Jacques Doucet (1853–1929) was a French fashion designer and art collector. He was born in Paris in 1853 to a prosperous family whose lingerie and linens business, Doucet Lingerie, had flourished in the Rue de la Paix since 1816. His father’s was named Edouard Doucet. His grandfather and grandmother were bonnet seller’s & lace merchants at the beginning of the 19th century.
 |
| Jacques Doucet |
As early as 1815, his family had a stall on the streets selling their lace. Later they rented a shop at the address of 21 rue de la Paix 21 PARIS. This was in 1824. Their son, Edouard expanded the business into linens for gentlemen. His clients were grand noblemen and Parisian aristocrats, including Charles X, Louis, Philippe, and Napoleon III. Jacques, Edouard’s son, at an early age developed an interest in the refined elegance of women’s dresses. A new department was founded and entrusted to the young Jacques. not long after the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). Almost overnight he became a KING of the realm of Haute Couture.
In 1871, Doucet opened a salon selling ladies' apparel, including evening gowns, made of lace, silk ribbons, flowers, feathers, braid, beadwork and embroidery. He used rare gros point de Venise lace for entire dresses. His ensembles were as romantic and opulent as the ladies in the 18th century paintings. An interesting side note is that Paul Poiret worked for Doucet from 1897-1900. Poiret’s story later became legendary in the world of Fashion.
Ambitious and anxious to become a man of the world, he expanded the business into the more glamorous society of haute couture in the 1870s. That tactic succeeded, and soon actress Sarah Bernhardt and novelist Edith Wharton were wrapping themselves in his ensembles, all luxurious yet conventional. Many of his gowns were strongly influenced by this opulent era. For Doucet, dignity and luxury were more important than novelty. He fell in love with elegance and worked to achieve it in his couture designs, and in his private life. His clothes were of perfect taste and luxury.
 |
| 1901 – A studio background setting was used for this fashion photograph taken in black & white. This could have been a stage backdrop for a Theatre performance. The Photographer was Rutlinger. |
 |
| 1902 – The same background was used for this color photograph. Miss Suzanne Avril models the gown (she went to America and was in a Broadway Play in 1904 called Amoureuse. Also she was in a FILM in 1909 “Les File du Garde Chasse”.) |
1903 - A busy day in the life of Rejane is depicted in these rare photographs found giving a graphic catalogue of events when she went for a fitting with Doucet for her gown for a play and a shoulder cape for her day dress. The dress on the right was This dress was worn for the first act in a play.
This beautiful gown was designed by Jacques Doucet, printed on the front cover of La Mode Illustree – appearing in 1907. The model is ~ Portee par Mlle Clary, de la Comedie- Francaise ~ and she had Doucet’s gowns for the Theatre, causing a spectacular sensation on the PARIS Stage.
http://www.vintagefashionandart.com/1900s
http://www.vintagefashionandart.com/1900s
A rare photo of a fashion preview for his Client’s. Doucet is overseeing the proceedings in the background, no doubt keeping a watchful eye on who is going to buy!
Beginning in 1912, the fashions of Jacques Doucet were illustrated in the fashion magazine La Gazette du Bon Ton with six other leading Paris designers of the day – Louise Chéruit, Georges Doeuillet, Jeanne Paquin, Paul Poiret, Redfern & Sons, and the House of Charles Worth. His most original designs were those he created for actresses of the time. Cécile Sorel, Rejane and Sarah Bernhardt (for whom he designed her famous white costume in L'Aiglon) all often wore his outfits, both on and off the stage. For the aforementioned actresses, he reserved a particular style, one which consisted of frills, sinuous curving lines and lace ruffles the colors of faded flowers. Doucet was a designer of taste and discrimination who valued dignity and luxury above novelty and practicality, and gradually faded from popularity during the 1920s.
Left Photo: A day dress with bands of fringing typical for 1919, such a contrast from his earlier design opulence! Nonetheless, elegant in its lines. End Photo: This evening cape was very bold having bands of pearls and jet beads, narrowing to a band across the bottom.
This was printed in a copy of L’Illustration. The descriptions of the gowns (left) Robe textile Liberty pale blue The tunic is embroidery with pearls, and turquoise & crystals or arjgent et azur/Silver/gold.. (right) Textile of mousseline transparent almond green & orange overlaid. Embroidered paillettes et cristaux or azure arjent et noir.
LITERATURE
Jacques Doucet was an active participant in the world of literature and the arts between 1880 and his death. He had assembled a first-class collection of manuscripts and rare editions by mostly contemporary French writers. He sought special bindings for these precious works and in 1916 he gave several commissions to a Designer named Pierre Legrain. Also he promoted Rose Adler, who specialized in the application of gilt tooling, designing clothing, furniture and jewelry. He commissioned her to prepare book bindings, and she produced 145 for him.
The Bibliotheque Litteraire, Jacques Doucet, is a principal institution for the study of French Arts and letters, and collects French literature from Baudelaire to contemporary writers. Its holdings include more than 120,000 manuscripts and more than 35,000 rare books, as well as newspaper archives, photographs and works of art. The collections contain the archives of many important writers. As an essential research centre, the Library is a distinguished repository of France’s literary heritage. as well as two libraries' both of which he left to the French nation. Doucet donated his collection of art books and research to the University of Paris in 1917, transferred to the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art in 2003. At his death in 1929, his collection of manuscripts by contemporary writers for which the University created in his honour, the Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques-Doucet. Francois Chapon wrote a book titled C'etait Jacques Doucet about the life and work of the fashion designer.
