Jacques Doucet (fashion designer)

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Jacques Doucet in 1903, by Leonetto Cappiello

Jacques Doucet (French pronunciation: [ʒak du.sɛ]) (1853–1929) was a French fashion designer and art collector. He is known for his elegant dresses, made with flimsy translucent materials in superimposing pastel colors.

Life

Doucet was born in Paris in 1853 to a prosperous family whose

Rejane and Sarah Bernhardt (for whom he designed her famous white costume in L'Aiglon) all often wore his outfits, both on and off the stage. For the aforementioned actresses he reserved a particular style, one which consisted of frills, sinuous curving lines and lace
ruffles that reflected the colors of faded flowers. Doucet was a designer of taste and discrimination who valued dignity and luxury above novelty and practicality, and gradually faded from popularity during the 1920s.

Several years after World War I, in 1927, Cubists Joseph Csaky, Jacques Lipchitz, Louis Marcoussis, Henri Laurens, the sculptor Gustave Miklos, and others collaborated in the decoration of a studio house, rue Saint-James, Neuilly-sur-Seine. The hôtel particulier, owned by Doucet was designed by the architect Paul Ruaud. Laurens designed the fountain, Csaky designed Doucet's staircase, Lipchitz made the fireplace mantel and Marcoussis created a Cubist rug.[1][2][3][4]

Legacy

A collector of art and literature throughout his life, by the time of his death he had a collection of

Picasso's studio, as well as two major book collections which he donated to the French nation. Doucet's collection of art books and research, which he gave to the University of Paris in 1917, became the core of the university's Institut d'Art et d'Archéologie and was eventually transferred to the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art in 2003. At his death in 1929, his collection of manuscripts by contemporary writers for which the university created in his honour the Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques-Doucet.[5] Francois Chapon wrote a book titled C'etait Jacques Doucet about the life and work of the fashion designer.[6]

  • Dresses designed by Doucet
  • Dress, 1880s
    Dress, 1880s
  • Ball gown, 1898–1900
    Ball gown, 1898–1900
  • Afternoon dress, ca 1903
    Afternoon dress, ca 1903
  • Dress, 1914
    Dress, 1914
  • Suit, 1915
    Suit, 1915
  • Dress, 1917
    Dress, 1917
  • Day Dress, 1920–1923
    Day Dress, 1920–1923
  • Jacques Doucet's hôtel particulier
  • Jacques Doucet's hôtel particulier, 33 rue Saint-James, Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1929.
    Jacques Doucet's hôtel particulier, 33 rue Saint-James, Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1929.
  • Jacques Doucet's hôtel particulier, 33 rue Saint-James, Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1929.
    Jacques Doucet's hôtel particulier, 33 rue Saint-James, Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1929.

References

  1. .
  2. ^ Aestheticus Rex (14 April 2011). "Jacques Doucet's Studio St. James at Neuilly-sur-Seine". Aestheticusrex.blogspot.com.es.
  3. .
  4. .
  5. ^ "Historique de la bibliothèque" (in French). Sorbonne. Archived from the original on 16 March 2013. Retrieved 3 March 2013.
  6. .

External links