Lachasse was a British couture firm operating from 1928 until 2006, making it one of the longest surviving high fashion houses in London.
Part of the
Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers
The Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers (also known as IncSoc, Inc Soc and ISFLD) was a membership organisation founded in 1942 to promote the British fashion and textile industry and create luxury couture to sell abroad for the war ...
(IncSoc), it is notable for being a major training ground for British couturiers, numbering
Digby Morton
Henry Digby Morton (1906–1983) was an Irish fashion designer and among the leading names of British couture in the period from 1930-50. He was also among the pioneers of ready-to-wear fashions in the 1950s. Successful on both sides of the Atlan ...
,
Hardy Amies
Sir Edwin Hardy Amies Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, KCVO (17 July 1909 – 5 March 2003) was an English fashion designer, founder of the Hardy Amies (fashion house), Hardy Amies label and a Royal Warrant holder as designer to t ...
, and
Michael Donnellan among its chief designers.
Later it would train further designers, with names such as
Stephen Jones and
John Galliano
John Charles Galliano (born 28 November 1960) is a British fashion designer from Gibraltar. He was the creative director of his eponymous label John Galliano and French fashion houses Givenchy and Dior. Since 2014, Galliano has been the creat ...
passing through the couture house as trainees on their way to successful solo careers.
[Jones, Stephen, ''A Personal View'', for ]
During the heydey of couture, Lachasse's customers included
Princess Marina and
Countess Mountbatten
Patricia Edwina Victoria Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, Lady Brabourne, (née Mountbatten; 14 February 1924 – 13 June 2017) was a British peeress and a third cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. She was the elder daughter of Admiral ...
.
Early history of the brand
Founded in 1928, Lachasse focused on the 1920s trend for sportswear. Some sources say it was established by a Mrs Philips, however the more prominent name behind the brand was Fred Shingleton. It was an offshoot of the couture house of Gray, Paulette & Shingleton – Paulette was a fashion house that had been bought by Shingleton.
Writing in 1964, ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' fashion editor
Alison Adburgham said: "People often ask, why Lachasse – there is no individual of that name, nor has there ever been. Lachasse was an offshoot... of a famous dress house in Berkeley Square called Paulette".
Its original designer was Digby Morton, who is credited with coming up with the name because, as he later said, British women wouldn't buy high-end fashion designs unless they sounded French.
Morton's first women's collection for Lachasse introduced unusual colour combinations into
Donegal tweed
Donegal tweed is a woven tweed manufactured in County Donegal, Ireland. Originally all handwoven, it is now mostly machine woven and has been since the introduction of mechanised looms in the 1950s-1960s. Donegal has for centuries been producing ...
and reduced detailing so that the cut of the suit stood out. This transformed what had previously been considered staid country wear into something chic enough for town.
As Alison Adburgham noted in 1964, Morton: "made it fashionable to wear tweeds in London".
The elegantly cut daywear suit became one of the hallmarks of Lachasse and would be refined by later house designers.
Hardy Amies years
After five years, Morton set up his own label and he was succeeded at Lachasse by Hardy Amies, then a would-be designer and former
Avery weighing machine salesman who had got the job of managing the store simply because a letter he wrote describing a dress came to the attention of Shingleton.
Another telling of this story by
Colin McDowell
Colin Roxburgh McDowell (born 1936) is a British fashion writer, designer and curator. McDowell is best known for his stint as a highly opinionated Fashion Editor for ''The Sunday Times'', where he became a familiar sight in the front row of f ...
is that the letter Amies wrote was to his aunt – a ''vendeuse'' at a court dressmaker – and was describing the dress worn by Shingleton's wife at a dinner party Amies had attended.
Amies' early pieces showed his lack of experience; later he would describe some of them as hideous and extravagant.
In 1937, however, his tweed suit called 'Panic' scored a huge hit.
