Paquin
French fashion house that opened at the end of the 19th century (1891), and enjoyed its heyday in the first 20 years of the 20th century, though it remained in business, with various changes in its artistic direction, until 1956. The founder and dressmaker of the fashion house was Jeanne Beckers (1869-1936), the first woman, a century on from the renowned Rose Bertin, to achieve success in French fashion on the same level as great dressmakers like Worth. Her Parisian atelier in Rue de la Paix was called Paquin, the nickname of her husband and adviser Isadore Jacobs, who was an expert businessman. A woman of rare elegance, Jeanne used techniques learnt from her time at Maison Rouff, and from the start — with her meticulous attention to detail, careful choice, matching of fabrics, and refined use of lace overlays — she expressed a bold, grandiose style embodied by use of the celebrated Paquin shade of red. Ahead of her time in her approach to both advertising and promotion, she organized fashion shows in theaters and sent groups of models dressed in her clothes to elite events. After five years of business Maison Paquin took some English partners and moved to London, keeping a Parisian base in Rue de la Paix. It came as no great surprise when Jeanne Paquin was made president of the fashion area of the Paris Universal International Exhibition in 1900: by then she was famous for her dazzling gold and silver evening dresses and blue twill suits. Not only did she show her creations at the Exhibition, but also herself, in the form of a mannekin inlaid with silver, shown sitting at her desk. Although well aware of her success and the great respect she was afforded, she did not stop in her search for self-improvement, joining forces with artists like Léon Bakst, the costume designer for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and George Lepape and Paul Iribe, for whom she drew some wonderful fashion-plates. Her rich and modern collections were inspired by memories of distant lands and a passion for Japanese objects; in 1907 she launched the Impero range, creating a kimono-style cape and re-inventing the suit with a pleated skirt that made it practical to wear even when traveling by subway. When she opened a branch of the fashion house in New York, it specialized in furs, adding yet another string to her bow. As her branches multiplied across the world, from Spain to Argentina, she invented the fashion cruise, taking her creations to the main cities of Latin America. All this did not stop her from also presiding over the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute couture from 1917 to 1919. At the age of 50 she unexpectedly retired. The fashion house was run by different designers over the years that followed: Madeleine Wallis, a specialist in furs; the Spaniard Ana de Pombo (1936) whose Velasquez style dresses were much admired; another Spaniard Antonio Canovas de Castillo (1942) and Colette Massignac. The fashion house was relaunched by a young Basque, Lou Claverie, in 1949, but despite this, and the incorporation of the house of Worth, in 1956 the house of Paquin ceased business and closed its doors for good.