The Hilfiger Factor and the Flexible Commercial World of Coutureof the New Look. The processes of elite social dressing had however changed
irrevocably. Faced with a severe drop in private clients, the commercial
imagination of the couture houses was once again called into play. Dior had
clothes made up in London, New York and Australia as well as France.
Balmain put shows on in Argentina and Thailand, and Fath together with
many others in Brazil. Dior’s was the supreme success, still with 3,000 private
clients in the 1950s. His turnover of couture garment production vastly
overshadowed all of his rivals. Alexandra Palmer’s research shows that
between spring 1954 and autumn 1955, his workshops produced 5,154
garments. His nearest rival over the same period was Jacques Fath at 4,140,
Balmain at 3,112 and the House of Nina Ricci at 2,800. Chanel, just
reopening in Paris after her dubious wartime activities, had a turnover of
only 300 garments.^18 Dior was the master of the franchise agreement and
thus his perfume company was established in 1947, his prêt-à-porter de luxe
opened in New York in 1948, his ‘Dior New York’ franchised stocking line
made by Kayser began in 1949, as did Dior jewellery manufactured by
Pforzheim, in Germany. Dior capitalized too on menswear retailing, develop-
ing a franchised range of silk ties in partnership with a US twill silk
manufacturer, Benjamin Theise. These ties were first marketed through the
department store, B. Altman, in New York in 1949. By 1984, couture fur and
fashions represented only 1.5 per cent of the business of the House of Dior.^19
Pierre Cardin, inspired by Dior’s commercial success, became the couturier
with the largest number of franchised licensed products. Already by 1958 he
was selling a prêt-à-porter line in the Paris department store, Le Printemps.^20
Women’s Wear Daily announced on 9 February 1982 that his company had
540 licensed contracts worth 50 millions dollars annually.^21 Cardin was
denied membership of the Chambre Syndical de la Couture for a while as a
result of this vast commercial expansion. Didier Grumbach confirms that in
1930 Paris couture kept 6,799 workers directly employed in fifty-nine major
fashion houses. This number included 33 apprentices, 1,735 workers, 118
‘second’ hands, 135 cutters, and 116 fashion models. By 1990 this had
dropped to 928 workers.^22
- A. Palmer, ‘The Myth and Reality of Haute Couture, Consumption, Social Function
and Taste in Toronto, 1945–1963’, PhD thesis, University of Brighton, 1994, Vol. 1: Royal
Ontario Museum no. 1986. p. 208, quoting f12/10.504, Paris Couture production, Spring
1954-Fall 1955, Archives Nationale, Paris. - Grumbach, D., Histoires de la Mode, Paris, Seuil, 1993, p. 77, p. 80 and p. 57.
- Vincent-Ricard, F., La Mode, Paris: Segliers, 1987, p. 64.
- Ibid., p. 97.
- Grumbach, D., Histoires de la Mode, Paris: Seuil, 1993, pp. 35–6 and p. 57, the
Fédération Francaise de la Couture, note de novembre, 1974.