Main Bocher

Main Rousseau Bocher (born October 24, 1890 in Chicago , † December 27, 1976 in Munich ) was an American fashion designer . He was the first American designer to open a haute couture house in Paris and mainly produced evening wear under the Mainbocher label .

Life

Avenue George V 12, from 1929 to 1939 the seat of Mainbocher; since 1951 seat of the Crazy Horse

Bocher grew up as the son of wealthy parents in Chicago. From 1907 to 1914 he studied art in Chicago (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) and New York City (Art Student's League) and studied music and singing in Munich and Paris. He earned money while studying in Paris, among other things with fashion sketches. He returned to New York when the First World War broke out . From 1917 to 1918 he was stationed as a medic in Paris and stayed in Paris after the war.

In the fashion world, Bocher first worked as a fashion draftsman for the French Harper's Bazaar in Paris from 1917 and was active as a fashion editor from 1922 to 1929 and as editor-in-chief for French Vogue from 1927 . During this time he supported Elsa Schiaparelli's entry into the fashion world with drawings of her designs in Vogue .

In 1929, Bocher, who had never completed an apprenticeship as a tailor, founded his own fashion house Mainbocher on avenue George V 12 (today the venue of the Crazy Horse ). Bocher's customer base was predominantly upper-class women who lived in Paris, including Elsie de Wolfe and Diana Vreeland . Bocher achieved international fame in 1937 when the American Wallis Simpson had her wedding dress made by Mainbocher on the occasion of her marriage to Edward VIII .

At the beginning of World War II , Bocher moved from Paris to New York and opened his new studio on 57th Street. He held his first fashion show in the USA in the fall of 1940, which was a great success. From 1941 on, Bocher also created theatrical costumes. During World War II, he also designed uniforms for the Marine Women's Corps in 1942. Even after the war ended, Bocher's creations were in demand and sold for several thousand dollars. From 1960, Bocher's salon was located at 609 Fifth Avenue. Bocher never opened any branches, did not sell his clothes in luxury department stores and did not issue any licenses. His own perfume, White Garden , was only available in his salon.

In 1971 Bocher closed his salon and retired. He spent his twilight years in Paris and Munich, where he worked at the Kunstgewerbemuseum. He died in Munich in 1976. In 2012, the French entrepreneur Arnaud de Lummen acquired the trademark rights to Mainbocher with the aim of reviving the brand.

Fashion

In contrast to the style of the early 1930s, Bocher made evening dresses with “discreet, simple elegance”, whereby he mastered the oblique cut “to perfection”. Evening dresses were initially created in slim shapes, were made of the highest quality materials, including silk , cashmere , silk organza and chiffon , and were made by hand and exclusively to order. Occasionally the clothes were hand-painted. Bocher was at times considered the most expensive designer in the world; In the 1960s, he was America's most expensive designer, so six months of tuition and maintenance at Harvard University corresponded to the cost of a suit and blouse from the Mainbocher label.

In addition to exclusive fashion, designs in cotton, towel linen and clothing with a Vichy pattern were also created in the 1930s . Bocher showed the first strapless evening dress in 1934 and in 1939 provided the so-called "Mainbocher corset", which temporarily displaced Coco Chanel's casual fashion by forming a wasp waist and significantly influenced the fashion design language of the 1940s and anticipated Christian Dior's new look Furore. By Horst P. Horst an iconographic photo was taken from behind a woman with half open Mainbocher corset. It was part of the 2012 Selling Dreams: 100 Years of Fashion Photography exhibition at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter , which was dedicated to 100 years of fashion photography.

In the 1950s, Bocher turned to opulent evening gowns, which he made in velvet, silk, brocade fabric or damask . While costumes, skirts and jackets from the 1950s were rather playful, Bocher returned to his early years in the 1960s: designs for dresses and coats showed the classic sobriety of the 1930s. Characteristic of Bochers blazers and blouses Also present was the so-called Peter Pan collar .

Awards

In 2002, Bocher received a bronze plaque on the Fashion Walk of Fame in New York City.

literature

• Mainbocher . In: Caroline Rennolds Milbank: Couture. The glamor and history of the great fashion designers and their creations . Dumont, Cologne 1986, pp. 166-173.
• Mainbocher . In: Rudolf Kinzel: The fashion makers. The history of haute couture . 2nd Edition. Paul Zsolnay, Vienna and Darmstadt 1990, pp. 280–281.
• Main Bocher . In: Simone Werle: 50 fashion designers you should know . Prestel, Munich 2010, pp. 24-25.

Web links

• Detailed biography of Main Bocher at fashion-history.lovetoknow.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mainbocher . In: Rudolf Kinzel: The fashion makers. The history of haute couture . 2nd Edition. Paul Zsolnay, Vienna and Darmstadt 1990, p. 280.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Mainbocher . In: Caroline Rennolds Milbank: Couture. The glamor and history of the great fashion designers and their creations . Dumont, Cologne 1986, p. 166.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Mainbocher . In: Caroline Rennolds Milbank: Couture. The glamor and history of the great fashion designers and their creations . Dumont, Cologne 1986, p. 168.
4. ↑ Overview of Mainbocher's theater costumes in the IBDB
5. ↑ Ella Alexander: Couture Revival . vogue.co.uk, May 2, 2012.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Main Bocher . In: Simone Werle: 50 fashion designers you should know . Prestel, Munich 2010, p. 25.
7. ^ Marilyn Bender in The Beautiful People . Reproduced from Mainbocher . In: Caroline Rennolds Milbank: Couture. The glamor and history of the great fashion designers and their creations . Dumont, Cologne 1986, p. 173.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Mainbocher . In: Caroline Rennolds Milbank: Couture. The glamor and history of the great fashion designers and their creations . Dumont, Cologne 1986, p. 172.
9. ^ Sandra Friedrich: Haute Couture Label Mainbocher - Revival with Arnaud de Lummen . fashiontips.de
10. ↑ Illustration of the photo on horstphorst.com
11. ↑ 100 years of fashion photography ( Memento of the original from September 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on historyextra.com; Selling Dreams: 100 Years of Fashion Photography ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at rammuseum.org.uk.