Scentzilla!

Upon the occasion of the infamous Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog’s listing of the collected archives of Jacques Fath, I figured a brief choppy history of the man and his house might be in order. Of course, I am sure I could do a much better job of it if anyone would like to loan me a spare $3.5 million dollars… I swear I can totally pay you back!

Jacques Fath

(September 6, 1912 - November 13, 1954)

Jacques Fath began his fashion house in a small two-roomed salon on Rue de la Boetie, presenting his first collection in 1937. He later moved in 1940 to Rue Francois Premier¹, and then in 1944 settled into a studio at 39 Avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie.

Fath took a number of young designers under his wing, though perhaps the best known of the assistants he hired were Hubert de Givenchy, Guy Laroche, and Valentino². He also drew upon the talents of shoe designer Andre Perugia³.

The Paris studio Fath operated was fortunate to remain open during the entirety of Nazi occupation during WWII. His relative occupation-era success, viewed in certain quarters as a direct result of cooperating with the Germans and kowtowing to Vichy pressures, has only recently entered the discourse in the past decade. His association with various Nazi-Vichy sympathizers and a comparatively wealthy German clientele during those years certainly tarnished his status as a designer amongst some modern critics. Much of the credit for this discussion can apparently be attributed to Vallerie Guillaume’s 1993 book Jacques Fath, which looks into the house’s history. (I am hoping someday I will get my grubby little hands on Guillaume’s book. The book is neither easy nor cheap to find in the States, but I would love to read it.) However, it is also due to a slow but growing willingness to examine the survival strategies of ALL those famous French houses, not only Fath’s.

The period of French design during Nazi control is rarely discussed widely, but merits mentioning for historical context. Parisian designers like Maggy Rouff (who some of you perfume-nuts may know by association with Paul Poiret of Parfums Rosine, who sold designs to her), Marcel Rochas, Nina Ricci and others, also somehow kept afloat. They perisisted, despite their houses being practically decimated by the time Paris was free again. This was not due to the various designers’ artistic, or in some cases moral, inflexibility. Lucien Lelong, for instance, was also affected by the Mode Martiale of WWII; He was one of the more prominent designers to have talks directly with the German textile and fashion officials⁵ in his capacity as the design community’s nominated leader. Amongst other things, Lelong successfully dissuaded them from relocating the Parisians to establish Berlin and Vienna as the premier fashion capitals, diminishing France’s preeminence in the industry. The bureaucratic Nazis micromanaged every conceivable facet of life during their take-over, and the fashion industry was granted no exceptions. Author Valerie Steele notes⁴,

“…the Vichy regime adopted a fashion discourse similar to that in Facist Italy and Nazi Germany, stressing nationalism and conservative social values. Fashion designers were encouraged to draw inspiration from regional or ‘folk’ costumes; Jacques Fath, for example, designed dresses inspired by peasant costume. Fashion magazines were also encouraged to extol the traditional Frenchwoman, as opposed to the cosmopolitan Parisienne.”

A number of German-demanded regulations were bootstrapped onto all French designers, right down to which fabrics and the lengths of those fabrics that could be used. (Hence, the shorter hemline came into vogue.) Even the dates of release for the meager Paris collections were dictated by the German government.⁵

Lelong, of course, shook off the perception that he may have been a collaborator, later being granted status as a hero (Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor) due to his leadership in working for France’s intrests. Perhaps in contrast, we might glance over at Coco Chanel. The Nazi sympathies of Coco Chanel are widely known, due to her literal sleeping with the enemy. Yet Chanel is one of the most recogizable names in fashion. Ask the average person about Lelong, Fath, or other contemporaries, and you will only receive an empty-eyed “who?” in response. Exemplary behavior during that time clearly hasn’t been a necessary condition for achieving renown. Opening up the whole subject for further evaluation will hopefully occur even more over the years to come: This period for designers is historically interesting, and a story that may prove interesting to readers outside of costuming and fashion study.

At war’s end, the liberated French designers celebrated with profound creative renewal, most notably in the inspiring “New Look.” Christian Dior is regularly credited with the genesis of the “New Look,” yet it is not hard to see the premonitions and seeds of this movement in Fath’s earlier designs. In fact, there was even a bit of feud between Fath and Dior. Magazines devoted coverage to it, splashing headlines such as “Dior Contre Fath” (pictured) across their feature pages. What interesting things might have eventually evolved out of this rivalry we will never know, as Fath died at the young age of 42, while Dior went on to acheive even greater heights of popularity.

Fath’s eagerness to break into the American market and his ambitious pursuit of that goal, may have also been cause for scorn amongst his Parisian peers. In 1948, the New York-based clothier Joseph Halpert contracted with Fath to design special ready-to-wear collections for sales in the American market. (One such Halpert collection is Fath’s 1950 Puritan collection, whose theme rather funnily, to me, fetishizes the “American” aesthete.) Many of the cuts of his clothing from this time emphasize a fitted form, accentuating thin waists and using lines that minimally curve with the body.

