Charles Frederick Worth
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Charles Frederick Worth (13 October 1825 – 10 March 1895) was an English
fashion design Fashion design is the Art (skill), art of applying design, aesthetics, clothing construction and natural beauty to clothing and its Fashion accessory, accessories. It is influenced by culture and different trends, and has varied over time and plac ...
er who founded the
House of Worth The House of Worth was a French fashion house that specialized in haute couture, ready-to-wear clothes, and perfumes. It was founded in 1858 by English designer Charles Frederick Worth. It continued to operate under his descendants until 1952 and c ...
, one of the foremost fashion houses of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He is considered by many fashion historians to be the father of
haute couture ''Haute couture'' (; ; French for 'high sewing', 'high dressmaking') is the creation of exclusive custom-fitted high-end fashion design that is constructed by hand from start-to-finish. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Paris became th ...
. Worth is also credited with revolutionising the business of fashion. Established in Paris in 1858, his fashion salon soon attracted European royalty, and where they led monied society followed. An innovative designer, he adapted 19th-century dress to make it more suited to everyday life, with some changes said to be at the request of his most prestigious client
Empress Eugénie An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother (empr ...
. He was the first to replace the
fashion doll Fashion dolls are dolls primarily designed to be dressed to reflect fashion trends. They are manufactured both as toys for children to play with and as collectibles for adults. The dolls are usually modeled after teen girls or adult women, thou ...
s with live models in order to promote his garments to clients, and to sew branded labels into his clothing; almost all clients visited his salon for a consultation and fitting – thereby turning the House of Worth into a society meeting point. By the end of his career, his fashion house employed 1,200 people and its impact on fashion taste was far-reaching. The
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
has said that his "aggressive self-promotion" earned him the title of the first couturier. Certainly, by 1870, his name was not just known in court circles, but appeared in women's magazines that were read by wide society. Worth raised the status of dressmaking so that the designer-maker also became arbiter of what women should be wearing. Writing on the history of fashion and, in particular, dandyism, in 2002,
George Walden George Gordon Harvey Walden (born 15 September 1939) is an English journalist, former diplomat and former politician for the Conservative Party, who served as MP for Buckingham from 1983 to 1997 and Minister for Higher Education under Margare ...
said: "Charles Frederick Worth dictated fashion in France a century and a half before Galliano".


Early life

Charles Frederick Worth was born on 13 October 1825 in the Lincolnshire market town of
Bourne Bourne may refer to: Places UK * Bourne, Lincolnshire, a town ** Bourne Abbey ** Bourne railway station * Bourne (electoral division), West Sussex * Bourne SSSI, Avon, a Site of Special Scientific Interest near Burrington, North Somerset * Bourne ...
Coleman, Elizabeth Ann. to William and Ann Worth. Some sources say he was their fifth and final child, and the only child other than his brother, William Worth III, to survive to maturity. Others say he was the family's third child. Charles' father was a solicitor – described as "dissolute" – and left his family in 1836 after ruining its finances, leaving his mother impoverished and without financial support. At the age of 11, Charles was sent to work in a printer's shop. After a year, he moved to London to become an apprentice at the department store of Swan & Edgar in
Piccadilly Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Court, ...
. Seven years later, Lewis & Allenby, another leading British textiles store, employed Worth.


Early career

In 1846, Charles Frederick Worth moved to Paris.de Marly, Diana He arrived there speaking no French and with £5 in his pocket. By the time his mother Ann Worth died in
Highgate Highgate ( ) is a suburban area of north London at the northeastern corner of Hampstead Heath, north-northwest of Charing Cross. Highgate is one of the most expensive London suburbs in which to live. It has two active conservation organisati ...
, London, in 1852, Worth was a sales assistant at Gagelin-Opigez & Cie, a prestigious Parisian firm that sold silk fabrics to the court dressmakers, also supplying cashmere shawls (then a ubiquitous accessory) and ready-made mantles. It was here that he met Marie Vernet, who became his wife in 1851. Worth began sewing dresses to complement the shawls at Gagelin. Initially, these were simple designs, but his expert tailoring caught the eye of the store's clients. Eventually, Gagelin granted Worth permission to open a dress department, his first official entrance into the dressmaking world. A 1958 article in ''The Times'' published shortly before a centenary exhibition in London to mark the opening of his Paris fashion house noted that the ambitious Englishman's ideas were almost too much for his employers: "The young Worth, full of ideas, was having such a success at Gagelin's that it was felt necessary to restrain his rashness". His obituary, written by a Paris correspondent for ''The Times'' explained this comment in somewhat more detail, saying that he was refused a share in the Gagelin business, even though he had extended its activities into making up, rather than just selling, garments. He had also helped build the company's international reputation by exhibiting prize-winning designs to both
The Great Exhibition The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition which took pl ...
of 1851 in London and the Exposition Universelle in Paris four years later. At the Paris exposition he had displayed a white silk court train embroidered in gold. With a wife and two sons, Gaston Lucien (1853) and Jean Philippe (1856), Worth was eager to establish himself. By this stage, he was a known name. He acquired a young Swedish business partner, Otto Gustaf Bobergh, and in 1858 the duo set up in business at 7
rue de la Paix The rue de la Paix (English: Peace Street) () is a fashionable shopping street in the center of Paris. Located in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris, running north from Place Vendôme and ending at the Opéra Garnier, it is best known for its jewe ...
, naming the establishment Worth and Bobergh. Marie Vernet Worth played a key role from the start, both in the selling of the clothes and in introducing many new customers.


