Worth It

If L’Oréal gets all the credit for its famous 1973 hair color slogan, “Because I’m worth it,” Worth gets credit, starting in the 1880s, for adding a label to his creations that featured his signature, much the way a painter would sign a painting. That it was simply “Worth” versus his full name was deliberate, as he planned for his sons to carry on the business after his death.

More Is More

To look at Worth creations from the 1870s through 1900 is to notice tiny pleats of lace around the cuffs or décolleté, frothy bits of tulle encircling collars, dimensional fabric flowers, lashings of pearls and embroidered borders, and, in the case of ‘Byzantine,’ a thick ring of rabbit fur encircling a fully beaded gown that Countess Greffulhe wore to her daughter’s wedding. The Zenobia costume for the Duchess of Chatsworth attending the Devonshire Ball in 1897 is the kind of showstopper that would make Alessandro Michele swoon. One senses Worth delighted in the extravagance proposed to clients and savoir faire made possible by his petites mains (still a term used in haute couture). But let’s not forget, every trim added to what would have already been an exorbitant price.

Transatlantic Clients

While two all-important patrons, Princess Metternich and Empress Eugénie, attracted attention and contributed to his cachet, the provenance of dresses as donations to American and British institutions reveal how his clientele were often British and American, mainly from New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. The exhibition ends with projections of The Gilded Age series, in which the costumes took cues from Worth designs.

Presidential Tariffs

Long before Trump’s ever-changing tariff threats, President McKinley raised duties on imports in 1890, which drastically impacted the cost of fashion coming from Europe. Kisiel pointed to a part of the exhibition explaining how one of the consequences was that Worth dresses would be copied in America at a fraction of the cost, and that Worth’s sons came up with a solution to reduce the incidence by labeling dresses with their season—an antecedent to the industry’s seasonal collections today.

Rue de la Paix

Today, we walk down shopping streets with all the familiar brand names, not pausing to consider when and how they came into being. From the start, the Worth headquarters was located at 7 rue de la Paix, the street that leads off the upper part of Place Vendome. Black and white photos from 1927 delightfully capture the people and activities across its eight stories, from the salons to the ateliers to the refectory and staff kitchen—even a photo studio. The exhibition also points out how Louis Vuitton, with its trunkmaking shop just around the corner, became an important collaborator. Not only is there a trunk that was used to ship a dress to America in 1883, but there are even sales receipts between the two businesses. Cartier, opening up at no. 13 rue de la Paix, was an obvious partner. A 1930 portrait of Andrée Joséphine Carron, the wife of Prince Mohamed Aga Khan III, shows her wearing a dress from Worth and jewels from Cartier. The Maison Paquin eventually moved into no. 3 and Jacques Doucet set up at no. 21 in 1908.