Fath most famously sold his designs in the US at Neiman Marcus, some apparel bearing labels of both the famous store’s name and the designer’s. Neiman Marcus went so far as to bestow him with an “Award for Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion” in appreciation. Time magazine noted of the occasion⁶:

“Couturier Jacques Fath, in Dallas to accept a fashion prize from the Neiman-Marcus store, got all dressed up in native costume (Western-style plaid shirt by Jacques Fath, glass-studded white leather belt by Neiman-Marcus, blue denim britches by Sears, Roebuck). Concluding that the U.S. square dance is ‘wonderful, wonderful,’ he announced that Paris would hear of the sport just as soon as he got home.”

His work soon became especially popular with the American women, and celebrites including Jacqueline Kennedy, Josephine Baker, and Rita Hayworth all wore his designs. He even designed Rita Hayworth’s wedding dress for the occasion of her marriage to Aly Khan in 1949. Additionally, his costume design for the Hollywood film The Red Shoes is quite well known, though he did contribute to a few others. His dress patterns through Vogue’s sewing pattern company also sold rather well to average women who enjoyed his style but couldn’t afford anything from his lines.

In 1939 he married Genevieve Boucher de la Bruyere, a celebrated “mannequin” and former secretary to Coco Chanel. The couple had one child, Philippe, born in 1943⁷. (Phillipe in turn had two children⁸, however the rights to the name have long been sold off, and I don’t believe they have any involvement with their grandfather’s house.) After Jacques died, the house briefly carried on for a few years under Mme. Fath’s direction until 1957. A number of the designs released under Genevieve’s time are as appealing as those M. Fath himself put out. The photo book Stella, about a frequent Fath mannequin named Stella Maret, demonstrates a fantastic range of designs issued in the years following M. Fath’s death. Genevieve was instrumental not only in keeping the name alive, but also in terms of creative input to her husband during his lifetime. What I find most touching about Fath’s story is not his beautiful clothing, or even his perfumes… it is this lovely woman, who had smarts behind her beauty. It is her influence which shaped many of his collections and the photography showing off his designs. She was a remarkable source of inspiration, but sometimes remained hidden behind the title of “wife.”

Fath himself was less than generous towards the female gender as a whole. He had notably declared⁹, “Women are bad fashion designers. The only role a woman should have in fashion is wearing clothes,” and “Fashion is an art and men are the artists.”

Jacques Fath was a flawed, imperfect man, but one with impeccable taste and talent. If we go rooting around into his contemporaries’ lives, I feel we’d come to much the same conclusions about them. But to whitewash is to render a subject dimensionless, and Fath deserves more than a flat treatment. And better than my pitifully edited summary, too.

The following is a complete list of perfumes made under the Jacques Fath label, some with brief olfactory information.

Perfumes released by Fath during his lifetime:

1945: Chasuble, floral woody oriental
1946: Iris Gris, floral fruity woody: perfumer Vincent Roubert
1950: Canasta, fruity chypre: not sure, but has perfumer Vincent Roubert’s fingerprints all over it
1953: Fath de Fath, floral woody and musky oriental
1953: Green Water, green aromatic citrus woody (for men): perfumer Vincent Roubert

Perfumes released under the Fath name after it was licensed to L’oreal:

1968: Fath’s Love, sparkling tuberose floral
1972: Ellipse
1977: Expression, floriental chypre

Perfumes, released and/or reforumulated & re-released, as the house experienced a revival in the 90s include:

1994: Fath de Fath, remade as fruity floriental with strong vanillic emphasis by perfumers Haarmann and Reimer¹⁰
1996: Eau de Fath¹¹
1998: Pour L’Homme (sometimes called simply “Jacques Fath”), fresh floriental (for men)
1999: Yin, fresh floriental
1999: Yang, green woody oriental (for men)

1. Elements of Fashion and Style, p.115, by G.J. Sumathi
2. Time, Feb. 5, 2003, “Is There A Future In Fashion’s Past?”
3. http://www.historyofashion.com/historyofashion/shoeperugia.html
4. Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to Now, p.9, by Valerie Steele
5. Fashion Under the Occupation, various including appendix, by Miriam Kochan and Dominique Veillon
6. Time Magazine, 19 September, 1949, notes
7. Paris Match, 18 March, 1950
8. fashionfinds.com, site now defunct
9. Women Designers in the USA 1900 to 2000: Diversity and Difference, p. 194, by Pat Kirkham
10. New Perfume Handbook, p. 166, by Nigel Groom
11. Years of release for Eau de Fath through Yang via Basenotes.net.

UPDATE: There’s a great little short film showing off Fath clothing from 1956 on You Tube… just wonderful! For some reason I am having trouble embedding it today, so here’s a link to the You Tube page: Jacques Fath 1956

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 5th, 2006 at 10:01 am and is filed under Jacques Fath, Interviews and Essays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.