House of Worth success

Success came fast from this point on; in 1860 a ball dress Worth designed for Princess de Metternich was admired by Empress Eugénie, who asked for the dressmaker's name and demanded to see him the next day. In her memoirs, de Metternich commented: "And so...Worth was made and I was lost, for from that moment there were no more dresses at 300 francs each". Worth promptly replaced
Madame Palmyre Madame Palmyre also called Mademoiselle Palmyre (19th century), was a French fashion designer ''couturier''. Madame Palmyre was an established fashion designer during the July Monarchy. She enjoyed a successful career, and came to have an influent ...
as the favorite designer and dressmaker of the Empress. Worth offered a new approach to the creation of couture dresses, offering a plethora of fabrics (some from his former employer Gagelin) and expertise in tailoring. Within a decade, his designs were recognized internationally and in high demand. By the 1870s, they were appearing in fashion magazines read by wider society. Indeed, the influence of his designs may have spread even earlier via the fashion columns following Empress Eugénie's fashion choices in influential titles such as US magazine ''
Godey's Lady's Book ''Godey's Lady's Book'', alternatively known as ''Godey's Magazine and Lady's Book'', was an American women's magazine that was published in Philadelphia from 1830 to 1878. It was the most widely circulated magazine in the period before the Civil ...
''. Worth also changed the dynamic of the relationship between customer and clothes maker. Where previously the dressmaker (invariably female) would visit the client's home for a one-to-one consultation, with the exception of Empress Eugénie clients generally attended Worth's salon in rue de la Paix for a consultation and it also became a social meeting point for society figures. His approach to marketing was also innovative – he was the first to use live
mannequins A mannequin (also called a dummy, lay figure, or dress form) is a doll, often articulated, used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, window dressers and others, especially to display or fit clothing and show off different fabrics and textiles. Pr ...
in order to promote his gowns to clients. His wife was his early model in the 1850s, leading Lucy Bannerman to describe Vernet as the world's first professional model. The fashion house had begun with 50 staff, but swelled over time to over 1,200 staff. This was work that required painstaking attention to detail, finesse and craftsmanship: a Worth bodice might have up to 17 pieces of material to ensure a good fit on its wearer. Seamstresses would be assigned to different workshops where they specialized in, for instance, making sleeves, stitching hems or skirt making. Most of the sewing of Worth garments was by hand, although the advent of the early
sewing machine A sewing machine is a machine used to sew fabric and materials together with thread. Sewing machines were invented during the first Industrial Revolution to decrease the amount of manual sewing work performed in clothing companies. Since the inv ...
meant some main seams could be stitched mechanically.


