thumb|Bertin's shop front at 26 rue de Richelieu, c.1805

thumb|<div align="center">Marie Antoinette de Lorraine-Habsbourg and Her Children by [[Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun (1787)<BR/>Versailles, Musée national du Château et des Trianons</div>The Queen is shown in an up-to-date outfit created by Bertin.]]

Marie-Jeanne "Rose" Bertin (2 July 1747, Abbeville, Picardy, France – 22 September 1813, Épinay-sur-Seine) was a French fashion merchant and businesswoman. She was particularly noted for her work with Queen Marie Antoinette. Bertin was the first celebrated French fashion designer and is widely credited with having brought fashion and haute couture to the forefront of popular culture.

Biography

Marie-Jeanne Bertin was the daughter of Nicolas Bertin (d. 1754) and Marie-Marguerite Méquignon, and spent her childhood in St Gilles in Picardie. She was the sixth of seven children born to the couple. Bertin's family was of small means; her mother worked as a nurse, which at the time was a profession with very low salary and status, and the financial situation became even worse after the death of her father, who had worked in the local constabulary.

Early career

Bertin's home town of Abbeville had a tradition of textile manufacture, reaching back to 1665 when Louis XIV's finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert established a manufacture of fine cloth in the Spanish and Dutch style in the area. Bertin probably acquired knowledge of textiles from a young age. When she was nine years old, Bertin was apprenticed to a fashion merchant in Abbeville, Victoire Barbier, who appears to have been a distant aunt.

In the mid-1760s Bertin moved to Paris, where she became apprenticed to a successful fashion merchant, Mademoiselle Pagelle, with clients among the aristocracy. Marie Antoinette commissioned Bertin to make her robes for the Coronation of Louis XVI, which were reportedly so heavy that they had to be carried to Rheims from Paris on a stretcher.

Marie Antoinette was so enamoured of her fashion merchant that she abolished the historic custom of dressing in public in a formal levée ceremony, choosing instead to be dressed in private by Bertin. Twice a week, Bertin would present her newest creations to the queen and spend hours discussing them. The queen adored her wardrobe and was passionate about every detail, and Bertin, as her milliner, became her confidante and friend. Her position as the designer to the queen also secured her role as the leading fashion designer of the French aristocracy and, as French fashion was the leader in Europe, the central figure of European fashion.

Called "Minister of Fashion" by her detractors, Bertin designed almost every new dress commissioned by the queen. Bertin clothed the queen from 1770 until her deposition in 1792. Bertin became a powerful figure at court, and she witnessed—and sometimes effected—profound changes in French society. Her large, ostentatious gowns ensured that their wearer occupied at least three times as much space as their male counterpart, thus making the woman a more imposing presence. Her creations also established France as the center of the fashion industry, and from then on, dresses made in Paris were sent to London, Venice, Vienna, Saint Petersburg and Constantinople. The influence of Bertin's works are said to have established the worldwide reputation of French couture.

In the mid-18th century, French women had begun to "pouf" (raise) their hair with pads and pomade and wore oversized luxurious gowns. Bertin used and exaggerated the leading modes of the day, and created poufs for Marie Antoinette with heights up to three feet. The pouf fashion reached such extremes that it became a period trademark, along with decorating the hair with ornaments and objects which showcased current events. Working with Léonard Autié, the queen's hairdresser, Bertin created a coiffure that became the rage all over Europe: hair would be accessorized, stylized, cut into defining scenes, and modeled into shapes and objects—ranging from recent gossip to nativities to husbands' infidelities, to French naval vessels such as the Belle Poule, to the pouf aux insurgents in honour of the American Revolutionary War. The queen's most famous coif was the "inoculation" pouf that she wore to publicize her success in persuading the king to be vaccinated against smallpox. remained in vogue until the appearance of Fashion magazines.

With the queen's patronage, Bertin's name became synonymous with the sartorial elegance and excess of Versailles. Bertin's close relationship with the queen provided valuable background into the social and political significance of fashion at the French court. The frequent meetings between the queen and her couturière were met, however, with hostility from the poorer classes, given Bertin's high prices: her gowns and headdresses could easily cost twenty times what a skilled worker of the time earned in a year.

During Marie Antoinette's imprisonment, Bertin continued to receive orders from her former prized customer, for much smaller, almost negligible ribbons and simple alterations. She was to provide the former queen's mourning outfit following the execution of Louis XVI, recalling a dream that Marie Antoinette had had years before of her favorite milliner handing her ribbons that all turned to black.

French Revolution

The French Revolution did not immediately diminish her business despite the emigration of many of her clients abroad, and she continued to be in favour of the queen, though the bills were significantly lower.

According to Léonard Autié, he, Bertin and Henriette Campan collectively contributed to the secret negotiations between the queen and Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau by informing her about political gossip and public opinion and the fear that Mirabeau would ally himself with the Duke of Orléans. Peuchet took several liberties in his account of Bertin's life, including inventing love affairs. He used the name Rose to associate the real figure of Bertin with the romanticized image of fashion merchants in the popular imagination.

See also

  • Le Sieur Beaulard
  • Mademoiselle Alexandre
  • Madame Eloffe
  • Marie Madeleine Duchapt
  • Turquerie

References

Bibliography

  • Chrisman-Campbell, Kimberly, Fashion Victims: Dress at the Court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015).
  • Fraser, Antonia. Marie Antoinette: The Journey (London: Phoenix Press, 2006).
  • Guennec, Catherine. La modiste de la reine (Paris: Éditions Jean Claude Lattes, 2004).
  • Haru Crowston, Clare. Credit, Fashion, Sex: Economies of Regard in Old Regime France (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013).
  • Langlade, Émile. Rose Bertin: Creator of Fashion at the Court of Marie Antoinette (London: John Long, 1913).
  • Sapori, Michelle. Rose Bertin: ministre des modes de Marie-Antoinette (Paris: Regard: Institut français de la mode, 2003).
  • Weber, Caroline. Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution (London: Aurun, 2007).