Main Rousseau Bocher opened his house of fashion in 1929 and became one of the top influences in 1930s fashion. His Mainbocher Corset ten years later caused controversy and defined the silhouette of 40s fashion. He designed couture dresses for socialites and most famously designed the wedding dress of Wallace Simpson, who married former King (of England) Edward VIII (the Duke of Windsor). After the start of World War II, Mainbocher moved to New York and was the first American fashion designer celebrity. He was born in Chicago but since his fashion business was established in France, his fame spanned the Atlantic Ocean and both countries seemed to claim him as its own.
The name Mainbocher is a one word concatenation of his first and last names. He copied this ides from his fashion icons, Augustabernard and Louiseboulanger, who also combined their names into one word for the couture name.
The picture here was taken by a man named Horst Paul Albert Bohrmann, who was a preeminent photographer from the 1930s on. The Horst Corset picture is his most famous. It also caused a stir, which turned out to be great advertising for Mainbocher. He got a deal with Warner Brothers Corset Company after this photo was published in Vogue in 1939.
After his corset fame, Mainbocher also got a ocntract with the US Navy to design the uniforms of the women’s division of the Nave, called WAVES. He continued to dress society women and in 1947 eight of the ten best-dressed women in NY were Mainbocher clients.
His 1930s fashion designs were all about the bias cut and slip dresses, decades later reincarnated by Narcisco Rodriguez. In general, though, his designs were simple, elegant, and subtle. His clientele were socialites who desired exclusive designs. He had already established a name for himself as editor of French Vogue, so having a dress designed by Mainbocher was a status symbol, to say the least.
Mainbocher’s designs were conservative and very expensive, relying on luxury fabrics and exquisite craftmanship in the cut of the fabric. The dresses were beautiful on the inside as well, and gave a certain quiet confidence to the wealthy women who wore them. Sometimes only those in the know about Mainbocher (i.e. only those who could afford it) could tell it was a Mainbocher design. It was like a secret circle of elites, who could impress each other without appearing gauche or gaudy or showy. Understated elegance I guess you could call it.
Mainbocher designed a color for Wallis Simplon called Wallis Blue. It’s a blue-grey color, typical of his conservative, simple, feminine but not flashy style.
Mainbocher’s arrival in New York at the start of World War II was perfect timing for an American fashion star, since he evoked patriotism in the fashion world.
ans of 1930s fashion. Seriously, this the biggest event of 2012. It’s Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations, an upcoming exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. It starts in May 2012 and runs through August 19. The exhibit will involve an imagined conversation between the two fashion designers, who have many similarities. This idea of an imagined conversation between two famous people comes from a 1930s Vanity Fair article by Miguel Covarrubias called “Impossible Interviews”.
