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Boué Soeurs: French Fashion in New York
Born in the South of France and educated in Paris, the sisters Sylvie and Jeanne Boué founded the first French haute couture house in New York on 13 West 56th Street. The house of Boué Soeurs, established by the sisters in 1899, was originally based in Paris at 9 rue de la Paix but when World War I intensified the sisters decided to move their business to more peaceful shores. They had their heyday in the 1920s, when their styles were widely popularized in trade and fashion magazines. The firm was most known for creating dresses for court occasions, balls and other formal events. Many of these dresses were decorated with their renowned ribbon work. At one point in their highly successful career, Boué Soeurs also had salons in London and Bucharest with collections that were presented at the Czar’s court of St. Petersburg and the Palace of the Khediva in Cairo. Their clientele included highly select French nobility, international Parisian society, and the leading actresses and courtesans of La Belle Époque. (1)

Born three and a half years apart, the Boué sisters were naturally close and remained so throughout their lives. Sylvie was the creative one, who traveled the world lecturing, giving fashion shows, and promoting their products and designs while Jeanne took care of home base, first in Paris then in New York overseeing the collections and clientele. Sylvie married the opera singer Philippe Montégut, who became their financial manager and “quietly and wisely, managed some difficult financial situations, trying to bridle down the sometimes extravagant whims of his daring wife.” (2) Sylvie had a son named Philippe, and Jeanne a daughter named Mounette who were raised like brother and sister.

Philippe Montégut writes that when his mother, Sylvie Boué, was a child she “vowed that she would make the most beautiful dresses in the world.” (3) Putting words into action when only in her teens, Sylvie entered into the service of a dressmaking house run by two elderly women on rue du Helder and Jeanne joined her soon after. After the two transformed the establishment for the better the owners decided to let them inherit it. Spurred on by the success of this first company they purchased a firm that was going out of business “debts and all” (4) and established themselves as neighbors and equals to Cartier and Worth for the next thirty years. By 1899 the Boué sisters went on to open a salon in Paris at 9 rue de la Paix in the second arrondissement, a very busy area of Paris, home to the Opéra Garnier and the Louvre. Contemporaries with whom they shared design characteristics, were Paul Poiret, Callot Soeurs, Mme Paquin, and Jeanne Lanvin, to name a few. In an interview, entitled “Une Audience Chez Mesdames Callot Soeurs” by Maurice de Waleffe, published in Les Modes N°198 in 1920, one of the Callot Sisters speaks about the state of the fashion industry and her firm’s latest collection:

-And now for the styles this winter, will the skirt remain short? -Yes definitely. It’s young. The long skirt was dirty and semi-long skirt disgraceful. -The back still low? -Yes. -Alas, nothing new? (As if the fact that no more or less skin has been revealed means that there are no innovations) (5)

While the press spread the word about the collection of the Callot Soeurs salon and others like them, foreign clients, actresses and society women helped launch collections as well as inspire them: "Foreigners, grand French dames and actresses are precious, indispensable for launching our styles, and also for inspiring them. For example, we create a dress while thinking of our clients whose silhouette catches our fancy... But if one day we work only for the French clientele, we will have to close the boutique. This is what the government pretends not to understand. During the war all of the big houses were at a loss at how to occupy their personnel. Fashion did not begin to become profitable again until one year ago, with exportation. But the minister of commerce refuses to give us the tax exemption that he gives to the jewelry industry. A rich American buys a ring for five thousand francs from a jeweler on the rue de la Paix. She is taxed five hundred francs but la douane reimburses her after she leaves France. Does she buy a robe for the same price? Not a chance!” (6)

As their clientele included both royalty and society women it follows that their salon would provide a suitably luxurious setting. Reminiscent of an eighteenth century French château, the Boue Soeurs salon was probably decorated with large paintings of oriental and pastoral scenes reminiscent of the French eighteenth-century masters, a crystal chandelier, flat marbleized columns and tasseled curtains.

Those who made the clothing – “Les Midinettes” – young women in their twenties and thirties, all must have had a certain stylish flair. Every woman would have worn her hair upswept as was the style - some in more elaborate hairdos than others. Cleanliness and neatness must have been de rigueur in an atelier where the materials were expensive and the stitching complicated and there was little room for mistakes. They sat at long rectangular tables made out of planks laid on top of gurneys. Each table covered in white paper attached delicately at either end. More than one woman may have worked on a single garment at the same time with clothing in the process of being assembled sitting in front of some of the women grouped in twos and threes. Revealing the pressured nature of the business that could not stop even for the moment it took to pose for the photograph, there was an overseer- a stern woman in black with a cold look in her eyes and rigid posture. There may have been an absence of sewing machines and the level of hand stitching on existing Boué Soeurs clothing as well as other haute couture at the time indicate the high level of handwork involved. (7)

