Welcome to brain Stuff from how stuff works. Hey, brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, it's hard for me to imagine myself or most of my friends and neighbors, let alone someone like Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, designing their own dresses. But that's what all women did. As recently as the nineteenth century, royalty and commoner alike, there had never been
such a job as fashion designer. Then Charles Frederick Worth arrived on the seed and created old coutour literally translated, it means high dressmaking, and the fashion design industry was born. Old coator refers to garments created for a specific client.
Fashion houses such as Chanelle and Christian Dre are official coatur establishments because they meet specific requirements, which include designing made to order clothes for private clients via more than one fitting, having a full time staff of at least fifteen, and presenting collections of at least fifty original designs to the public twice annually. Worth came up with the idea of fashion designers and fashion houses in the middle of
the nineteenth century. An Englishman born in eighteen five, Worth worked for textile merchants as a young adult, where he learned all about fabrics and dressmaking. He eventually relocated to Paris, where he secured a job with company that sold luxury textiles. Itching to design his own garments, Worth approached management with a novel idea, create a new department within the company dedicated to designing and producing dresses, and allow Worth to
be the designer. It doesn't sound shocking today, but management bulked. Dressmakers were not well regarded back then, and mail designers were virtually unheard of, but eventually, in eighteen fifty one, they agreed. Soon Worth was heralded as a talented tastemaker and clients sought his opinion on fashion. In eighteen fifty eight, Worth left the textile company and, together with Otto Baubat, opened his own company, the Parisian based House of Worth.
His designs typically featured lavish fabrics and trimmings. Not surprisingly, he also obsessed over proper fit. Soon Orth, who considered himself an artist, began insisting clients accept his vision and designs even if they disagreed. Although some deemed him a bit of a tyrant. Client's acquiesced, and the profession of fashion designer as we know it today was born. Worth dissolved his partnership with Boulbairt in eighteen seventy one, and
the House of Worth was solely his. By this time, he counted Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon the third, as one of his patrons. Her influence helped boost his career, and eventually he was dressing other prominent women of the day, including famed stage actor Sarah Bernhardt and opera star Nellie Melba. The Englishman's contributions to the field also include being one of the first fashion designers to sew his name into garments and to create maternity wear. Ohen Worth died in
eighteen ninety five. Sons Gauston, Lucien and Jean Philippe took over the operation. At first business was good, but the powerful House of Worth began losing its footing during the twentieth century. The House of Paklin acquired the business in nineteen fifty, and by nineteen fifty two the Worth family was formally out of the business when Worth's great grandson Jean Charles retired, but the House of Worth wasn't quite dead.
The business was bought and sold several more times over the years, resuming cotour operations in the late nineteen sixties
and again in the early twenty teens. Many of Worth's garments are still around today, and fashion buffs can see them at museums all around the world, including the Costume Institute, which is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as London's Vienna Museum and the Museum at f i T. Today's episode was written by Melanie red Zki McManus and produced by Tyler Clang in association with fashion historians April Callaghan and Cassidy Zachary of the podcast Dressed
to hear more about Worth and here from guest Highland Booker, lead designer for the Worth Fashion House in the late nineteen sixties. Tune into Dresss episode Founding Father of oaktre Charles is Frederick Worth. Available on Apple Podcasts or wherever you find your podcasts, and of course, for lots more on this and lots of other smart topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff Works dot com.