Charles Frederick Worth

1825-1895

Charles left school at the age of 11 and became apprenticed to a local printer to earn his keep but disliked the work intensely and a year later, employment was arranged for him with a draper in London and so he was put on a stagecoach to begin a new life in the capital. His employers were the linen drapery firm of Swan and Edgar who had premises in Piccadilly and Regent Street until they closed in 1982. Charles worked for no pay and slept under a counter in the shop. His occupation at the outset was mainly book keeping but he began to show an interest in the sumptuous French fabrics his employers imported for sale. He became captivated by the exquisite cut and workmanship of the gowns made by the Parisian workshops and in 1845, he moved to the royal silk mercers Lewis and Allenby. 

 
Swan & Edgar, on the left of the Regent Street crescent in London, as it 
was during the 19th century.

But his stay there was not long and later that year, at the age of 20, he boarded the cross Channel ferry to France where he hoped to make his mark in the millinery trade. He made for Paris and took lodgings with a kindly housewife who taught him French while he earned a living doing a number of menial jobs and once he had mastered the language, he applied for and got a job as an assistant with the leading fashion fabric retailers of the day, Gagelin and Opigez. He worked there for twelve years and it was during that time that his skill as a fashion designer became apparent. In 1851, Charles married a colleague at the firm, Marie Augustine Vernet, an attractive sales girl. They were both 26. 

Marie had been with the company since she was 16 and also acted as in-house model for mantles and shawls, the only ready-made products in the shop. Charles then set about designing and making plain but perfectly fitting dresses for his wife in order that the mantles and shawls could be shown off to their best effect and so, by chance, he became a dressmaker. His creations were the very first that Parisian ladies of fashion had seen to fit so well and flatter their figures. Customers were impressed by the designs and soon began to ask for similar dresses but Gagelin specialised in selling silks and fabrics, not making dresses, and they resisted Worth's pleas to open a dress department until he shrewdly pointed out that such a venture would enhance their fabric sales. The dressmaking business was duly opened on their premises and Worth became the first man to participate in a trade that until then had been dominated by women. 

The years between 1852 and 1870 were times of extravagance and vulgarity in French fashion and Napoleon III and his beautiful Spanish wife Eugénie presided over a society awash with new wealth and much of this was spent on dress. The young Worth absorbed all he heard and saw about fabrics and fashion and soon he began to experiment and one of the highlights of his career during this period was his work on a lady's court train which went on display at the Paris Exhibition of 1855. His reputation spread and, thinking that Gagelin were not giving him the recognition he deserved, he formed a partnership with Otto Bobergh, a rich Swede, and went into business as a couturier lady's tailor and as a result, Maison Worth opened its doors on the Number 7, Rue de la Paix, in 1858 with a staff of twenty. His innovations are remembered today because he was the first designer to show his creations on live mannequins and to sign his work with a label, the forerunner of today's designer labels. He lit and decorated his salon in the conditions in which his gowns would actually be worn and his collections were made and shown off in advance of sale. 

The salon was soon attracting the most eminent customers and among them was Princess Metternich, wife of the Austrian Ambassador to Paris, who wore one of his gowns at a court ball in the Tuileries. The Empress Eugénie noticed the dress and became a customer and Worth's reputation was established. This royal patronage gave him his chance as the dictator of fashion and style and his establishment in the Rue de la Paix became the centre of haute couture. He sent samples of his work to Europe's leading families and by 1865 he was dressing the nobility and the royalty of Russia, Austria, Italy and Spain. The salon became an important call for wealthy American women doing the grand tour and even Queen Victoria is reputed to have bought one of his creations. The exotic ladies of the night also insisted on wearing underwear by Worth and one of his greatest advertisements was Cora Pearl. This lady was actually English and had started life as Emma Crouch and numerous photographs exist of her wearing the fullest, widest and most fussy of his crinolines imaginable. 

Supervising a fitting - from a Paris newspaper cartoon of 1880

When Otto Bobergh retired and returned to Sweden in 1870, Worth carried on the business with the help of his two sons, Gaston and Jean Philippe, and soon they were making a profit of £50,000 a year, a phenomenal amount in those days, while his salon was producing between 6,000 and 7,000 gowns and 4,000 outer garments annually. But he still had one classic innovation to launch on the world: the bustle which dominated ladies fashion into the next century and Maison Worth started to attract a rich clientele from America, ladies making the grand tour of Europe, and by 1871 he was employing 1,200 people and his gowns were exported throughout the world. 