Clientele

Worth became Empress Eugénie's official dressmaker and ensured the majority of her orders for extravagant evening wear, court dresses, and masquerade costumes. She had him on call constantly to create dresses for events she attended. As an example of the scale of Worth's business with the Empress, for the opening of the
Suez Canal The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
in 1869, she had decided she needed 250 Worth dresses. Apart from Empress Eugénie, he had numerous other royal clients, including
Empress Elisabeth of Austria Duchess Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie in Bavaria (24 December 1837 – 10 September 1898) was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I on 24 April 1854 until her assassination in 1898. Elisabeth was ...
. Wealthy and socially ambitious women were drawn to Worth's showpiece creations. Over time this included American clients; Worth loved working with them because his French language skills never reached fluency and, as he put it, American women: "have faith, figures, and francs – faith to believe in me, figures that I can put into shape, francs to pay my bills". While some Americans bought Worth's gowns in New York at the shop of
Catherine Donovan Catherine Donovan (1826 – 16 April 1906), (also known as Mrs. C. Donovan or Mme Donovan) was an Irish-American dressmaker, best remembered for her dress shop/home on Madison Avenue in New York City in the early 20th century. Her designs have be ...
on
Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Stre ...
, many wealthy Americans travelled to Paris to have their entire wardrobe made by Worth – and that meant morning, afternoon and evening dresses as well as what were termed 'undress' items such as nightgowns and tea gowns. He would also design special occasion garments, such as wedding dresses. Alongside high society, the House of Worth also produced garments for popular stars such as
Sarah Bernhardt Sarah Bernhardt (; born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; 22 or 23 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including '' La Dame Aux Camel ...
,
Lillie Langtry Emilie Charlotte, Lady de Bathe (née Le Breton, formerly Langtry; 13 October 1853 – 12 February 1929), known as Lillie (or Lily) Langtry and nicknamed "The Jersey Lily", was a British socialite, stage actress and producer. Born on the isl ...
and Jenny Lind – who shopped there for both performance and private wear. Prices at Worth were dizzying for the time; the last bill it issued to Princess de Metternich – who had commented on the end of the 300 franc dress once Worth acquired royal patronage – was for the sum of 2,247 francs. Her purchase had been one lilac velvet dress.


Worth's appearance and manner

The most famous surviving portrait of Charles Frederick Worth shows him wearing a hat, fur-trimmed cape and cravat. It appears that he had adopted this distinctive dress from the 1870s. A contemporaneous account from a visitor to the home of "the Napoleon of costumiers" in 1874 described Worth's entrance to meet his party in: "a flowing grey robe that fell to his heels, lined with pale yellow, with a deep vest to match, and numerous other overlapping appliances that modified and gave elegance to a costume as unique as it was comfortable". The visitor, who described Worth as "not a bit 'Frenchy'", also noted that he was of medium height, strongly but not stoutly built with a dark moustache and had the appearance of a man who lived temperately. While the 1874 correspondent described Worth as "not a man to be afraid of if one has a liberal exchequer", it was implied that the couturier was not afraid to dictate to clients what they should wear: "Yet Mr Worth declares he has any amount of trouble with women – that they want to wear colours that don't become them and a superabundance of trimming that is far from good taste". It appears Worth had the charm or gravitas to overcome his clients' requests for the wrong colour or trimming. His son Jean Philippe later recalled: "His practised eye discerned the color and style of robe that would most completely enhance a woman's charm, and with complete serenity she might leave the matter to him and give her mind to the contemplation of home affairs, her children and philanthropies".


Fashion innovations

Charles Frederick Worth's dresses were known for their lavish fabrics and trimmings and for incorporating elements from period dress. He created unique pieces for his most important customers, but also prepared a variety of designs, showcased by live models, that could then be tailored to the client's requirements in his workshop. Among his key innovations in women's fashion were to the line of garments and their length.


Garment shape

At the height of his success, Worth reformed the highly popular trend, the
crinoline A crinoline is a stiff or structured petticoat designed to hold out a woman's skirt, popular at various times since the mid-19th century. Originally, crinoline described a stiff fabric made of horsehair ("crin") and cotton or linen which was ...
. It had grown increasingly large in size, making it difficult for women to manage even the most basic activities, such as walking through doors, sitting, caring for their children, or holding hands. Worth wanted to design a more practical silhouette for women, so he made the crinoline more narrow and gravitated the largest part to the back, freeing up a woman's front and sides. Worth's new crinoline was a major success.Saunders, Edith. Eventually, Worth abandoned the crinoline altogether, creating a straight gown shape without a defined waist that became known as the
princess line "Princess line" or "princess dress" describes a woman's fitted dress or other garment cut in long panels without a horizontal join or separation at the waist. Instead of relying on darts to shape the garment, the fit is achieved with long sea ...
.Saunders, Edith.


Shorter hemline

Worth created a shorter
hemline The hemline is the line formed by the lower Hem, edge of a clothing, garment, such as a skirt, dress or Coat (clothing), coat, measured from the floor. The hemline is perhaps the most variable style line in fashion, changing shape and ranging in ...
– a walking skirt – at the suggestion of Empress Eugénie, who enjoyed long walks but not long skirts. This was initially seen as too radical, even shocking, because it was at ankle length, but its practical benefits meant it was adopted over time. An 1885 example of the Worth 'walking dress' is held at the archives of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.