FINE ART AND CUSTOM FURNISHINGS
Doucet also built his reputation as a connoisseur by his superb collection of 18th century works of art and paintings. He became a patron of the Impressionists and African sculpture. In 1909, he purchased Picasso’s first cubism painting Demoiselles d’Avignon and put it in a special wing at the head of a crystal staircase. His other passions were pictures and drawings of Watteau and Fragonard, pastels by Fantin-Latour, landscapes by Guardi, genre pictures and still lifes by Chardin. His drawing room furniture had been made by the best cabinet makers of the eighteenth century Riener, Leleu and Charlin.
Eighteenth-century French antiques defined the taste of the Belle Epoque, and Doucet joined the throng. He commissioned society architect, Louis Parent, to build an 18th-century-style mansion, completed in 1907, on rue Spontini in the 16th arrondissement. With the aid of Georges Hoentschel, the influential decorator-dealer, Doucet then designed interiors complete with exquisite treasures. Among the trophies was a highly unusual rococo armchair carved to resemble blooming branches, a piece later acquired by philanthropist couple Jayne and Charles Wrightsman, who gave it to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Outstanding, too, was a pair of ravishing plaster sculptures by Clodion, life-size depictions of nymphs bearing platters of fruit, both now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
But only five years after Doucet moved into that palace of nostalgia, connoisseurs on both sides of the Atlantic were shocked to learn he was selling it all. Given the superlative quality of what he had amassed, few observers were surprised when the four-day sale broke records. The final tally was just under $3.1 million—the equivalent of $75 million today. Many bidders went home empty-handed, including the American painter Walter Gay, whose wife, Matilda, scribbled in her diary that Doucet auctioned everything because the woman he loved had died before they could marry. Smarting from defeat, she called the sale "the act of a spoiled child who, having been deprived of his favorite toy, breaks all the others."
Mourning did not alter Doucet’s nature to collect the finer things in life. In no time, he moved to an apartment on the exclusive avenue du Bois de Boulogne (the present-day avenue Foch) and tapped the era’s trendiest designers to create its furnishings. Ironically, many of the pieces he ordered drew inspiration from the 18th-century styles he had forsaken.
Doucet’s flirtation with the stylish grew into an obsession—perhaps fueled by his 1919 marriage to a much younger woman. He was was encouraged by modernist writer, André Breton, whom Doucet hired in 1921 to be his librarian. The future spokesman of the Surrealist movement pushed the formal, fussy designer right to the cutting edge, cajoling him to acquire what came to be seen as masterpieces of 20th-century art, the greatest being Picasso’s 1907 Cubist canvas of preening prostitutes, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, exhibiting today in Manhattan’s Museum of Modern Art. He bought the painting direct from Picasso's studio. Doucet initially rejected paintings by the up-and-coming Joan Miró, calling the Catalan artist "mad, stark mad." But weeks later he hung two Mirós in his bedroom, saying, "When I wake up in the morning, I see them, and I am happy for the rest of the day."
Jacques Doucet's hôtel particulier, 33 rue Saint-James, Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1929. Henri Laurens designed the fountain, Joseph Csaky designed Doucet's staircase, Jacques Lipchitz made the fireplace mantel, Louis Marcoussis made a Cubist rug. The sculptor Gustave Miklos and others collaborated in the decoration of the studio
Shortly before the Great Depression, when Jacques Doucet was in his 70s, the distinguished Paris couturier paused to reflect on the extraordinary art and furniture he had assembled over the course of five decades. The collections ranged from 18th-century douceur de vivre (sweetness of life) to 20th-century avant-garde. Not only did he collect wisely and well, but more significantly, he was the first fashion designer to graft his lifestyle onto his professional persona, paving the way for modern tastemakers such as Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld.
In 1928, Doucet shifted his focus to 33 rue Saint-James, his wife’s house in the suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. Its studio would be the most spectacular of his spaces, furnished with all manner of high-quality gems. A silvered-iron staircase by sculptor Joseph Csaky ascended to three rooms so packed with modern art, African masks, and Orientalia that they had a Victorian aura, recalling the rich decor at rue Spontini. Works by Picasso and Max Ernst joined made-to-order furniture such as Marcel Coard’s boat like sofa, which ended up in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The effect—costly, daring, dazzingly layered—was the antithesis of the modernist dictum "Less is more." Within months of the studio’s completion in 1929, Doucet died, and the demise of his fashion house followed a few years later.
Of course, today Doucet is revered by connoisseurs and art historians, not for his clothing designs, but for what he owned and why. After Jacques Doucet’s reign ended in 1929, his Fashion House was merged with Georges Doeuillet, but the merger was not successful and it closed in 1932.
The fashion designer’s heirs auctioned his collections at Hôtel Drouot—another record-breaking Doucet dispersal. Successful bidders included Yves Saint Laurent and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Click below to see a slideshow of Jacques Doucet's beautiful art and custom designed furnishings at Architectural Digest.
Thanks to Architectural Digest and Head to Toe Fashion Art
Thanks to Architectural Digest and Head to Toe Fashion Art
 |
| Details |
 |
| Details |
See all archived news from Vintage Fashion and Art at:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Only make comments that have to do with Vintage Fashion or Vintage Fashion Art. Questions about designers, pricing, determining the age of a garment are welcome, but no SEO requests or website creation or improving or any other spam.