Worth's personality became part of his success. For instance, he insisted that a letter of introduction was needed before he would see a client and he then exploited their vanity but women endured his arrogance gladly so long as they got to wear his unmistakable styles. In former ages, the fashion designer had been a comparatively humble person, visiting ladies in their homes. But within ten years, Worth had made himself a dictator of the mode in Paris, requiring ladies (with the exception of Eugénie and her court) to come to him. The French historian Hippolyte Taine has described the scene as ladies, anxious to be dressed by Worth, waited upon him in his salon:

This little dry, black, nervous creature sees them in a velvet coat, carelessly stretched out on a divan, a cigar between his lips. He says to them, "Walk! Turn! Good! Come back in a week and I will compose you a toilette which will suit you." It is not they who choose it, it is he. They are only too happy to let him do it and even for that need an introduction. Madame B, an important social personage and elegant to boot, went to him last month to order a dress. "Madame", he said, "by whom are you presented?" "I don't understand", she said to which Worth replied:. "I'm afraid you must be presented to be dressed by me." She went away, suffocated with rage. But others stayed, saying: "I don't care how rude he is so long as he dresses me." Worth soon had innumerable imitators but few or none equalled his panache or his success.

At the height of his fame, he was earning £40,000 a year and his personal fortune made him one of the richest men in France, almost equal to the emperor himself. He was a man of obvious enterprise but also of great energy and every day until the end of his life he went to his business from the magnificent house he had built for himself in the Rue de Berri or from his villa at Suresnes. But he also gained a reputation as a good employer, always benevolent to his large staff and liberal in his help for French charities and he also joined the French Reformed Church. He was awarded the Legion of Honour but despite his tremendous success in France, he maintained his links with Bourne through his friends and he also made occasional visits. The Bourne businessman Mr Robert Mason Mills visited him at Suresnes and Worth and his two sons came to Bourne as guests of Mr. Stephen Andrews, a solicitor who had bought Wake House. 

But it was in France that his life's work had been celebrated and it was there that he died from pneumonia on 10th March 1895 at the age of 69 when his funeral was an extraordinary testimonial to the reputation he had achieved and the affection in which he was held. The 2,000 mourners included not only the mayor and civic officials from Paris but also many deputies and senators from the French Assembly and the President of the Republic himself. Worth was buried at Suresnes and his wife was placed in the same grave three years later but his name remains as a byword in world fashion which he did so much to modernise and where his influence is still evident. 

There was much speculation when Worth died to see if this would also herald the end of Maison Worth but his son Jean-Philippe took over the creative reins while Gaston supervised the financial side and the phenomenal success of the fashion house continued until the First World War. Functional clothing began to replace the formality of dress of previous years and although Worth continued to make splendid gowns, the demand declined because of the diminishing number of state occasions and the dwindling European nobility. The dowager clientele that had been the mainstay of the business slowly disappeared and in 1956, the House of Worth closed its doors, two years short of a century of creating sumptuous and artistic gowns for the world's most renowned women. 

Charles Worth has left an elegant legacy to world fashion. His birthplace in Bourne is a very different tale. Wake House dates back to the early 19th century and was built on the site of the old Waggon and Horses public house which was pulled down to make way for it. But by 1840, William Worth had left Bourne and was living in London. He had become impoverished through his various financial speculations that had cost him the ownership of Wake House which he was forced to sell. The new owner was William Darwin of Elston Hall in Nottinghamshire but it was later acquired by G W Willders, a solicitor, who had taken over Worth's practice. In 1853, two years after Willders died, the property was bought by the solicitor Mr Stephen Andrews. William Worth came back to Lincolnshire and lived first at Horbling but by 1860 he was again resident in Bourne but there is no record of his subsequent death. 

In recent years, Wake House has been used as the local offices of South Kesteven District Council but stood empty from 1996 until 1999 when a voluntary organisation, the Bourne Arts and Community Trust, was granted a three-year lease of the premises and fund-raising began to turn it into an arts, crafts and community centre. The organisation has insisted on keeping the name Wake House although a more appropriate name and a fitting tribute to one of the town's most famous sons would be Charles Worth House. Seventy of Worth's creations survive but they are scattered around a dozen museums in America and Europe. One fine example can be seen at Deene Park near Corby in Northamptonshire, which is open to the public at various times throughout the year, although the biggest collection is in the United States.

Blue plaques are the responsibility of English Heritage to draw attention to buildings of interest because of their associations with famous people, provided they have been dead for at least 20 years and (1) are regarded as eminent in their profession, (2) have made some important contribution to human welfare or happiness, (3) had such an outstanding personality that the well-informed passer-by immediately recognises the name, or (4) simply that they deserve recognition. Charles Worth has been adjudged as falling into one or more of these categories and has been so honoured.

See also Creations by Worth     Worth lives again

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