A fashion merchant is a businessperson specialising in the production and the sale of fashion accessories, especially adornments for hairstyles and gowns. The profession emerged in the early eighteenth century and reached its height at the end of the 1700s. The women and occasional men who practised as fashion merchants played a central role in the diffusion of styles in this period.
![Marie-Jeanne [Rose] Bertin, 1747-1813, fashion merchant. Rose Bertin Trinquesse.png](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Rose_Bertin_Trinquesse.png/220px-Rose_Bertin_Trinquesse.png)
The profession of fashion merchant emerged from the guild of mercers around 1760–1765. At first, the role was described as a "talent" possessed by the wives of mercers. [1] In eighteenth-century France, the corporations of tailors and then seamstresses held a monopoly on the creation of a garment. Fashion merchants usually only worked on the ornamentation of clothing that had already been stitched together, although they could produce certain small items (such as belts, cravats, bows, shawls, capes, etc.). [1] In the course of their work, fashion merchants used a variety of materials including taffeta, gauze, feathers, ribbons, lace, artificial flowers, embroidery, passementerie, and furs – therefore working with a multitude of suppliers and artisans.
In August 1776, the reorganisation of guild structures saw the creation of a guild for the "fashion merchants, feather-dressers, and flower-makers of the city and the suburbs of Paris" with Marie-Jeanne [Rose] Bertin at its head. [2] This new guild formally established fashion merchants as independent from mercers. Technically, the guild of fashion merchants was exclusively female, although some men did also practise as fashion merchants since their wives belonged to the guild (such as Jean-Joseph Beaulard). From 1776 onwards, it was no longer necessary to be the wife of a mercer to work as a fashion merchant.
Fashion merchants were the subject of much discussion in contemporary texts, including Louis Sébastien Mercier's Tableau de Paris, and the encyclopaedias of Diderot and Panckoucke. They were regarded as an important figure of the age, as demonstrated by the variety of visual representations in the Galerie des modes et costumes français (a prominent fashion periodical), and in the paintings of François Boucher and Philibert-Louis Debucourt.
In the eighteenth century, the silhouette of fashionable dress changed relatively little. Novelty therefore came from the ornamentation of clothing, which changed rapidly according to fashion and helped to express personal and wider social identity. The task fell to fashion merchants to 'stitch and arrange daily the fashions that they and their customers dreamed up'. [1]
While the adornment of gowns and the arrangement of hairstyles constituted the core of fashion merchants' activities, fashion merchants also played a pivotal role in the diffusion of style. Their ideas therefore influenced many other professions such as tailors, seamstresses, and linen sellers.
The years 1770–1780 saw an acceleration of change in fashionable adornment, with hairstyles becoming emblematic of the constant drive for novelty. Thanks to fashion, hair became a site for the staging of identity and current affairs. The coiffure à la belle poule is a spectacular example of the relationship between news and fashion. The hairstyle integrated a model of a French frigate named La Belle Poule which became famous after winning a naval battle against the English in 1778. This period also saw numerous caricatures disseminated across Europe which made fun of the height of fashionable hairstyles. Although the work of fashion merchants was therefore not universally admired, it was universally discussed.
In the 1770s, there were only a handful of fashion merchants, but the profession expanded quickly in the 1780s in Paris and across France. Some of the main figures of the age included Marie-Jeanne [Rose] Bertin, Jean-Joseph Beaulard, and Mademoiselle Alexandre. Louis-Sébastien Mercier dedicated a chapter of his Tableau de Paris to fashion merchants, mentioning Beaulard and Alexandre by name, and claiming that 'the work of fashion is an art; a cherished art, triumphant, which in this century has received honours and distinctions'. [3]
Perhaps the most famous fashion merchant was Mlle Bertin, who enjoyed considerable notoriety during her career. Bertin was the foremost supplier of Marie-Antoinette's wardrobe, and developed a close relationship with the Queen, so much so that she became known as the 'Minister of Fashion'.[ citation needed ] Bertin's dramatic rise to fame from relatively humble origins in Picardy to the inner circle of the Queen alarmed members of the aristocracy, including Marie-Antoinette's lady-in-waiting Madame Campan. Campan believed that 'the mere admission of a milliner into the house of the Queen was followed by evil consequences to her Majesty' –namely, Marie-Antoinette's growing obsession with fashion. [4] Although Bertin had considerable success during the reign of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, her business suffered during the Revolution.