Franco-Prussian War

The
Second Empire Second Empire may refer to: * Second British Empire, used by some historians to describe the British Empire after 1783 * Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) * Second French Empire (1852–1870) ** Second Empire architecture, an architectural styl ...
boomed, alongside Worth's brand, until 1870, when the Prussians invaded France. Worth closed his business for a year; he was able to reopen a year later, but wartime meant he had difficulty finding clientele, staying in business with lines of new maternity, mourning, and sportswear. During the siege of Paris, he turned his salon into a military hospital. At this stage, the partnership with Bobergh was dissolved – with the Swede returning to his home country. In common with other fashion designers, the House of Worth was affected by the financial downturn of the 1880s. Charles Frederick Worth found alternative sources of revenue in British and American customers and also turned his attention to encouraging the struggling French silk industry.


Final years

By the late 1880s, Worth had established characteristics of a modern couture house – twice annual seasonal collections and brand extensions through the franchising of patterns and fashion plates. One of his biographers notes that he had also successfully fostered the myth of the "male 'style dictator'". Worth's sons Gaston and Jean, who had joined the business in 1874 to help with management, finance, and design, became increasingly active, leaving Worth free to take more time off in his later years; by this stage he had a variety of health problems, including
migraine Migraine (, ) is a common neurological disorder characterized by recurrent headaches. Typically, the associated headache affects one side of the head, is pulsating in nature, may be moderate to severe in intensity, and could last from a few hou ...
s. On 10 March 1895, Charles Frederick Worth died of
pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...
at the age of 69. He was celebrated enough to receive a variety of obituary notices. The notice in ''
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 ...
'' said: "It is not a little singular that Worth...should take the lead in what is supposed to be a peculiarly French art". ''
Le Temps ''Le Temps'' (literally "The Time") is a Swiss French-language daily newspaper published in Berliner format in Geneva by Le Temps SA. It is the sole nationwide French-language non-specialised daily newspaper of Switzerland. Since 2021, it has b ...
'', meanwhile, suggested that Worth was of so artistic a temperament that he found England unsuited to his temperament and taste, and so gravitated to Paris, the city of light and beauty, to make his name. This was a claim refuted in British society magazine ''
Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...
'', which put his rise to prosperity down to perseverance, intelligence and industry; this article was later reprinted in the ''
San Francisco Call ''The San Francisco Call'' was a newspaper that served San Francisco, California. Because of a succession of mergers with other newspapers, the paper variously came to be called ''The San Francisco Call & Post'', the ''San Francisco Call-Bulletin ...
''. Although he was not in day-to-day control of House of Worth, he remained an active presence; his obituary in ''The Times'' noted that he had turned over the business some years earlier but: "he was to the last a constant frequenter of the establishment". At the time of his death, he had both a house in the
Champs-Élysées The Avenue des Champs-Élysées (, ; ) is an avenue in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, long and wide, running between the Place de la Concorde in the east and the Place Charles de Gaulle in the west, where the Arc de Triomphe is lo ...
and a villa in
Suresnes Suresnes () is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, Île-de-France. Located in Hauts-de-Seine, from the centre of Paris, it had a population of 49,145 as of 2016. The nearest communes are Nanterre, Puteaux, Rueil-Malmaison, Saint-Cloud an ...
near the
Bois de Boulogne The Bois de Boulogne (, "Boulogne woodland") is a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. The land was ceded to the city of Paris by t ...
. He was described as a "liberal contributor" to French charities and a keen collector of "artistic treasures and curiosities". There seems little doubt that Worth had amassed a fortune; an 1874 visitor to this villa (who called it a château) described an abundance of
faience Faience or faïence (; ) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major ad ...
china; a conservatory full of exotic plants; a
winter garden A winter garden is a kind of garden maintained in wintertime. History The origin of the winter garden dates back to the 17th to 19th centuries where European nobility would construct large conservatories that would house tropical and subtro ...
and stables full of immaculately turned out horses. The gardens contained statuary and stones retrieved from
Tuileries Palace The Tuileries Palace (french: Palais des Tuileries, ) was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine, directly in front of the Louvre. It was the usual Parisian residence of most French monarchs, from ...
(former home of his foremost patron Empress Eugénie) that were about to be incorporated into a new hothouse. Charles Frederick Worth's funeral was held at the Protestant Church in the Avenue de la Grande Armée. He was buried in the grounds of his villa at Suresnes, according to the rites of the
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
. Marie Vernet Worth died three years later.


