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… that the first internationally recognized fashion designer (and stylist) was a contemporary of Marie Antoinette’s? Her name was Rose Bertin and it is no exaggeration to say that she was instrumental not only in turning Marie Antoinette into a fashion icon, but also in making fashion and haute couture a central part of popular culture.

Rose Bertin (pictured above) was a marchande de modes, a female fashion merchant. Of humble birth, she came to preside over the increasingly important world of fashion from her exotically named, opulent shop, The Grand Mogol. Her boutique had large windows filled with all sorts of enticing displays. As Caroline Weber writes in her wonderful book Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution, the window displays, “with their artistic arrangements of bonnets, shawls, fans, spangles, furbelows, silk flowers, gemstones, laces and other accessories … set up a bewitching siren’s song.” Potential customers were ushered through the door by a liveried footman and upon entering, “found themselves in a setting as luxurious as an aristoctrat’s salon: gilded moldings adorned the ceilings, full-length mirrors and fine oil paintings hung on the walls, and expensive furniture was scattered about among the piles of damasks, silks, brocades and baubles …” From this jewel box of a shop, Rose Bertin haughtily administered her advice as to the gowns and frippery that were right for her customers with absolute conviction, bearing no contradiction.

Rose Bertin’s universally acknowledged supreme chic was not limited to dresses and accessories. She is also responsible, in conjunction with Monsieur Leonard, the Queen’s snooty hairdresser, for creating the pouf - the very high, extremely ornate coiffures we often see in 18th century portraits and illustrations (see above). According to Caroline Weber, “the pouf was built on scaffolding made from wire, cloth, gauze, horsehair, fake hair, and the wearer’s own tresses, teased high off the forhead. After dousing the whole edifice heavily with powder, its architect installed amid the twists and curls, an elaborate miniature still-life, intended to express a feeling (pouf au sentiment) or to commemorate an event (pouf a la circonstance) of importance to the client.” Poufs illustrating all sorts of things from current events such as naval battles, to events more personal in nature such as the birth of a child and even a husband’s infidelities, started “popping up” all over Paris.

The poufs and the elaborate clothes were extremely expensive, often ruinously so. Marie Antoinette had become a capricious trendsetter which women on all levels of the social spectrum wanted to imitate as best they could - this even despite the Queen’s sinking popularity. The huge costs of the coiffures and the clothes - which were expensive not just because of their high-priced materials, but also because of frequently changing trends - drove many to accumulate enormous debts and even to lose family fortunes. The Queen’s friend, the Princess de Guenemee, for example, actually had to declare bankruptcy due to her unpaid clothing debts, most of them owed to the Grand Mogol. Her customers’ financial straits, however, were no obstacle for Bertin as she helped them rack up even more bills by letting them buy on credit, charging 10% interest. Other marchandes de modes soon followed suit. I suppose that at 10%, her rates were far more favorable than those of credit card companies today.

Rose Bertin was also a marketing genius. She deployed life-sized dolls - in the likeness of Marie Antoinette - adorned with her latest clothing and hair designs to cutomers from England to Russia. This sort of advertising helped make her a great success abroad as well while cementing French dominance in the luxury industry - an industry which was of course thriving thanks to her patronage and that of other marchandes de modes.

Still, with all her chic and business acumen, Rose Bertin’s success is directly related to Marie Antoinette’s generous patronage. Bertin’s ascendancy and reign over the fashion world lasted from 1774, the year Marie Antoinette became Queen to 1792, the year before she was executed. Bertin’s close friendship and daily visits with the Queen (pictured above), not to mention the astronomical prices of her creations (one of her gowns could easily cost 20 times what an average worker earned in a year) did nothing to endear her to the public in revolutionary France and she was forced to flee to London where she continued to cater to the expat community there. Upon her return to Paris in 1795, she ministered to Josephine Bonaparte, but only for a short while as the fashion excesses she was known for had become outmoded after the Revolution. Rose Bertin eventually retired, having transferred her business to her nephews. She died in 1813.

The story of Rose Bertin is a thorougly modern one. A provincial policeman’s daughter, she rose to the pinnacle of French society, becoming very wealthy in the process. Her meteoric rise is remarkable not just in and of itself, but also in the fact that Rose Bertin was completely self made AND in the fact that she was a woman. She was instrumental in making France synonymous with luxury and she reigned over fashion at a time when that industry was dominated by men. For all this, she is well worth noting.