Cecil Beaton
Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, (14 January 1904 – 18 January 1980) was a British fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, and interior designer, as well as an Oscar–winning stage and costume designer for films and the theat ...
photographed the suit for ''
Vogue
Vogue may refer to:
Business
* ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine
** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine
** ''Vogue China'', ...
''; it had padded hips, a nipped in waist (Amies had introduced
corset
A corset is a support garment commonly worn to hold and train the torso into a desired shape, traditionally a smaller waist or larger bottom, for aesthetic or medical purposes (either for the duration of wearing it or with a more lasting effe ...
s to the collection) and was made in green Linton tweed with a cerise pink check.
By the time
war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
broke out, Amies was designing the whole Lachasse collection.
Post-war designs
In 1941, Michael Donnellan was named head of operations at Lachasse – while on wartime service – and became its chief designer after his return.
Donnellan – more usually known as Michael or Michael of Carlos place – was an established name and his designs for Lachasse bore the label 'Michael of Lachasse'. Later he would be described as the
Balenciaga
Balenciaga SA ( ) is a luxury fashion house founded in 1919 by the Spanish designer Cristóbal Balenciaga in San Sebastian, Spain. Balenciaga produces ready-to-wear, footwear, handbags, and accessories and licenses its name and branding to C ...
of London for his focus on simplicity of form and defined tailoring.
Such was his stature, and that of Lachasse during this era, that the house was included in a 1953 feature about London's "big 10" designers in a feature in ''
Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'' prior to the
coronation
A coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a coronation crown, crown upon a monarch's head. The term also generally refers not only to the physical crowning but to the whole ceremony wherein the act of crowning occurs, along with the ...
of
Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...
.
This would be one of his last assignments for Lachasse as in 1953 he set up on his own, taking over the couture house of
Peter Russell.
At Lachasse, the next head of design was Owen, who continued the tradition of fine tailoring that was a hallmark of the label, as seen in a red suit that now forms part of the
V&A archive.
Owen was described by ''The Guardian'' in 1964 as: "a titled Irishman who is sheltering under the pseudonym of Owen". Almost a decade earlier, ''The Times'' revealed that Owen was the "Marquess McSweney".
Also among the company's design team during this era was
Clive Evans – sometimes known simply as Clive – who would go on to become one of the hottest designers of the
Swinging London
The Swinging Sixties was a youth-driven cultural revolution that took place in the United Kingdom during the mid-to-late 1960s, emphasising modernity and fun-loving hedonism, with Swinging London as its centre. It saw a flourishing in art, mus ...
scene.
Export drives
In common with other London couturiers, Lachasse participated in a variety of export drives – especially for the American market.
Its tailored suits had some success internationally, especially after the
Wall Street Crash
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...
, when many American buyers looked to London rather than Paris for fashions because of its lower prices.
In 1936, ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' reported a small fashion show held in New York to mark the arrival of the ''
Queen Mary'', at which Lachasse showed Scottish tweeds. Its new blue and red tweed was described as one of the "novelties".
In 1951, ''The Guardian'' reporting from the IncSoc autumn shows said that Lachasse had been: "wildly, and rightly, complimented by the American buyers". That same season, its
chenille coat drew applause from the buyers at the Venice fashion show.
With increased international focus on London fashion during coronation year, ''The Times'' reported on Michael of Lachasse's new lines, describing his "masher" (cutaway) jacket and narrow skirt inspired by Edwardian fashions as the "ace of trumps". It added: "No designer has done more than he
ichael of Lachassesince the end of the war to show that London has not only impeccable tailoring to offer but also style, and new fabrics to be used in new ways".
That same year, Lachasse – along with IncSoc members and wholesale houses such as
Susan Small,
Aquascutum
Aquascutum was a British-based luxury clothing manufacturer and retailer. It is currently owned by Shandong Ruyi.
History
Aquascutum was established in 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, when tailor and entrepreneur John Emary opened a hig ...
and
Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, a ...
– showed its fashion at
St Moritz
St. Moritz (also german: Sankt Moritz, rm, , it, San Maurizio, french: Saint-Moritz) is a high Alpine resort town in the Engadine in Switzerland, at an elevation of about above sea level. It is Upper Engadine's major town and a municipality in ...
as part of an export drive organised by ''
The Ambassador'' magazine.
New ownership
In 1965, Peter Lewis-Crown, who had joined as an apprentice in 1948, became director of Lachasse. Subsequently, he took on ownership of the couture house and was also responsible for design.
