The Fashion Businessended and both Europe and then America entered periods of economic
depression, very direct problems faced the couture world which are rarely
mentioned in the glossy books. The industry had lost much of its male labour
force during the War, such as specialist weavers. Silk was in short supply
because at this point Japan began exporting and manufacturing fashion silks
herself to a much larger degree. There was such a shortage of quality silk
available that the Lyons luxury silk trade seriously contemplated moving
production over entirely to rayon. In 1913 the textile industry in Lyons used
only four million francs worth of artificial silk fibre. As the yarn improved
somewhat in quality and silk became less and less available, by 1921 this
figure had risen to eighty million francs. By 1938 the town was using 72.2
per cent rayon yarn and only 8.1 per cent of silk.^10
The cultural mood had changed too and designers, including Lucile, who
could not adapt, went bankrupt, merged or closed. Lucile wrote in 1931
that in the 1920s the salons could only make 50 per cent of the profit they
had before the War. The old extravagant dressing style-beyond-price had
gone for ever. ‘It passed away with the hey day of the great courtesans...
even the women who were noted as the best dressed in Europe had cut down
their dressmakers bills to half the previous amounts. There was consternation
in the Rue de La Paix. World famous houses were faced with the prospect of
closing down.’^11 Russian aristocracy no longer bought the clothes. After the
Revolution they were in fact more likely to be found working as vendeuses
in the salons of Paris than purchasing garments. However, with flexible design
and business acumen at play, a new generation of designers responded to the
economic and cultural challenges of the 1920s. Lucile was left far behind
complaining bitterly that couturiers had ‘decided to cut down on cost to the
lowest possible limit... no more picture dresses – no waste of fabric on
linings, no lace, cheaper embroideries, every yard saved must be looked upon
as a yard to the good’.
The boyish look was the perfect solution. Rather than seeing the new
garçonne style as a creative, flexible response to a new mood of feminine
modernity sweeping through the world of fine and applied arts, Lucile
condemned it dismissively. ‘No woman... could cost less to clothe.’ She
saw the style not as ‘the result of emancipation or modernity’ but as ‘a creation
- L. Taylor, ‘Dufy, the Lyons Silk Industry and the Role of Artists’, The Textile Society
Newsletter No. 2, Summer 1984, p. 6, quoting C. Roupiez, ‘Reconstructions et Crises dans la
Soieries Lyonnaise de 1850-1940’, Programmes de Recherches en Sciences Humaines dans la
region Rhone-Alpes, Conservation du Patrimonie, CNRS, Centre Regional de Publication de
Lyon, Paris, 1980, pp. 48-9. - Gordon, Lady Duff, Discretions and Indescretions, London: Jarrolds, 1932, p. 159.