Charles James inspiration for ski clothing

Charles James Puffer Jacket
Block front furniture

From the late 1920s until his retirement in 1957, Charles James was a fashion designer. His initial training was in millinery, and one of his trademarks was the use of millinery ribbons on his clothing. James spent time working in London and Paris before relocating to New York in 1940. He dressed members of high society and prominent Hollywood figures, boasting that his clothing was among the most expensive in the entire world. James became one of the first American fashion designers to gain recognition abroad.

James was renowned for creating sculptural, moulded clothing. He used wire and padding, much like an engineer would, to create dresses that could stand on their own. He had a thorough understanding of historical attire and a passion for the full, corseted styles of the 1860s, which he incorporated into his décolleté evening gowns. These were made of pricey satins and silks and ruched, puffy, and swagged. James cut a lot of his clothes on the bias and even made dresses out of fabric spirals.

James designed a white satin jacket in 1938 that had channels filled with eiderdown padding and was heavily padded. It is frequently cited as the precursor of both today’s ski clothing and the quilted jackets worn by the US Air Force during World War II.

Sources

Henry Varnum Poor (designer) – Wikipedia. (2015, August 17). Henry Varnum Poor (Designer) – Wikipedia. Retrieved December 31, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Varnum_Poor_(designer)

Advertisements

Fashion books – Amazon

* This website may contain affiliate links and I may earn a small commission when you click on links at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon and Sovrn affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Advertisements

More on Fashion Design

  • Georgina von Etzdorf: A British Design Icon

    Georgina von Etzdorf: A British Design Icon

    Georgina von Etzdorf is a British designer known for her exclusive prints in various media, specializing in textile, fashion, furniture, and product design. Her career took off in the 1980s, from printing designs in her parents’ garage to establishing a shop in London’s prestigious Burlington Arcade. Von Etzdorf’s training in traditional craft techniques and her…

  • Salvatore Ferragamo: The Journey of a Legendary Shoemaker

    Salvatore Ferragamo: The Journey of a Legendary Shoemaker

    Discover the remarkable story of Salvatore Ferragamo, the visionary shoemaker who rose from humble beginnings to become an icon in the fashion industry. This article explores Ferragamo’s early years, his ventures in the United States and Hollywood, and his innovative designs using exotic materials. From his post-war creativity to the enduring legacy of his “invisible…

  • Yohji Yamamoto (b.1943) Japanese Fashion Designer

    Yohji Yamamoto (b.1943) Japanese Fashion Designer

    Yohji Yamamoto fashion is exemplified by ease and wearability. READ MORE about this innovative radically different Japanese Designer.Read More →

  • Akira Isogawa (b.1964) Australian Fashion Designer

    Akira Isogawa (b.1964) Australian Fashion Designer

    Akira Isogawa, an Australian contemporary fashion designer, is known for his elegant simplicity, traditional Japanese techniques, and luxurious fabrics. He collaborates with high-profile brands and celebrities, and has international recognition. Australian fashion designer Akira Isogawa focuses on women’s fashion and has won awards for his designs. He is passionate about animal protection and has been…

  • Claude Montana (b.1949) French Fashion Designer

    Claude Montana (b.1949) French Fashion Designer

    Montana’s career in fashion began almost accidentally; he moved to London in the early 1970s “to escape studying,” having no plans and no work visa. Raising money by selling rhinestone-studded papier mache jewellery, he met a Vogue editor by happenstance and had his work featured in the magazine. Read More →

  • Jean-Charles de Castelbajac (b. 1949) French fashion designer

    Jean-Charles de Castelbajac (b. 1949) French fashion designer

    Jean-Charles de Castelbajac (b. 1949) was a French fashion designer born in Casablanca. He studied law at Faculté de Droit, Limoges and founded the Ko ready-to-wear fashion firm in 1968. He was recognised for his avant-garde designs for women’s clothing featuring unconventional materials. Read More →