When World War I started, the Boué sisters decided to move their business to America. They opened the first French fashion house in New York after the success of their fashion show at the Hotel Plaza. John Redfern and Lucile (Lady Duff Gordon), neither of them French, were the only designers with Paris and London-based couture houses in New York before Boué Soeurs. World War I was not the only reason for their move to New York. (8) The fashion industry had been suffering as a result of heavy taxes brought on by previous conflicts such as the Franco-Prussian War (July 1870-May 1871). In the interview by de Waleffe, one of the Callot sisters further explains the fashion industry’s battle against exorbitant taxes. In this passage: one of the Callot sisters sheds insight into why the Boué sisters opened up their salon in New York and what the process was like. “If an evening dress cost two thousand francs before the war, it costs six or seven thousand today. It is impossible to get around it: if the government strangles us, it leaves us only one option: to go to work in New York. And what would happen to all our nice little workwomen?”(9)

This statement reveals the bond between the designers and their seamstresses and how they were a main consideration for the location of a salon. By keeping their Paris salon as a base through which they manufactured the clothing for the New York branch and for their Parisian clients, the Boué sisters circumvented the problem of breaking loyalty with the women who worked for them. With this strategy and no little bravery the Boué sisters endured opening their New York branch during wartime. And, as Philippe Montégut points out, there was much to be endured. The ship the Boué sisters traveled to America on was destroyed soon after during fighting in the mid- Atlantic and over the course of the war, they shared waters with submarines in travelling from Paris to New York and back across the Atlantic. (10)

During their time in New York, particularly during the twenties, the Boué sisters were at their most creative. Their styles were widely popularized in trade and fashion magazines and copied by major department stores across the country. From a sketch of a knock-off found in the Berley files in the Special Collections of the Fashion Institute of Technology,10 we see at close hand how the major department stores of this period would create their copies for mass production. A mysterious note jotted hurriedly on the side gives a hint of the practices of creating knock- offs: “change this a little because we used it.” These pencil drawings of which there are thousands, were often quickly drawn in restrooms at fashion shows to be brought back to the office and used as the basis for a couture design. The sketch of the gown from the salon of Boué Soeurs is particularly beautiful, due to the complexity the dress. The artist did not appear to have time to draw the full body because he/she was too preoccupied with getting the drape to fall correctly and include all the detail work. A preliminary drawing for the sketch in the upper left corner roughly maps out the proportions of the dress next to the faintly written and abbreviated name “Boué.” (11)

Catching the pioneer spirit of America and targeting a niche previously unexplored by the French, the Boué sisters introduced French lingerie to a wider audience in the United States by distributing their models to chains such as Neiman Marcus and I. Magnin. The only option before Boué Soeurs lingerie was to go to Paris and purchase more alluring and luxurious undergarments or wear the plain underwear of the nineteenth century. Aptly encompassing the imagination and artistry of the Boué Soeurs salon, “Quand les Fleurs Rêvent,” the name of the perfume they manufactured near their château outside of Paris alludes to a dream world where beauty reigns free: the essence of Boué Soeurs style.

After 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, Boué Soeurs advertisements disappear from the press, which ceases to cover them. Fashion historians like Caroline R. Milbank have been tempted to assume that the house ceased to exist, and that the sisters may have retired to France. In fact, Sylvie remained in New York throughout WWII and then, when the German occupation of Paris ended she reopened the Paris branch for another eight years with the same staff, who had remarkably survived. It was only until 1953, when Sylvie died, that the large gold letters of the Paris salon proclaiming the words Boué Soeurs were taken down, in spite of a valiant effort by Jeanne’s daughter Mounette. (12)

A study of the first French haute couture house in New York is significant because none has ever been executed. The house of Boué Soeurs is a part of the history of both French and American fashion that needs to be told. This thesis researcher, who employed the historical as well as material culture method, explored the work of Boué sisters, their press coverage, surviving garments, and use of materials. Special attention was given to eighteenth-century paintings, an eternal source of inspiration for the sisters in terms of style and color. The Fashion Institute of Technology, The Brooklyn Museum, and The Costume Institute among other collections provided access for study of their holdings of Boué Soeurs garments for this thesis while graciously allowing them to be photographed.

Boué Soeurs often incorporated the panniers, the hoops of eighteenth century fashion, into a slip worn over a separate chemise. The ruching and appliquéd work typical of Rococo dress decoration, which was often confined to the bodice area in the eighteenth century grew in cascading bouquets over an entire Boué Soeurs dress. Like the silk roses of the eighteenth century, the roses of Boué Soeurs are of such a light and flowing texture and rendered in such detail that they appear to be natural, as if growing from the very tulle they are sewn to.

