Madeleine Vionnet and Galeries Lafayette: The unlikely marriage of a Parisian couture house and a French department store, 1922--40

Florence Brachet Champsaur

Business History, 2012, vol. 54, issue 1, 48-66

Abstract: In the past, fashion history has traditionally produced monographs on talented designers emphasising the creativity of the luxury couture business and the tastes of its elite clientele. This case study, based on the unpublished records of Galeries Lafayette , offers a balanced and decompartmentalised interpretation of relationships among the players in the fashion system. Fashion designer Madeleine Vionnet never considered herself an artist and was well aware of the commercial aspects of the business, while the owner of Galeries Lafayette , Th�ophile Bader, tried to generate corporate synergy between the couture house and the department store. The examination of the partnership between Vionnet and Bader raises important questions, not only about counterfeiting but also about the transfer of creativity from designers to manufacturers.

Date: 2012
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00076791.2011.617208 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:bushst:v:54:y:2012:i:1:p:48-66

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FBSH20

DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2011.617208

Access Statistics for this article

Business History is currently edited by Professor John Wilson and Professor Steven Toms

More articles in Business History from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().