The considerable status of the fashion merchant, especially the female fashion merchant, began to decline in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, a handful of fashion merchants continued to supply the French royal court, including Louis Hippolyte Leroy and Marie-Françoise Corot. The influential role of fashion merchants in disseminating new trends paved the way for the great designers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as Charles Frederick Worth and Coco Chanel.
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Marie Antoinette was the last queen of France prior to the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child and youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I. She became dauphine of France in May 1770 at age 14 upon her marriage to Louis-Auguste, heir apparent to the French throne. On 10 May 1774, her husband ascended the throne as Louis XVI and she became queen.
Hat-making or millinery is the design, manufacture and sale of hats and other headwear. A person engaged in this trade is called a milliner or hatter.
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Louis-Sébastien Mercier was a French dramatist and writer, whose 1771 novel L'An 2440 is an example of proto-science fiction.
Marie-Jeanne [Rose] Bertin was a French fashion merchant. She was particularly noted for her work with Queen Marie Antoinette. Bertin was the first celebrated French fashion designer and is widely credited with having brought fashion and haute couture to the forefront of popular culture.
Jeanne Louise Henriette Campan was a French educator, writer and Lady's maid. In the service of Marie Antoinette before and during the French Revolution, she was afterwards headmistress of the first Maison d'éducation de la Légion d'honneur, appointed by Napoleon in 1807 to promote the education of girls.
The pouf or pouffe also "toque" is a hairstyle and a hairstyling support deriving from 18th-century France. It was made popular by the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette (1755–1793), when she wore it in June 1775 at the coronation of her husband Louis XVI, triggering a wave of French noblewomen to wear their hair in the same manner. The hairstyle would become popular across Europe in the 1770s.
A fashion plate is an illustration demonstrating the highlights of fashionable styles of clothing. Traditionally they are rendered through etching, line engraving, or lithograph and then colored by hand. To quote historian James Laver, the best of them tend to "reach a very high degree of aesthetic value."
Pierre Macret (1727–1806) was a well-known Parisian cabinetmaker (ébéniste). At the death of the widow of Jean-Pierre Latz in December 1756, he received Latz' court warrant as marchand-ébéniste privilégié du Roi suivant la Cour,, a brevet that exempted him from the stringent regulations of the Paris guild. In 1758 he was belatedly admitted maître-ébéniste by the guild, which henceforth required him to stamp his production. Numerous pieces bearing Macret's poinçon survive.
Léonard-Alexis Autié, also Autier, often referred to simply as Monsieur Léonard, was the favourite hairdresser of Queen Marie Antoinette and in 1788–1789 founded the Théâtre de Monsieur, "the first resident theatre in France to produce a year-round repertory of Italian opera."
Angélique-Marie Élisabeth Émilie de Matignon, née Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, married Countesse Goyon de Matignon and known in history as Madame de Matignon, was a prominent fashion figure during the French Ancien Régime, known for her extravagant hairdressing expenses.
Jules Gustave Flammermont was a French historian, largely known for his writings on history of the 18th century.
Galerie des Modes et Costumes Français is a series of fashion and costume plates that was distributed in Paris from 1778 to 1787, during the reign of King Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette. The first collected volume, which was produced in 1779, had a title page which bore an allegorical illustration as well as the full title of the collection: Gallerie des modes et des costumes français dessinés d'après nature, Gravés par le plus Célèbres Artistes en ce genre, et colorés avec le plus grand soin par Madame Le Beau. Ouvrage commence en l'année 1778. A Paris, chez le Srs Esnauts et Rapilly rue St. Jacques à la Ville de coutances. Avec priv. Du Roi. Importantly, this lengthier epithet indicates that the engravings of the Galerie were created "d'après nature," or "after nature," meaning that they were intended to represent what was actually worn in the streets of Paris during the latter part of the eighteenth century.
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The Communauté des maîtresses bouquetières et marchandes chapelières en fleurs was a French Guild organisation for female fresh flower sellers within the city of Paris, active from August 1677 until 1791.
Adélaïde Henriette Damoville was a French fashion merchant. She was a favorite milliner of Queen Marie Antoinette.
Mademoiselle Alexandre, was a French fashion merchant.
Jean Joseph Beaulard, known as Le Sieur Beaulard, was a French fashion merchant and fashion designer.
Marie Madeleine Duchapt, also known as only La Duchapt, was a celebrated French fashion merchant. Active from the 1730s to 1760s, she succeeded Françoise Leclerc as the leading marchande de modes in Paris. She has been referred to as the first famous fashion celebrity of the Parisian fashion business, and was a predecessor of Rose Bertin.
Mademoiselle Pagelle was a French fashion designer (Couturier) and fashion merchant.