Caricature of Jacques Doucet by Leonetto Cappiello, 1903

Jacques Doucet () (1853–1929) was a French fashion designer and art collector. He is known for his elegant dresses, made with flimsy translucent materials in superimposing pastel colors.

Life

Doucet was born in Paris in 1853 to a prosperous family whose lingerie and

linens Linens are fabric household goods intended for daily use, such as bedding, tablecloths, and towels. "Linens" may also refer to church linens, meaning the altar cloths used in church. History The earliest known household linens were made from ...

business, Doucet Lingerie, had flourished in the Rue de la Paix since 1816. In 1871, Doucet opened a salon selling ladies'

apparel Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel, and attire) are items worn on the body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of materials and natural ...

. An enthusiastic collector of eighteenth-century furniture,

objets d'art In art history, the French term Objet d’art describes an ornamental work of art, and the term Objets d’art describes a range of works of art, usually small and three-dimensional, made of high-quality materials, and a finely-rendered finish th ...

, paintings, and sculptures, many of his gowns were strongly influenced by this opulent era. Beginning in 1912, the fashions of Jacques Doucet were illustrated in the fashion magazine ''

La Gazette du Bon Ton The ''Gazette du Bon Ton'' was a small but influential fashion design, fashion magazine published in France from 1912 to 1925.Davis48 Founded by Lucien Vogel, the short-lived publication reflected the latest developments in fashion design, fashio ...

'' with six other leading Paris designers of the day –

Louise Chéruit Madame Louise Chéruit (1866-1955), born Louise Lemaire, often erroneously called Mme Madeleine Chéruit, was among the foremost couturiers of her generation, and one of the first women to control a major French fashion house. Her salon operated ...

Georges Doeuillet Georges Camille Doeuillet was born 16 July 1865 in Oise, Northern France.Ancestry.com. Paris & Vicinity, France Electoral Rolls, 1891 atabase on-line Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008. Original data: Archives électorales: Elect ...

Jeanne Paquin Jeanne Paquin () (1869–1936) was a leading French fashion designer, known for her resolutely modern and innovative designs. She was the first major female couturier and one of the pioneers of the modern fashion business. Early life Jeanne ...

, Paul Poiret, Redfern & Sons, and the House of

Charles Worth Charles Frederick Worth (13 October 1825 – 10 March 1895) was an English fashion designer who founded the House of Worth, one of the foremost fashion houses of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He is considered by many fashion historians to ...

. His most original designs were those he created for actresses of the time.

Cécile Sorel Céline Émilie Seurre (7 September 1873 in Paris – 3 September 1966 in Trouville-sur-Mer), known as Cécile Sorel or the Comtesse de Ségur by marriage, was a French comic actress. She enjoyed great popularity and was known for her extravagant ...

, Rejane and Sarah Bernhardt (for whom he designed her famous white costume in

L'Aiglon ''L'Aiglon'' is a play in six acts by Edmond Rostand based on the life of Napoleon II, who was the son of Emperor Napoleon I and his second wife, Empress Marie Louise. The title of the play comes from a nickname for Napoleon II, the French wo ...

) all often wore his outfits, both on and off the stage. For the aforementioned actresses he reserved a particular style, one which consisted of frills, sinuous curving lines and

lace Lace is a delicate fabric made of yarn or thread in an open weblike pattern, made by machine or by hand. Generally, lace is divided into two main categories, needlelace and bobbin lace, although there are other types of lace, such as knitted ...

ruffles the colors of faded flowers. Doucet was a designer of taste and discrimination who valued dignity and luxury above novelty and practicality, and gradually faded from popularity during the 1920s. Several years after World War I, in 1927, Cubists Joseph Csaky,

Jacques Lipchitz Jacques Lipchitz (26 May 1973) was a Cubist sculptor. Lipchitz retained highly figurative and legible components in his work leading up to 1915–16, after which naturalist and descriptive elements were muted, dominated by a synthetic style of C ...

Louis Marcoussis Louis Marcoussis, formerly Ludwik Kazimierz Wladyslaw Markus or Ludwig Casimir Ladislas Markus, (1878 or 1883, Łódź – October 22, 1941, Cusset) was a painter and engraver of Polish origin who lived in Paris for much of his life and became ...

Henri Laurens Henri Laurens (February 18, 1885 – May 5, 1954) was a French sculptor and illustrator. Early life and education Born in Paris, Henri Laurens worked as a stonemason before he became a sculptor. From 1899 to 1902, he attended drawing class ...

, the sculptor

Gustave Miklos Gustave Miklos, also written Gusztáv Miklós and Miklós Gusztáv (30 June 1888, in Budapest – 5 March 1967, in Oyonnax) was a sculptor, painter, illustrator and designer of Hungarian origin. An influential sculptor involved with Cubism and ea ...

, and others collaborated in the decoration of a Studio House, rue Saint-James, Neuilly-sur-Seine. The ''hôtel particulier'', owned by Doucet was designed by the architect Paul Ruaud. Laurens designed the fountain, Csaky designed Doucet's staircase, Lipchitz made the fireplace mantel and Marcoussis created a Cubist rug.

Legacy

A collector of art and literature throughout his life, by the time of his death he had a collection of

Post-Impressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction aga ...

and

Cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

paintings, including '' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon'', which he bought direct from Picasso's studio, as well as two major book collections which he donated to the French nation. Doucet's collection of art books and research, which he gave to the University of Paris in 1917, became the core of the university's Institut d'Art et d'Archéologie and was eventually transferred to the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art in 2003. At his death in 1929, his collection of manuscripts by contemporary writers for which the University created in his honour the Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques-Doucet. Francois Chapon wrote a book titled ''C'etait Jacques Doucet'' about the life and work of the fashion designer. File:Jacques Doucet's hôtel particulier, 33 rue Saint-James, Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1929 photograph Pierre Legrain.jpg, Jacques Doucet's hôtel particulier, 33 rue Saint-James, Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1929. Image:Jacques Doucet's hôtel particulier stairs, 33 rue Saint-James, Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1929 photograph by Pierre Legrain.jpg, Jacques Doucet's hôtel particulier, 33 rue Saint-James, Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1929.

References

External links

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Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet (in French)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Doucet, Jacques 1853 births 1929 deaths Fashion designers from Paris Collectors from Paris