  • Coco Chanel: A Classic of the 20th Century

    Coco Chanel: A Classic of the 20th Century

    From gold buttons to comfortable tailored trousers and comfortable cardigan sweaters, there is no more significant influence on clothes than Coco Chanel.Read More →

  • Paul Iribe (1883 – 1935) French Designer and Illustrator

    Paul Iribe (1883 – 1935) French Designer and Illustrator

    Paul Iribe was a French designer and illustrator known for his contributions to the Art Deco movement. Iribe’s modernism was influenced by 19th-century luxury, and he wrote a manifesto against modern art.Read More →

  • Jean-Paul Gaultier (b.1952) French Fashion Designer

    Jean-Paul Gaultier (b.1952) French Fashion Designer

    Before launching his label in 1976, Gaultier worked for Cardin, Jacques Esteirel, and Patou. From the onset, Gaultier was dubbed the ‘enfant terrible de Paris’.Read More →

  • Cecil Beaton (1904 – 1980) British interior designer

    Cecil Beaton (1904 – 1980) British interior designer

    The house he occupied until 1945 at Ashcombe, Wiltshire, near friend Edith Olivier was decorated with limited funds using exaggerated baroque furniture. The walls of the ‘Circus Bedroom’ were painted by visiting artist friends, including Rex Whistler and Oliver Messel, in a kind of Surrealistic overstatement.Read More →

  • Michael Roberts, Fashion Editor, Has Died at 75

    Michael Roberts, Fashion Editor, Has Died at 75

    Michael Roberts, the writer, editor, stylist, and photographer best known for his influential tenures as the fashion and style director of Vanity Fair magazine and the fashion editor of the New Yorker, has died at the age of 75. His work shaped the course of fashion through words, images, and illustrations, and he was appointed…

  • RIP – Issey Miyake, the Japanese fashion designer, dies 84.

    RIP – Issey Miyake, the Japanese fashion designer, dies 84.

    Issey Miyake died on August 5, 2022, in a Tokyo hospital of liver cancer. He founded the Miyake Design Studio in 1970.Read More →

  • Pierre Balmain (1914 – 1982) French fashion designer

    Pierre Balmain (1914 – 1982) French fashion designer

    Pierre Balmain (1914 – 1982) was a French fashion designer and the influential postwar fashion house Balmain founder. He described the art of dressmaking as “the architecture of movement,” and he was known for his sophistication and elegance. LEARN MORERead More →

  • Judith Leiber (1921 – 2018) American designer of handbags

    Judith Leiber  (1921 – 2018) American designer of handbags

    Judith Leiber (1921 – 2018) was a prolific designer whose fanciful minaudières had accessorised royalties, first ladies, and film stars, and entered the collections of art the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While her couture handbags—carried by celebrities such as Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor, Claudette Colbert, Björk, and Barbara Walters—are widely regarded as works of art,…

  • Armi Ratia (1912 – 1979) co-founder Marimekko

    Armi Ratia (1912 – 1979) co-founder Marimekko

    Ammi Maria Ratia (1912 – 1979) was the co-founder of Marimekko Oy (‘Mary’s frock’) Clothing was created to free women from 1950s’ tight, body-shaping dresses and move them into fresh, free-flowing dresses, skirts, trousers, and shirts.Read More →

  • Charles James inspiration for ski clothing

    Charles James was one of the first American fashion designers to gain recognition abroad. He created sculptural, moulded clothing using wire and padding. James designed a white satin jacket in 1938 that had channels filled with eiderdown padding.Read More →

  • Zandra Rhodes (b.1940), British fashion and textile designer

    Zandra Rhodes (b.1940), British fashion and textile designer

    Zandra Rhodes studied lithography and printing at Medway College before going on to the Royal College of Art to study textiles, graduating in 1964 during the height of the pop movement. She made a paper wedding dress that cost less than two shillings, motivated by this trend and the work of painter Roy Lichtenstein in…

