Babani, founded in Paris in 1894 [2] by Vitaldi Babani, was a fashion house based on the Boulevard Haussmann specialising in imported exotic goods, including artworks and handicrafts, and from the 1910s onwards, original garments inspired by their imported merchandise. [3] The business closed in 1940. [3]
Vitaldi Babani was born in the Middle East, the source of some of his [her? 1] wares. [3] In the beginning Babani's merchandise consisted of objets d'art in bronze and ivory, furniture, rugs, embroideries and silks imported from China, Japan, India, and Turkey, which were sold from the establishment at 98 Boulevard Haussmann and from an additional shop at no. 65, Rue d'Anjou, Paris. [2]
In the first decade of the 20th century, it became very fashionable for Western women to wear Japanese nagajubans (the robes worn underneath a traditional kimono) for a peignoir, and Babani, through a series of advertisements in Le Figaro-Madame , successfully established himself as the foremost retailer of such so-called robes japonaises. [6] In addition to these, Babani, along with Paul Poiret, had a license to retail textiles and garments by the Venice-based designer Fortuny, including his famous pleated silk Delphos gowns. [7] Babani also imported textiles from the London department store Liberty & Co. [3] From about 1919, when Vitaldi's fashion-designer son Maurice joined the business, the label began to focus more on clothing and produced garments which were heavily influenced by their imported merchandise. [1] Maurice Babani's designs tended to be explicitly based upon their sources, such as a dress reproducing a North African embroidered robe, but using silk velvet rather than the woollen textile of the original. [1] It is thought that Babani owned embroidery workshops in Constantinople and Kyoto, where some of the textiles in their garments would have been produced. [3]
Notable clients included the Spanish artist Joaquín Sorolla, who while in Paris in September 1913, ordered two kimonos from Babani. [2] The actress Eleonora Duse bought a number of Fortuny garments there, [7] and Katharine Hepburn wore a white crushed velvet Babani dress with antique gold embroidery for her 1928 wedding to Ludlow Ogden Smith. [8] [9]
In 1919, Maurice Babani was the second French couturier, after Poiret, to launch a perfume house, and the first to create exclusive marketing names for his perfumes. [10] [11] [12] His fragrances featured exotic names such as Afghani (1920), Abdulla (1926), Yashmak (1924), and Sousuki (1928) and came in distinctive black and gold packaging. [10]
In 1924, Elizabeth Arden tried exclusively marketing six Babani scents to American women as a "wardrobe of perfumes". [13] Despite Arden's publicity drive, Babani lacked sufficient recognition in the United States to make the venture succeed. [13]
The kimono is a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. The kimono is a wrapped-front garment with square sleeves and a rectangular body, and is worn left side wrapped over right, unless the wearer is deceased. The kimono is traditionally worn with a broad sash, called an obi, and is commonly worn with accessories such as zōri sandals and tabi socks.
Traditional Japanese fashion represents a long-standing history of traditional culture, encompassing colour palettes developed in the Heian period, silhouettes adopted from Tang dynasty clothing and cultural traditions, motifs taken from Japanese culture, nature and traditional literature, the use of types of silk for some clothing, and styles of wearing primarily fully-developed by the end of the Edo period. The most well-known form of traditional Japanese fashion is the kimono, with the term kimono translating literally as "something to wear" or "thing worn on the shoulders". Other types of traditional fashion include the clothing of the Ainu people and the clothes of the Ryukyuan people which is known most notably including the traditional fabrics of bingata and bashōfu produced on the Ryukyu Islands.
Paul Poiret was a French fashion designer, a master couturier during the first two decades of the 20th century. He was the founder of his namesake haute couture house.
Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo was a Spanish polymath, artist, inventor and fashion designer who opened his couture house in 1906 and continued until 1946. He was the son of the painter Mariano Fortuny y Marsal.
A kaftan or caftan is a variant of the robe or tunic. Originating in Asia, it has been worn by a number of cultures around the world for thousands of years. In Russian usage, kaftan instead refers to a style of men's long suit with tight sleeves.
A petticoat or underskirt is an article of clothing, a type of undergarment worn under a skirt or a dress. Its precise meaning varies over centuries and between countries.
The Delphos gown is a finely pleated silk dress first created in about 1907 by French designer Henriette Negrin and her husband, Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo (1871–1949). They produced the gowns until about 1950. It was inspired by, and named after, a classical Greek statue, the Charioteer of Delphi. Since the 1970s, these gowns have been desirable and collectable pieces of vintage clothing, with one selling for a world record price of $10,000 in December 2001.
Taffeta is a crisp, smooth, plain woven fabric made from silk, nylon, cuprammonium rayons, acetate, or polyester. The word came into Middle English via Old French and Old Italian, which borrowed the Persian word tāfta (تافته), which means "silk" or "linen cloth". As clothing, it is used in ball gowns, wedding dresses, and corsets, and in interior decoration for curtains or wallcovering. It tends to yield a stiff, starched-like cloth that holds its shape better than many other fabrics and does not sag or drape.
