Rugby-Pioneers: Haute Couture

28/01/2011

Haute Couture

Vivid colours.
Blue sky and blossoming trees
Pretty girl and handsome ruggers.
Spring 1914, the end of an era.

pre-WW1 documents are always sweet and sour... you can't detach them from the tragedy looming ahead...

This being said, this artwork is a great hand made "art deco" pochoir by artist Georges Barbier, published in April 1914 in "Gazette du Bon ton", a French classy and elistist fashion magazine. Quoting Wikipedia "The magazine [...] was available only to subscribers and was priced at a steep 100 francs per year, or $425.61 in today's money. [...] The magazine signed exclusive contracts with seven of Paris's top couture houses so that the designers' fashions were shown only in the pages of the Gazette.The magazine's title was derived from the French concept of bon ton, or timeless good taste and refinement"

Full caption reads "Rugby - Costume tailleur de Redfern".

My two cents of fashion of "couture" history (Google is my friend...) : John Redfern from London is credited to have created the "tailor-made" - a lady's suit composed of a tailored jacket and skirt - by the middle of the XIXth Century. Later on, Redfern's couture house established branches in Paris and in the US.

QED ! Only an Englishman could name his work after our favorite sport !

And to "close the loop" with my previous comment about WW1, you'll be happy to know that Redfern designed the first women's uniform for the Red Cross in 1916... maybe this one below ?

(a Belgian postcard by artist James Thiriar, in favour of "Asile des Soldats Invalides Belges")