Legacy and achievements

Although its founder was gone, the House of Worth was now an established entity; its most successful years were those flanking 1900. During this span of time, women were ordering 20–30 gowns at a time. By 1897, clients could order a garment by phone, by mail, or by visiting one of Worth's branch stores in London,
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, or
Biarritz Biarritz ( , , , ; Basque also ; oc, Biàrritz ) is a city on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the French Basque Country in southwestern France. It is located from the border with Spain. ...
. Worth displayed garments at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, as it had at earlier great exhibitions. The company's annual turnover was placed at around five million francs at the turn of the century. While Worth's obituary in ''The Times'' described him as a "dressmaker", he developed a framework for making and marketing clothes that would shape the haute couture industry that followed. As a biography for
Museum of the City of New York A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these i ...
notes: "Before Worth, the idea of a dress being recognizably the work of its creator didn't exist". He regarded clothing as an art, and for the first time, designed clothing, not for a client's taste, but based on his impression of what women should wear. He presented finished model designs to clients and dress buyers in similar fashion to the modern-day haute couture designer, also using live models.Gilles Lipovetsky, ''The Empire of Fashion: Dressing Modern Democracy'', trans. Catherine Ponter (Princeton U.P., 1994) Worth was also the first designer to label his clothing, sewing his name into each garment he produced. This made him the first person to develop a distinct brand logo on clothing.


Archives and commemoration

The
Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
in London has an archive of Charles Worth designs, including both sketches and garments. In 1956, the House of Worth (by then amalgamated with the fashion house of Paquin) donated 23,000 drawings of dresses to the museum. Two years later, the V&A held a major retrospective to mark the centenary of the foundation of Charles Frederick Worth's business. The
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
also holds an archive of his work, including several evening gowns. A Charles Worth Gallery opened in his home town at Bourne, Lincolnshire, containing a display of documents, photographs and artefacts at the Heritage Centre run by the Bourne Civic Society.


Gallery

File:Ensemble MET 87.115 (2884).jpeg, Silk ensemble, 1862-1865 File:Winterhalter Elisabeth.jpg, 1865 pink
tulle Tulle (; ) is a commune in central France. It is the third-largest town in the former region of Limousin and is the capital of the department of Corrèze, in the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Tulle is also the episcopal see of the Roman Cat ...
ballgown created for
Empress Elisabeth of Austria Duchess Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie in Bavaria (24 December 1837 – 10 September 1898) was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I on 24 April 1854 until her assassination in 1898. Elisabeth was ...
, as painted by
Franz Xaver Winterhalter Franz Xaver Winterhalter (20 April 1805 – 8 July 1873) was a German painter and lithographer, known for his flattering portraits of royalty and upper-class society in the mid-19th century. His name has become associated with fashionable court ...
. File:Charles Frederick Worth, Clara Mathews.jpg, Wedding dress trimmed with artificial pearls for wealthy American Clara Mathews, 1880 File:Imperial Russian court dress by Charles Frederick Worth, Paris, about 1888 01.jpg, Court dress designed for the Imperial Russian Court, about 1888. Green velvet and silver moiré. File:Worth_Dress_view_2.jpg, Early 1900s court presentation dress from Moyse's Hall Museum – House of Worth was at the height of its success at the turn of the century.


Notes and references


Bibliography

* Krick, Jessa
"Charles Frederick Worth (1825–1895) and The House of Worth."
In ''Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History''. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (October 2004) * Worth, Gaston (1895). ''La Couture et la Confection des Vêtements de Femme.'' Paris, Imprimerie Chaix. * Worth Jean-Philippe (1928), ''A Century of Fashion.'' Boston, Little Brown and Cie. * * Brooklyn Museum (1962), ''The House of Worth.'' New York, The Brooklyn Museum. * Museum of the City of New York (1982), ''The House of Worth, the gilded age 1860–1918.'' New York, Museum of the City of New York. * * * de la Haye Amy, Mendes Valerie D. (2014), ''The House of Worth: Portrait of an Archive 1890-1914.'' Londres, Victoria & Albert Museum. * DePauw Karen M., Jenkins Jessica D., Krass Michael (2015), ''The House of Worth: Fashion Sketches, 1916-1918.'' Mineola, Dover Publications & Litchfield Historical Society.


Further sources


External links


Costumes designed by Charles Frédérick Worth at Chicago History Museum Digital Collections
*
Museum of the City of New York online exhibition of Worth couture garments
* – Mid-1920s advertising booklet promoting Worth's role in 19th and early 20th century fashion. {{DEFAULTSORT:Worth, Charles Frederick English fashion designers English emigrants to France Worth Charles Frederick 1825 births 1895 deaths 19th-century fashion 20th-century fashion 19th-century English businesspeople 19th-century French businesspeople Fashion designers from Paris