The success of Charles Worth - in his own words

A remarkable account of the early life of Charles Worth written by himself has been found in the archives. This is a major discovery because until now the bulk of material relating to his career has been the work of other people.

Worth was born at Bourne in 1825, son of a local solicitor, and left home as a boy to seek his fortune in London and later Paris where he founded his famous fashion salon which was frequented by the world’s rich and famous. He died at the age of 69 when 2,000 mourners attended his funeral including the President of the Republic himself by which time he had established a reputation as the father of haute couture.

At the height of his career, he was asked by an American newspaper, the Union and Advertiser at Rochester, New York State, to write something about himself and his early life and he responded with this revealing article which was reprinted on the occasion of his death.

I was born in the town of Bourne in Lincolnshire. My parents desired that I should become a printer and accordingly, at the age of 13, they apprenticed me to learn that trade. But I always had a great dislike to the occupation, having an instinctive repugnance to soiling my fingers. I only remained seven months in that position, for the dream of my life at that time was to go to London. Chancing to know a gentleman who was then a solicitor on Parliament Street I wrote to him begging him to find some position for me in the capital. He interested himself in me and induced the dry goods firm of Swan & Edgar to give me a post in their establishment, where I remained for seven years. I was always treated with great kindness and consideration by the heads of the house.

On one occasion (my health in my youth always having been very delicate) I was attacked with inflammation of the lungs, and owe, I think, my recovery to the watchful care and attention of Mrs Edgar herself.

But my position was not one in which I was able to gratify my natural tastes and aspirations. I was kept at desk work and was sent to match samples of goods, or to make payments, or to deposit money in banks. My great delight was in inspecting the cases of dresses, cloaks and bonnets that were sent over from Paris as models, and I used to give hints about trimmings and alterations, etc., which were found to be valuable; and so my opinions came to be frequently consulted.

I was wont in those days to talk a great deal to the buyers, who were sent from London to Paris, about matters and things in the latter city. A visit to Paris was then no small undertaking. The actual journey took two days and a half each way, so that the buyers from the house of Swan & Edgar used to consume from sixteen to seventeen days for each visit. Finally, Paris became the goal of my aspirations, as London had formerly been. I used to spend my evenings in the study of French, and whenever any French customers visited the shop I invariably sought them out and tried my best to talk with them.

One of my customers went into business at Caen, and I was in hopes that he would take me into partnership; but, on being disappointed in that quarter I resolved upon going to Paris and trying my fortune there at all hazards. I had no idea of where I should go or what I should do when I got there. But I was so fortunate as to obtain a position almost immediately in the house of Messrs Gagelin & Co. in the Rue Richelieu, then one of the most extensive and best-known establishments of its kind in Paris.

I arrived there in the year 1846. Two years later came the revolution which overturned the throne of Louis Philippe, and affairs went very ill till after the establishment of the empire. But by that time I had made my way in the house, and had been appointed director of the cloak department, being shortly after taken into partnership. At that time the Maison Gagelin did not make dresses, it being considered derogatory to the dignity of the house to do so. The few therefore that I supplied were made outside under my supervision, by a dressmaker in my own employ. In fact, my actions were subjected to so many restrictions, and such vehement objections were made to all my efforts to extend the business, that I finally quitted the firm and went into business for myself. This was in the year 1858. My partner was a Swedish gentleman, M Bobergh, and the firm continued to be Worth & Bobergh till the Franco-German war, which saw inaugurated my house as Worth alone.

Before I left the Maison Gagelin the firm counted many clients at the imperial court, although the house was looked upon as decidedly Legitimist in character, as it dated from the days of Marie Antoinette and had hanging from the walls of its chief reception room a drawing in India ink of that queen coming to shop there soon after the accession of Louis XVI. It was extensively patronized by the ladies of the Faubourg St Germain, and one of them introduced me to the Countess de Pourtales, through whose influence I first submitted one of my creations to the Empress. It was a walking dress in gray taffetas, trimmed with black velvet ribbons, the skirt and jacket made to match, which was then an entirely new idea, though the style has since become so universal. The Empress admired it extremely.

"But, M Worth," she said, "I should not like to be seen in public in so novel a costume. I must wait till someone else has appeared in it: for in my position I ought not to set the fashion. I must be content with following it."

So the Countess de Pourtales took the dress, and six months later I made one precisely like it for the Empress, which she wore at the Vincennes races. She was then in slight mourning for her sister the Duchess d'Albe, and I furnished her at the same time with a house dress in black moire antique, cut princess - that is to say, with skirt and corsage in one piece, the first dress ever made in that style. This was the first order for my imperial customer that I ever filled.

Before this epoch I had taken medals at the international exhibitions of London in 1852 and of Paris in 1855. This was while I was still at the Maison Gagelin. My exhibit at the first Paris exhibition was a court train in white moire antique, the ground almost entirely disappearing under embroidery in gold thread and pearls, the pattern of which was my own designing. It represented a series of graduated flounces in gold lace, spreading out in the form of a fan, and even at that epoch of low prices, when $100 was considered an extravagant amount for a lady to pay for a magnificent dress, was valued at $6,000.

After the close of the exhibition I took the mantle to the Tuileries to display it, by permission, to the Emperor, as there was then talk of its being purchased by the State to be deposited in the Conservatoire des Arts-et-Metiers. The Emperor greatly admired it, but while he was examining it M Racchiochi, then one of the imperial chamberlains, who was present, exclaimed, "There has been a fleur-de-lys introduced into the pattern of the embroidery." This remark was not altogether correct, as the figure was not really a fleur-de-lys, but as the style of the work was that of the Renaissance, some of the interwoven lines of the design might have assumed a form not unlike that of the obnoxious emblem of the Bourbon dynasty. At all events that speech put a stop to any project the Emperor might have formed of purchasing the mantle, and it was consequently left in my hands.

The hooped skirt was invented by the Empress to conceal the approaching advent of the Prince Imperial, and it was the expected birth of the Princess Beatrice that led to its immediate adoption by Queen Victoria. This was in the year 1855. The amplitude given the skirts of ladies' dresses by the new invention was something extraordinary.

Once I made a dress in whose construction 100 yards of silk were employed.

NOTE: The news item is reproduced from the Union and Advertiser newspaper at Rochester, which re-published this article on 11th March 1895 to mark Charles Worth’s death. I am indebted to Paul Quincey for his research into the family scrapbook containing his obituaries now owned by the Mehta family of Watford, Hertfordshire, who bought the rights to the House of Worth name.

WRITTEN NOVEMBER 2015