Callot soeurs biography of william hamilton

Before opening the couture salon, the sisters owned a shop that sold antique laces, ribbons, and lingerie. By Callot Sisters was employing six hundred workers and had clientele in Europe and America. The house's inclusion in the Paris Exposition Universelle, where it displayed dresses alongside such venerable couture firms as Doucet, Paquin, Redfern, Rouff, and Worth, demonstrates the sisters' respected place within the industry.

A number of designers, including Madeleine Vionnet and Georgette Renal, began their careers at Callot Sisters before launching their own couture houses. According to Vionnet, who worked at the house from to , Madame Gerber was a friend of the art collector and critic Edmond de Goncourt, with whom she shared an interest in the Orient and eighteenth-century rococo design.

The decor of the sisters' salon reflected these two influences, and they received their clients in a Chinese-style room adorned with Coromandel lacquer, Song dynasty silks, and Louis XV furniture.

Callot soeurs biography of william hamilton: Her favorite designers were

The house's design repertoire encompassed daywear, tailored suits, and evening dresses, but it was best known for its ethereal, eighteenth-century-inspired dishabille and exotic evening dress influenced by the East. The sisters' luxurious tea gowns, produced in the early part of the century, were made of silk, chiffon, and organdy and often incorporated costly antique laces into their designs.

Their penchant for such delicate materials prompted Marcel Proust to write, in Remembrance of Things Past , that the sisters "go in rather too freely for lace" p. Their layered, filmy, pastel-toned garments were very fashionable; such contemporaries as Jacques Doucet and Lucile also created such "confections," as they were often described.

In the s and early s the house's garments also drew upon the brilliant fauvist colors and Eastern-inspired design that were a vital part of the visual culture of the period. While this exotic mode is commonly associated with the designer Paul Poiret , the sisters also created clothing that incorporated embellishment and construction techniques derived from Asia and Africa.