Marie Antoinette and Rose Bertin

Marie Antoinette (1755-1793), Queen of France at the brink of the French Revolution and one of the most important figures in the history of French fashion was another key influence on the style of Boué Soeurs. Often portrayed by Vigée-Le Brun, Marie Antoinette was known for pioneering new fashions and setting trends with the help of her marchand de mode Rose Bertin. With her controversial chemise gown, worn in a 1783 portrait by Vigée Le Brun, Marie Antoinette created a furor because the white cotton gown so resembled a nightdress or undergarment. (16) This play between outerwear and lingerie was also carried on by the Boué sisters and may be seen in their use of translucent materials and lace as well as their line of lingerie itself. The imaginative flair of Rose Bertin and Marie Antoinette is evident in the many hats and 30 headdresses worn by the Queen and appearing in fashion plates of the time, that could take on shape from a bird to a ship. (17) The Boué sisters translated this style into dresses such as the the cover of the April 1915 Les Modes. Rose Bertin was Marie Antoinette’s stylist and the co creator of her image and fashions along with Vigée Le Brun. She always worked in the shadow of Marie Antoinette and there are no specific designs attributed to her, an anonymity that Boué Soeurs worked hard to surpass as designers.

The Parisian Environment

Art extended to all aspects of French life, from food to love and the extraordinary acceptance of art and artists in Paris provided the Boué sisters with an artistic milieu peopled by other great painters and sculptors such as Picasso, Braque, and Giacommetti. In terms of their physical environment, eighteenth- century art in the great art collections of Paris such as the Louvre must have had a profound effect on artists such as the Boué sisters. In addition the Boué sisters owned their own château decorated in eighteenth-century style outside of Paris which they filled with tapestries and other art objects from their travels at home and abroad. (18)

Dress Reform and the Health Movement

Around the turn of the century, when Boué Soeurs first began to design, a powerful group known as the “dress-protestants” was changing attitudes about fashion. In Scientific American, the reformers aimed their words at the long voluminous skirts:The streets of our great cities are not kept as clean as they should be, and probably will not be kept scrupulously clean until automobiles have entirely replaced horse-drawn vehicles” and that women swept up this filth in their skirts.

The health movement had the greatest impact on the style of the period in the 1920s. Progressive women, along with doctors and clergymen fostered the need for simplicity, comfort, and health championed the removal of the corset and the widening of the hemlines. These clear thinking individuals and groups challenged the prevailing view-- that woman’s fashion must be based on a “flowing outline that shall proclaim at once the sweetness and preciousness of womanhood” (19)-- they championed a new attitude that freed women.

Womanliness came at a price, as any nineteenth century woman could attest. With its pounds of fabric, “shin-swaddling flounces,” and tightly laced corsets, women’s clothing was difficult to wear. Hard to keep clean, milady’s skirts weighed a ton, making it difficult for her to get about; her corset, an elaborate concoction of whalebone and steel, kept her upright as a statue while her gloves-which no self-respecting lady was without—kept the outside world at arms length. As for her hats she was all too often at the mercy of her milliner, who, it was said treated a woman’s head “as a mere rotary ball” upon which to perch whatever she pleased, “be it bird of paradise or beast or creeping thing.” When conventionally attired like this, a pretty woman was the very picture of contained verticality, of mobility held in check. (20)

Some 1920s designers were very much in step with the reform movement while others, like Poiret, who perpetrated narrow hemlines that were just as impeding as the corset, were not. The removal of the corset improved not only the general health of women- allowing the organs to sit in their rightful place in the body, allowing free movement and breath- but it also brought freedom from self-mutilation.

This new freedom balanced with a traditional femininity in a 1910 photograph and in their oeuvre as a whole suggests that the Boué sisters emphasized practicality and comfort. One of the Callot sisters shared their frank attitude towards fashion in the Les Modes interview when she said “We were going to try to launch, for the toilette de bal, the nude foot in antique costume...but that would have been difficult. Too many women’s feet have been deformed by the shoe.” (21)

The Uncorseted Body

When one looks at the variety of the Boué sisters dresses over time, one sees an unwillingness to conform to any one ideal. Fetishism or the concentration on any one part of the body such as the breasts or the hips is eschewed for wholeness and naturalism so that no single area of the body is revealed. A dress by the Boué sisters be it from 1911 or 1928 envelops the body in softness while allowing the body itself to be hard. The fashions of Boué Soeurs from their 1920’s heyday reflect the new freedom of body and spirit that came when women were released from the daily bondage of the corset and represented a dramatic difference from the corseted styles. Allowing one both an uncorseted body and the freedom to use one’s legs, the designs of the Boué sisters were particularly liberating.