  • Jaeger 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 clothes are not just fashion but function & lifestyle

    Jaeger  🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 clothes are not just fashion but function & lifestyle

    During the twentieth century, a movement arose that advocated for clothing to be worn as part of a sensible, healthy lifestyle rather than only for fashion. These concepts sprang from the work of nineteenth-century fashion reformers, in the same way, that English writer Edward Carpenter popularised the open-toed leather sandal for men. Read More →

  • Hattie Carnegie (1886 – 1956) American Clothing Designer, Jeweller

    Hattie Carnegie (1886 – 1956) American Clothing Designer, Jeweller

    Her family settled in the USA when she was in her teens and took the Carnegie name. In 1909, with a friend, she opened a tiny dress and hat shop, New York, known as Carnegie—Ladies’ Hatter.Read More →

  • Jean Patou (1880 – 1936) 🎩 Fashion Designer

    Jean Patou (1880 – 1936) 🎩 Fashion Designer

    One of Patou’s most famous customers was the French tennis champion Suzanne Lenglen, whom he dressed both on and off the court. This lean and active young woman epitomised the 1920s “new woman.” She created a furore in 1921 when she wore Patou’s knee-length pleated skirt, which revealed much of her legs when she ran.…

  • Geoffrey Beene (1927-2004) an American Fashion Designer

    Geoffrey Beene (1927-2004) an American Fashion Designer

    Geoffrey Beene (1927 – 2004) was an American fashion designer; born Haynesville, Louisiana. He was a premed student at Tulane University when he found himself sketching gowns when he became bored during his lectures. Along with Bill Blass, he was regarded as the Godfather of American sportswear. Read More →

  • Calvin Klein (b.1942) American fashion designer

    Calvin Klein (b.1942) American fashion designer

    Klein’s excellent, modest tailoring and beautiful sportswear lines, as well as his casual separates created in the finest linens, silks, and cashmere, had earned him a name by the mid-1970sRead More →

  • Caroline Broadhead ( b.1951 ) British Jewellery Designer

    Caroline Broadhead ( b.1951 ) British Jewellery Designer

    She used coloured ivory in her early work. In 1977, she started producing necklaces with bound thread. In 1978, she designed a wood- or silver-framed bracelet with tufts of nylon through which the hand could be squeezed; she was a leader in the new jewellery movement that began in 1968, and she used plastic, cloth,…

  • Pierre Imans – Dutch mannequin designer & manufacturer

    Pierre Imans – Dutch mannequin designer & manufacturer

    Before 1900, Imans was active in a mannequin factory in Paris. By the 1920s, his establishment was located at 10 rue de Crussol. He became known for his faultlessly finished imitation human skin in wax; in 1922, he developed ‘carnesine’ or ‘carnisine’ to simulate skin; developed a secret formula that was mainly plaster with gelatin;…

  • Emilio Pucci (1914 – 1992) Italian fashion designer

    Emilio Pucci (1914 – 1992) Italian fashion designer

    A leading figure in Italian fashion in the 1950s and 1960s, Pucci studied for a year at the University of Milan. In 1935 he travelled to the United States where he also studied, returning to the University of FlorenceRead More →

  • Naeem Khan Indian American Fashion Designer

    Naeem Khan Indian American Fashion Designer

    Naeem Khan is an Indian-American fashion designer who has dressed First Lady Michelle Obama, Queen Noor of Jordan, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, in his ornate and intricately detailed gowns.Read More →

  • Spell on You by Louis Vuitton – Design Elegance

    Spell on You by Louis Vuitton – Design Elegance

    The most thrilling of all games is passionate love. Master Perfumer Jacques Cavallier Belletrud was inspired to create a romantic, naughty fragrance that becomes one with the skin by the incredible tension oscillating between sensuality and complicity. Read More →

More design articles

❤️ Receive our newsletter

1 Comment

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.