While this was an era when most of the London couture houses were struggling – with the explosion of a new crop of London designers and the rise of ready-to-wear – Lachasse retained a loyal clientele. ''The Times'' said, in 1966: "Lachasse's clothes are entirely undatable, and in that must lie the secret of his success with an obviously older clientele. Skirts are generally straight, often with kick pleats and firmly cover the knee".
A critique of the London couture houses in 1967 – in which the author contrasted their work with that of designers such as
Mary Quant
Dame Barbara Mary Quant, Mrs Plunket Greene, (born 11 February 1930)The Mary Quant exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2019-20 stated her year of birth as 1930, and that she became a student at Goldsmiths College around 1950. is a ...
and
Jean Muir
Jean Elizabeth Muir ( ; 17 July 1928 – 28 May 1995) was a British fashion designer.
Early life and career
Jean Muir was born in London, the daughter of Cyril Muir, a draper's floor superintendent, and his wife, Phyllis Coy. Her father ...
– noted: "Lachasse's collection was so far removed from the current fashion idiom to seem almost a museum piece. His clothes, built to the standards of elegance, taste and fit of years gone by, are obviously designed for the older woman who remembers and loves straight cut skirts, low, square necklines, draped bodices, hip bows and cuffed, bracelet-length sleeves".
Lachasse continued to restrict itself to couture until 1981, when it opened a small boutique at its Thurloe Place,
Kensington
Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London.
The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...
premises selling ready-to-wear.
Couture, however, was still its main business and in 1990, Liz Smith writing in ''The Times'' described it as one of the go-to places in London for bespoke clothing: "Peter Lewis-Crown today continues the house tradition for natty tailoring (a suit costs around £1,000) that looks little changed from the days when Princess Marina and the late Countess Mountbatten were customers".
Later designers
Lachasse continued to provide a training ground for London's young designers. Both milliner Stephen Jones and future
Givenchy
Givenchy (, ) is a French luxury fashion and perfume house. It hosts the brand of haute couture and ready-to-wear clothing, accessories, perfumes and cosmetics of Parfums Givenchy. The house of Givenchy was founded in 1952 by designer Hubert de ...
and
Dior
Christian Dior SE (), commonly known as Dior (stylized DIOR), is a French Luxury goods, luxury fashion house controlled and chaired by French businessman Bernard Arnault, who also heads LVMH, the world's largest luxury group. Dior itself holds ...
head designer John Galliano spent time training there.
An article in ''Vogue'' by fashion journalist
Hamish Bowles
Hamish Bowles (born 23 July 1963) is an English fashion journalist and editor. He is ''Vogue'' magazine's global editor at large. On 17 September 2021, Hamish was also named the new editor in chief at ''The World of Interiors'', a Condé Nast ...
, who had himself served an internship at Lachasse in the 1980s, described fashion shows featuring cocktail dresses and
Derby
Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gai ...
day suits shown to a clientele comprising ladies in waiting to the Queen and "Mayfair matriarchs", adding: "It was quaint, it was heaven, it was an insight into a world that seemed long vanished even then".
Legacy
Lachasse clothing is held in the archives of the V&A and the
Fashion Museum, Bath
The Fashion Museum (known before 2007 as the Museum of Costume) is housed in the Assembly Rooms in Bath, Somerset, England.
The collection was started by Doris Langley Moore, who gave her collection of costumes to the city of Bath in 1963. The ...
.
Among the items at the Fashion Museum, Bath is the Virginia Lachasse doll, a miniature mannequin created in 1954 for a London exhibition and equipped with an entire couture wardrobe, from daywear to bags, nylons and cigarettes. The doll was among the centrepieces of a 2007/8 V&A touring exhibition ''The Golden Age of Couture''.
References
{{Reflist, 2
External links
Lachasse hat, 1940s, in Victoria and Albert Museum
1920s fashion
1930s fashion
1940s fashion
1950s fashion
1960s fashion
1970s fashion
1980s fashion
1990s fashion
2000s fashion
1928 establishments in England
High fashion brands
2006 disestablishments in England