattysattic

Hattysattic

VFG Secretary


is confusing me because of the 'boutique' business. i am assuming the dress to be late forties or early fifties, back metal zipper and strapless with quite a bit of nice detail to the bust:



i need to retake the full shots as they came out v. badly - have been a bit off colour and couldn't stand being in my stuffy attic for too long! but it's floor length with a fairly sweeping skirt. have reached a complete blank looking for lexamples of later worth labels - the font colour etc. on this is identical to their advert in a french magazine, dated dec 1946:



so any help/advice most welcome. assuming if it was the later london branch it would say london, not paris? i wondered if it was a licensed product a la schiaparelli but can't find any such line mentioned anywhere else.

only thing i did find out that i didn't already pretty much know was that (according to an article from 1932) jean charles worth 'has been rated as one of the best amateur tennis players in france'. :roll:
 
well, haven't actually measured yet but it fits on the mannequin. i'm guessing 34 or 36/26/free. which is a real pig as after a week of lost appetite so am i..but i've not allowed myself to try it!
 
You know, some of the phraseology of this makes me think the anonymous author is Elizabeth Hawes. She was often not identified as the author of her Paris despatches in the New Yorker, and this article could have been bought by Time. It's about the right time for her to be still writing from Paris too.

There appear to me to be a lot of echoes of the tone of 'Fashion is Spinach' but on the other hand, potentially, it was part of the fashion journalism of the time. It has the right edge to be her, though.

ps. <i>34 or 36/26/free. which is a real pig as after a week of lost appetite so am i.</i> Gah! Me too!! Better not tell me your address, I'd send a burglar. I maintain you should keep this and have a cruise when you're 60...
 
If my memory serves me, there is "Worth" and then "House of Worth"? Which were two different things. I will have to go fish around and see if I am correct or crazy. Probably crazy. Maybe someone who really knows will pop in. I certainly am not an expert.

That's lovely, Harriet. the ad is visually stunning as well.
 
There were at least three branches of Worth. Ol' Charles started off in England, and moved to France mid-19th century. By the early 20th century he was successful enough to support full spin-off businesses in London and New York.

These businesses (after his death?) were sold off at different stages. If I remember correctly, London Worth did go to a member of the family, and remained a very good label into the 60s. I don't know about New York Worth - I think the name got sold on until it was way-removed from couture origins (same thing happened to Redfern, under similar circumstances).

So they all originated in the old 'House' I think, but became different things. Unfortunately, as Harriet has found, because of the dominance of the legend of Charles Fred, nobody much bothers with what happened to the name/company after the 'golden age'.

According to one online info, French Worth was bought by Paquin c.1952 (or was it 54?), so that's one marker to keep in mind. This still appears to be related to the French branch. That's where my ill-informed wild-suppositions run out...
 
yes, i'm having a bit of bother finding out about the tail end of the house's history.

the only later dresses i can find examples of are in the manchester costume galleries (although unfortunately no reference to the tes=xt on the label), and one in another museum collection which is allegedly c.1950-55, and the dress is labelled "Worth. 50 Grosvenor Street, London".
(pic here: http://museums.leics.gov.uk/collections-on-line/GetObjectAction.do?objectKey=269492 )

hence me assuming this was not from the london grosvenor st. branch, or at least was pre - paquin takeover?

anyway keep getting distracted from friday night research by little quizzes like this:

http://www.museumofcostume.co.uk/htmlContent/costumemuseum.html

so thats as far as i've got so far!
 
Here is the Worth label I had from an English Worth dress of the late 1940s. Maurice Worth (who was a grand nephew of Charles, I think) took the helm of Worth in 1952 but accepted a take-over bid by Paquin in 1954 for the French interests in the company. The English branch of Worth continued under Elspeth Champcommunal until it closed in the early 1970s. So your dress would have to be from before 1954 as its the French label but its boutique, which is essentially ready to wear.
<img src=http://home.cogeco.ca/~fitsaboy/Worth.jpg>
 
Great info on this thread. I've always been confused by what seems like the many levels or branches of the Worth label.

Harriet that dress (even with the dark pic) looks incredible!

Sue
 
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