THE FIRST FASHION BRAND

CHARLES FREDERICK WORTH

- Fashion originated in Paris at the end of the 19th Century. That was when the first designer label was created.
- Main market was France, Founder was English
- Charles Frederick Worth
- Usually women designed and illustrated what dresses they wanted to wear but Worth was the first to couturier to impose his own taste on women.
- Worth = born in Bourne, Lincolnshire on 13 October 1826.
- He branched out his own business with Otto Bobergh in 1858. Their business was called Worth & Bobergh and was established at 7 Rue de la Paix.
- His big break came when he designed a gown for Princess Metternich - wife of the Australian ambassador
- Slowly he did away with bonnets and crinolines and began cutting dresses closer to the body.
- Marketing genius.
- Designs would have been shown on wooden busts - Worth was the first to sit down his clients and give them a little show.
- Looked and acted like a proper fashion designer - dapper and moustached, dressed head to toe in velvet.
- Had a capricious temper.
- "Here, already, we have many of the ingredients for contemporary fashion marketing: runway shows, celebrity models, elitism and, of course, a charismatic brand spokesman. Dictatorial and flamboyant, this was a man who rose from obscurity to become deified by the fabulously rich - by the time he died, on 10 March 1885, Worth had established a pattern for all other designers to follow. Certainly, he established a high level of artistry, but of all the dressmakers of that period he was the first to wrap his own name in a fairy tale and resell it at a profit."