Georges Camille Doeuillet - Parisian Fashion Designer - 1920

Afternoon dress of white brocade.

Afternoon dress of white brocade. The sleeves and hem are of sealskin.

A Note of Quiet Dignity in Rendering the Most Acceptable of the New Fashions Results in Models of Elegance and Practicability

A quiet, distinguished note, no matter how extreme the fashion, is characteristic of Doeuillet. His dresses are eminently wearable and adapted to daily life, not theatrical effects.

There is no definitely established style for tailleurs here, different lines being equally shown, although there is, I think, a preference for short, straight models of duvetyn, serge or velvet.

Coats and skirts of the same stuff in contrasting colors are fancied. A red duvetyn coat fringed with monkey has a black skirt. A short black velvet jacket, trimmed in red with tiny side pockets, is worn with a plaid woolen skirt, red with raised lines of black and white.

These short coats are further varied by fastening in front under numerous buttons and forming a flat cape at the back just covering the sleeves. A model answering this description is beige velours de laine; the skirt has a couple of box-pleats at the sides, and the collar is a seal scarf.

Nothing could be plainer or smarter than the following costume of burnt orange sacking: the skirt finely pleated at the sides; the straight jacket, embroidered around the edges in tiny orange soutache fastens at the throat with a sealskin collar.

Of a totally different type is a skirty three-quarter blue serge, its many gores edged with black silk braid, while a very long mouse corduroy coat opens over a vest of squirrel which also makes the collar.

Coat-dresses present the usual austere lines here; one rather dashing and military model of red duvetyn with a high turned over seal collar is embroidered across the front in black and gold passementeries (we used to call them Brandeburgs) ending in tassels.

Another very long-waisted brick serge frock, the top worked in beads, with a huge beaver neck-piece has detached panels over the skirt caught in at the hem.

The favorite model of black cashmere would be all perforated embroidery over white, only each band is edged by a plain loose bias of the stuff, standing out.

The outline of the dresses is remarkable for its neatness and clearness. Even for the evening, no muslin capes or tunics blur the well-defined, sweeping silhouette. The very panels used so extensively are often caught in again under the hem.

Fur is little advocated, barring an occasional collar. Favorite stuffs are heavy enough to fall gracefully; velvet, moiré, brocaded satin and the thick, dull crepe marocain.

This typical afternoon dress attracted great attention by its perfection of line: of black crepe marocain, the waistline is well over the hips, the plain blouse has tight, long sleeves and buttons all the way up the front to the high collar; a flat tunic at the back would also cover the back only it is folded over in shell like draperies at either hip.

So conservative is the line that it recalls very much the robe-chemise. A model of black velvet, opening over a vest of pink duvetyn, has the back and front of the skirt lined with the same pink, detached but turned in at the hem.

A good many wide, loose sashes mark the hip rather than the waistline; a loose sea-green moiré has one; so has a black velvet, only here the belt is of periwinkle blue; a band of many-hued embroidery, let in around the middle of the skirt, is repeated in a deep oval yoke.

A lovely dress, a combination of dust-colored panne and chiffon, has for a change floating panels; to begin with, the rounded upper half of the bodice is muslin, the rest panne; the square, foot wide panels are muslin hemmed in velvet; where the stuffs join, both on blouse and tunic, we have a fairylike embroidery of raffia disks and silk.

For the evening there is the most beautiful collection of gowns draped in long sweeping lines I have ever seen: chiffon velvet and panne predominate by far, metal stuffs and beaded tissues follow. The best shades are silver, many mauves, and turquoise, the most effective color of all by artificial light.

The graceful, long sheath line, ending in a narrow double train, is carried out in the palest mauve panne cut low in a V, the front of the gown extensively beaded.

A sheath of jet, also pointed, is slit to the waist at the sides, showing a foundation of brocade. A third straight model of gold and lamé in Egyptian design, is much longer in the back, thus forming a square train.

An idea which excited much interest was that of a low black velvet bodice worn with a filmy lace over gold lamé skirt: a connection was established between the two materials by means of velvet streamers or loops lined with gold that were almost trains.

Velvet sheaths prove the foundation of many novel draperies; cloth of silver swathed over one side of a black fourreau ends in a wisp of a train; at each side hang loops of silver weighted down with jet. Deep turquoise blue panne is the lining over which is thrown a pointed net tunic striped in iridescent beads.

"Doeuillet" in the Garment Manufacturers’ Index, New York: The Allen-Nugent Co. Publishers, Vol. II, No. 2, September 1920: 29.

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