The study of the history of clothing and textiles traces the development, use, and availability of clothing and textiles over human history. Clothing and textiles reflect the materials and technologies available in different civilizations at different times. The variety and distribution of clothing and textiles within a society reveal social customs and culture.
Fashion from 1910 to 1919 in the Western world was characterized by a rich and exotic opulence in the first half of the decade in contrast with the somber practicality of garments worn during the Great War. Men's trousers were worn cuffed to ankle-length and creased. Skirts rose from floor length to well above the ankle, women began to bob their hair, and the stage was set for the radical new fashions associated with the Jazz Age of the 1920s.
Shot silk is a fabric which is made up of silk woven from warp and weft yarns of two or more colours producing an iridescent appearance. A "shot" is a single throw of the bobbin that carries the weft thread through the warp, and shot silk colours can be described as "[warp colour] shot with [weft colour]." The weaving technique can also be applied to other fibres such as cotton, linen, and synthetics.
Harem pants or harem trousers are baggy, long pants caught in at the ankle. Early on, the style was also called a harem skirt. The original so-called 'harem pants/skirts' were introduced to Western fashion by designers such as Paul Poiret around 1910, although they themselves were inspired by Middle East styles, and by şalvar. The term 'harem pants' subsequently became popular in the West as a generic term for baggy trousers caught in at the ankle that suggest the Turkish style, or similar styles such as bloomers, the South Asian shalwar and patiala salwar; the Bosnian dimije; sirwal ; and the Ukrainian sharovary.
Haute couture is the creation of exclusive custom-fitted high-end fashion design. The term haute couture is French, "haute" meaning "high" or "elegant," and "couture" translating to "sewing" or "dressmaking." The term haute couture generally refers to a specific type of upper garment common in Europe during the 16th to the 18th century, or to the upper portion of a modern dress to distinguish it from the skirt and sleeves. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Paris became the centre of a growing industry that focused on making outfits from high-quality, expensive, often unusual fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable of sewers—often using time-consuming, hand-executed techniques. Couture translates literally from French as "dressmaking", sewing, or needlework and is also used as a common abbreviation of haute couture and can often refer to the same thing in spirit.
The kosode was a type of short-sleeved Japanese garment, and the direct predecessor of the kimono. Though its component parts directly parallel those of the kimono, its proportions differed, typically having a wider body, a longer collar and narrower sleeves. The sleeves of the kosode were typically sewn to the body entirely, and often featured heavily rounded outer edges.
Warp printing is a fabric production method which combines textile printing and weaving to create a distinctively patterned fabric, usually in silk. The warp threads of the fabric are printed before weaving to create a softly blurred, vague pastel-coloured pattern. It was particularly fashionable in the eighteenth century for summer wear.
A casaquin is a short-length closely fitted coat worn by middle- and upper-class women during the 18th century. The garment was popular in both France and Italy. A casaquin was made from linen which was then covered by embroidery, silk and lace to decorate. The design was influenced by religious beliefs or events as well as reflecting on stylistic features of the time or of individual designers. Casaquins were worn by a range of females - from working-class women to upper-class ladies. The casaquin even influenced women from the Netherlands during the 18th century to introduce their own version of a casaquin called a "Kassekijntje".
Akiko Fukai is a Japanese curator of fashion and textile arts.
The Khalili Collection of Kimono is a private collection of more than 450 Japanese kimono assembled by the British-Iranian scholar, collector and philanthropist Nasser D. Khalili. It is one of eight collections assembled, published and exhibited by Khalili, each of which is considered to be among the most important collections within their respective fields.
Ucinaasugai, also known as Ryusou and referred as ushinchi in Okinawan, is the traditional dress of the Ryukyuan people. Ryusou is a form of formal attire; it is customary to wear it on occasions such as wedding ceremony and the coming-of-age ceremony. The ryusou became popular during the Ryukyu Kingdom period. It was originally worn by the members of the royal family and by the nobles of Ryukyu Kingdom. The Ryukyu Kingdom was originally an independent nation which established trade relationship with many countries in Southeast Asia and East Asia; they held their relationship with China as especially important. The development of the ryusou was influenced by both the hanfu and the kimono, demonstrating a combination of Chinese and Japanese influences along with local originality.
Chinoiserie in fashion refers to the any use of chinoiserie elements in fashion, especially in American and European fashion. Since the 17th century, Chinese arts and aesthetic were sources of inspiration to European artists, creators, and fashion designers when goods from oriental countries were widely seen for the first time in Western Europe. Western chinoiserie was also often mixed with other exotic elements which were not all indigenous to China.