Rose Bertin

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Rose Bertin around 1780, etching by Jean-François Janinet after a portrait by Louis-Roland Trinquesse

Marie-Jeanne Bertin , better known as Rose Bertin (* July 2, 1747 in Abbeville , Picardie , France , † September 22, 1813 in Épinay-sur-Seine ), is one of the few women of the 18th century from the large anonymous group of the dressmakers , hatmakers and milliner working in the field of fashion, who are known by name and who achieved great fame in their time.

Live and act

Rose Bertin - at that time still called Marie-Jeanne Bertin - was apprenticed to a milliner at a very early age, where she stood out for her great talent for this craft. At the age of 16 she went to Paris , where she continued studying in the fashion store "Trait Gallant".

Adolf Ulrik Wertmüller : Queen Marie-Antoinette with a hat from Madame Bertin (oil on canvas, 1788)

With her own shop on Rue Saint-Honoré , which she founded in 1770 and which she called "Au Grand Mogol" ( To the Great Mogul ) according to the fashion of the time , she quickly found customers among influential noble ladies. The Duchess of Chartres introduced them to Marie Antoinette , whose purveyor to the court she became in 1772.

Madame Bertin designed dresses and hats and had them made by her thirty workers in her shop. You could also buy finished things from her, such as bonnets, dressing gowns, bathing dresses, hair accessories, hats, capes, coats, collars, scarves, bows, wallets, handkerchiefs, shawls, muffs, fans, belts, gloves, shoes, slippers and all kinds of jewelry .

From 1774, after Marie Antoinette was crowned Queen of France, Rose Bertin presented her latest creations to the young queen twice a week, occasionally conferring for hours with her noble customer. In the same year, their "poufs" prevailed among the elegant women, spectacular structures on the hair with flowers, fruits, feathers, etc., which often represented a specific theme.

The confidential contact between the queen and the milliner from the lower classes was hostile, especially since Rose Bertin demanded high prices for her creations. Rose Bertin (who, as a milliner, did not tailor clothes, but designed the trim of clothes and hairstyle and thus created fashion trends) demanded and received 900 livres and more for a robe she decorated . Madame Du Barry paid between 25 and 120 livres for the hats she bought from Rose Bertin. The daily wage of a skilled worker was around 2.5 livres. Rose Bertin justified her high prices with her artistic standards. Bertin's visits to the Queen lasted until October 6, 1789.

During the French Revolution , many of her noble customers were either executed or emigrated abroad. Rose Bertin joined this emigration, as she was also endangered due to her close contacts with the aristocracy , and continued her work in England. With the help of her nephew, however, she managed to save her property during the revolutionary era. In 1795 she returned to France and also won Joséphine de Beauharnais as a customer. However, she was no longer able to build on the great success of her fashion house before the French Revolution, as fashion now dictated a simple, barely decorated style that left no room for the elaborate fashion decoration in the style of a Rose Bertin.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Rose Bertin transferred her business to her nephew. She died in her home in Épinay-sur-Seine in 1813 .

literature

  • Gertrud Lehnert: Women make fashion - famous fashion designers from Coco Chanel to Vivienne Westwood , Edition Ebersbach, Dortmund 1998, ISBN 3-931782-24-7 ; as paperback: Piper, Munich / Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-492-23024-5 .
  • Reclams Mode & Costume Lexicon , Reclam, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-15-010403-3 .
  • Andrew Tucker, Tamsin Kingswell; Mode , Prestel, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-7913-2428-4 .
  • Anna Dion: The clothes maker . Schneekluth, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-7951-1429-2 .
  • Evelyne Lever: Marie Antoinette. A biography . Weltbild, Augsburg 1995, ISBN 3-89350-948-8 .

Web links

Commons : Rose Bertin  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
personal data
SURNAME Bertin, rose
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bertin, Marie-Jeanne (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French seamstress and hat maker
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 1747
PLACE OF BIRTH Abbeville , Picardy
DATE OF DEATH September 22, 1813
Place of death Épinay-sur-Seine