Abstract
This article investigates the change in relations between Parisian haute couture and the French textile industry in the 1950s and 1960s. This study is grounded in the multiple changes that occurred between the two decades with the end of a state-sponsored and textile-backed aid to couture plan in 1960, the dematerialization of fashion in the 1960s and the advent of brands and licenses, and the waning of couture’s influence throughout the period. It cross-references archives from multi-stakeholder meetings between the state, couture, and textile representatives with the couturiers’ trade association archives and diplomatic archives to show how the changing fashion landscape impacted their interactions. This study shows that while the couture and textile industries drifted apart, the government’s interest in couture grew. This reframes the narrative on couture’s alleged influence as the spearhead of the textile industry while illustrating its wider prestige influence and its relevance to the state.
Highlights
The transition from the 1950s to the 1960s marked a major turning point in Western fashion, representing the end of what Gilles Lipovetsky designated as the “hundred years’ fashion.”1 That is, for a century starting in the 1850s, a fashion system centered on the role of Parisian haute couture as a trendsetting business wherein high fashion influenced mass fashion through a “trickle-down movement,” defined by Georg Simmel.2 By the end of World War II, in the last decade of the hundred years’ fashion and following France’s Occupation, haute couture had experienced an intense revival, which historians have defined as a true “goldenAuthor’s note: Some elements of this article were informed by my published PhD dissertation, La mode française: Vecteur d’influence aux États-Unis (1946–1960) (Québec, 2020; Paris, 2021)
Couture’s prestige made investment in this sector more sustainable regarding the influence of its propagande compared with investment in the ready-to-wear industry.88. This marks another major difference between the French and Italian cases, because the postwar development of the Italian fashion industry was rooted from the start in ready-to-wear boutique fashions, whereas in France, it was the handmade creations of haute couture houses that were subsidized to support textile exports
In a letter to Jean Manusardi, the CSCP executive officer for propagande, Pettit explained that following the event aboard the France, all the French diplomatic representatives—who had earlier met in New York—had reaffirmed their interest in the continuation of couture propagande operations, because of their alleged benefit for the French textile industry and for the positive impact on France’s reputation
Summary
The transition from the 1950s to the 1960s marked a major turning point in Western fashion, representing the end of what Gilles Lipovetsky designated as the “hundred years’ fashion.” That is, for a century starting in the 1850s, a fashion system centered on the role of Parisian haute couture as a trendsetting business wherein high fashion influenced mass fashion through a “trickle-down movement,” defined by Georg Simmel. By the end of World War II, in the last decade of the hundred years’ fashion and following France’s Occupation, haute couture had experienced an intense revival, which historians have defined as a true “golden. The foundations of this new propagande mission of haute couture were established on October 24, 1960, when the government dedicated 500,000 new francs exclusively to promotion in foreign markets in addition to the final installment of the aid-to-couture plan.58 This Budget spécial (Special Budget), as it was called, illustrated the willingness of the French public authorities to act in accordance with the new fashion context that had dawned at the end of the 1950s, in which pictures or drawings of garments (images de mode) and brands were valued more than fabrics and dresses. To-wear, mass-produced clothes, ladies sewing at home, and everything in between.” By 1967, sales figures of even the most renowned houses had started their irreversible decline. the dematerialization of fashion constituted the stage on which the decoupling of couture and textiles took place at the turn of the 1960s
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