A

PATOU, JEAN 1880?-1936

FRENCH FASHION INNOVATOR

Spirit of the 1920s

Jean Patou may have been the couturier who most fully embodied the spirit of the 1920s. A handsome, high-stakes gambler in both the casinos and the fashion world, Patou aligned himself with the restless international café society of Paris and the newly popular Riviera. He helped define the youthful, athletic look of the mid 1920s by producing exquisitely cut short dresses, often pleated or fitted with geometric inserts to ensure freedom of movement, and by introducing "Cubist" sweaters and bathing suits. He identified this style as particularly "American" and stunned the fashion world by importing six young women from the United States to model in his Paris shows. Yet with his 1929 collections Patou almost single-handedly killed the "boyish" look by, during his spring show, reintroducing the natural bustline and waistline to women's fashion and, during his fall show, dropping skirt lengths to at least midcalf, a style that took hold as the Great Depression began.

Life

Born in Normandy, Patou was the son of an affluent tanner known for the fine leathers he produced for specialty bookbinders. Supported by family money, the young Patou tried his hand as a furrier, a tailor, and, finally, a Paris dressmaker, opening "Maison Parry" in 1912 and moving to the rue St. Florentin and a shop under his own name in early 1914. His first major collection was scheduled to appear that fall but was delayed for five years by the Great War; Patou enlisted in the crack Zouave infantry unit, rising to captain before the Armistice in November 1918. Like many other combat survivors of that war, Patou seemed marked by determination to cast off old values and to embrace—almost recklessly—new ones.

Cultural and Social Influences

Upon his return to Paris, Patou commissioned interior designer André Mare and architect Louis Sue, Art Deco leaders, to redecorate his couture house and to design elegant bottles for his various fragrances, including Joy—advertised as "The most expensive scent in the world." He drew upon the influence of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso as he employed geometric figures and dramatic colors in his "Cubist" sweaters and swimsuits during the mid 1920s. In 1924 he established sportswear shops, among the first of their kind, in the resorts of Deauville and Biarritz, where the international expatriate society gathered. It has also been claimed that he predated both Coco Chanel and Hermès in employing visible initials identifying the designer of a garment, thus assuring his frequently nouveau riche clientele that their good taste would be recognized. Thus, like his contemporary and rival Chanel, he brought into his designs and his promotional strategies major cultural and social currents of his time.

Patou and the Americans

Although Patou's first major triumph was his designing of the revolutionary tennis ensembles—short pleated skirts, sleeveless sweaters, and brightly colored headbands—for French star Suzanne Lenglen, he was soon providing similarly elegant but wearable tennis garb for the American player Helen Wills, who substituted an eyeshade for Lenglen's headband. He also outfitted the portly American society hostess Elsa Maxwell, a close friend and vigorous promoter of his endeavors, and such American movie stars as Gloria Swanson and Mary Pickford. But his most sensational "American" gesture came in late 1924, when, with a jury including Vogue editor Edna Woolman Chase, Broadway showman Florenz Ziegfeld, Vogue and Vanity Fair publisher Condé Nast, and fashion photographer Edward Steichen, he chose six American girls to join the French models already working in his Paris fashion house. He thus secured athletic, slender "American Dianas" to complement his more voluptuous "French Venuses" and to show his "Cubist" look to best advantage. He also created enormous goodwill with American consumers and New York fashion merchants.

Triumph and Decline

When Patou, in the months before the stock-market crash, restored the natural feminine waistline and bustline and dropped hemlines, he announced the prevailing style of the next decade but ironically killed the look that had sustained him during the 1920s. His perfumes, notions, and a backless white satin evening gown were all that sustained him and his fashion house until his death of a heart attack in March 1936. The Jean Patou line did rebound, however, under the management of his brother-in-law Raymond Barbas and a series of notable young designers, including Marc Bohan, Karl Lagerfeld, and Christian Lacroix.