FAMOUS DRESS DESIGNER

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 8 January 1927, Page 17

FAMOUS DRESS DESIGNER

DEATH OF J. P. WORTH. The death has been announced by cable from Paris of Jean Phillipe Worth, the dress designer, and a, ead of the famous house of Worth, which is one of the acknowledged leaders of the world’s fashions. The house was founded by an Englishman, Charles Frederick Worth, who was born in 1825 in Bourne, Lincolnshire, and was the father of the late Jean Phillipe Worth, a naturalised Frenchman. In 1846 the original Worth went to Paris, where Redfern had then just begun to make a name as a designer of the first tailor-mades and sports clothes for women. Worth, establishing himself as the first women’s dressmaker, and designing essentially feminine clothes, was in direct opposition to Redfern. He may he called' the inventor _of the _ tea gown, for these essentially feminine garments with their long, flowing lines and multiplication of trimmings, were the type in which Worth excelled. Among famous patrons of the house of Worth w'ere Queen Alexandra. the Empress Eugenie, and Mrs Langtry. Worth was always commissioned to make Queen Alexandra’s tea gowns. Paris and the whole world has since its inception followed the dictates of Worth regarding fashions of the elaborate and picturesque order. When Worth died in 1895. two sons, Jean and Gaston, were left to carry on the business, which has now two bouses, one in Paris and the other in Hanover Square, London.