The New Woman

Always inspired by women, Boué Soeurs designed for the full-figured, the mother and the daughter. Asserting her self-sufficient nature with as straight as possible a stance in her s-curved corset. Compared to Boué Soeurs’ balanced asymmetry, Paquin and Lanvin’s designs appear austere. In contrast to Callot Soeurs, Lanvin and Paquin’s adventuresses, the early models of Boué Soeurs were-for the most part- mature women and even if they were not yet married they were well- rounded women. Just as the Boué sisters held on to aspects of style they had created from the beginning, they remained faithful to themselves and their clients throughout their career, eschewing the angularity of the twenties for more eternal flowerings. (22)

Boué Soeurs and their Contemporaries

Sharing a stylistic language, the Boué sisters and their contemporaries were very much a part of the spirit of the times. Before 1920 the Boué sisters designed the same high-waisted gowns that Lanvin, Bourniche and other contemporaries designed. After 1920, the Boué sisters branched off into a more individual style that was highly feminine and soft as opposed to the hard angles of the Art Deco or the conical silhouette of Lanvin and Poiret. One very important aspect distinguished the Boué sisters from their contemporaries as well as their predecessors, however: their use of a signature, the Boué rose. This device, included in some form in almost every dress, allowed their clients to become familiar with their style and anchored their collection into something almost immediately recognizable and complete.

Conclusion Gleaming creations of silk satin, tulle and lace, the work of Boué Soeurs was entrenched in the politics of sex. Through creating ultra-feminine yet free and easy fashions of such a quality solely for women and solely by women, everyone benefited. Like their signature rose, the Boué woman was the most important creation of all because she was natural and imperfections only enhanced her beauty. While Boué Soeurs reigned the spotlight focused on women. By spreading the luxury of the eighteenth century over a range of modern dress styles, Boué Soeurs imparted not only a feeling of femininity but of power. The layers of the eighteenth century soufflé have thus been collapsed into something light and airy yet undiluted. Boué Soeurs created dresses for goddesses in a dirty city with silk and beads that gleam like diamonds in the rough.

[Footnotes]

1 Philippe Montégut, “Boué Soeurs The First Haute-Couture Establishment in America,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Library, New York, 1988. P. 2. 2 2 Ibid. 7. 3 Montégut. 1. 4 Montégut. 2. 5 -Et maintenant a propos des modes de cet hiver, est-ce que la jupe restera courte? -Oui,, c’est une conquete definitive. Ça fait jeune. D’ailleurs la jupe longue était sale et la jupe demi longue est disgraciuese. -Le dos toujours decolété? -Oui. -Alas, rien de neuf?" 6 Les Modes 1920. “Les étrangers, les grandes dames parisiennes et femmes de théatres sont précieuses, sont indispensables pour lancer nos modeles, et aussi pour les inspirer. Par exemple, nous créons une robe en pensant a telle de nos clientes don’t la silhouette nous traverse l’ésprit. Nous le lui écrions; elle vient l’essayer, la page et l’emporte. Mais si du jour au lendemain nous ne travaillons que pour la seule clientèle français, nous pourrions fermer la boutique. Voilà ce que le gouvernment parait ne pas comprendre. Pendant la guerre toutes les grandes maison ont fonctionne a perte pour occuper leur personnel. La couture n’a recommencé à gagner de l’argent que depuis un an, avec d’exportation. Or le ministre du commerce refuse de nous laisser beneficier de l’exemption qu’il accorde à la bijouterie relativement à la taxe de luxe a dix pour cent. Une riche Américane achête une bague de cinq mille franc à une bijoutier de la rue de la Paix. Elle acquitte la taxe de luxe de cinq cent francs, mais la duoane la lui remboursera au sortir de France. Achète-elle une robe de même prix? C’est prohibitif!” 7 Les Modes 1920 Photograph 8 Montégut. 2. 9 Original French: “Si une robe du soir coûtait deux mille francs avant la guerre, elle en coûtera six ou sept mille aujourd’hui. Impossible d’aller au dela: si donc le gouvernment nous étrangle, il ne nous restera qu’a aller travailler â New York. Et que deviendront toutes nos gentilles petites ouvrières...? 10 Montégut. 1. 11 F.I.T. Special Collections. Box 33 folder 9. 12 Montégut. 8. 13Ribeiro. 153. 14Ibid.20Other groups such as Rainy Daisys shocked the world by touting skirts four inches off the ground to 15 Ibid. 16 Montégut. 3. 17 Weissman Joselit, A Perfect Fit. 46. 18 Ibid. 49. 19 Ibid. 44. promote practical accommodations to the weather in women’s dress. 20 Ibid. 46. 21 Les Modes No. 198 “Nous essaierons peut-etre de lancer, pour la toilette de bal, le pied nu dans cothume (?) antique. Le pied un peu fardé, bien entendu....mais ce sera difficile. Trop de dames on le pied déformé par la chaussure!.”pp.6-8. 22Weissman Joselit. 44.

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