Lucy Christiana, Lady Duff-Gordon (née Sutherland) (13 June 1863 – 20 April 1935) was a leading fashion designer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, best known as "Lucile", her professional name. Lucile, the first British-based designer to achieve international acclaim, was a widely acknowledged innovator in couture styles as well as in fashion industry public relations. Apart from originating the "mannequin parade", a precursor to the modern fashion show, and training the first professional models, she launched liberating slit skirts and low necklines, popularized less restrictive corsets, and promoted alluring, pared-down lingerie. Opening branches of her London house, Lucile Ltd, in Paris, New York City, and Chicago, her business became the first global couture brand, dressing a trend-setting clientele of royalty, nobility and stage and film personalities. Lucy Duff Gordon is also remembered as a survivor of the sinking of Titanic in 1912, and as the losing party in the precedent-setting 1917 contract law case of Wood v. Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, in which Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo wrote the opinion for New York's highest court, the New York Court of Appeals.
Fashion career
In order to support herself and her daughter after the end of her first marriage, Lucy began working as a dressmaker from home. By 1894 she had opened Maison Lucile in Old Burlington St., in the heart of the fashionable West End of London.[10] In 1897 a larger shop was opened at 17 Hanover Square, before a further move (c. 1903–04) to 14 George St. In 1903 the business was incorporated as "Lucile Ltd" and the following year moved to 23 Hanover Square.
Lucile Ltd served a wealthy clientele including aristocracy, royalty and theatre stars. The business expanded with salons opening in New York City, Paris, and Chicago in 1910, 1911 and 1915 respectively, becoming the first leading couture house with full-scale branches in three countries.
Lucile was most famous for her lingerie, tea gowns, and evening wear. The dress illustrated at right typifies a classically draped style often found in Lucile designs. It was originally designed by Lucy Duff Gordon in Paris for Lucile Ltd's spring 1913 collection and later especially adapted for London socialite Heather Firbank and other well-known clients, including actress Kitty Gordon and dancer Lydia Kyasht of the Ballets Russes. The example illustrated was worn by Miss Firbank and is preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
She is also widely credited with training the first professional fashion models (called mannequins) as well as staging the first runway or "catwalk" style shows. These affairs were theatrically inspired, invitation-only, tea-time presentations, complete with a stage, curtains, mood-setting lighting, music from a string band, souvenir gifts and programmes. Another innovation in the presentation of her collections was what she called her "emotional gowns." These dresses were given descriptive names, influenced by literature, history, popular culture and Lucile's interest in the psychology and personality of her clients.
The designer was especially noted for her luxuriously layered and draped garments in soft fabrics of blended pastel colors, often accentuated with sprays of hand-made silk flowers, which became a hallmark of her work. However, Lucile also created simple, smart tailored suits and daywear.
Some well-known clients, whose clothing influenced many when it appeared in early films, on stage and in the press, included: Irene Castle, Lily Elsie, Gertie Millar, Gaby Deslys, Billie Burke, and Mary Pickford. Lucile costumed numerous theatrical productions including the London première of Franz Lehár's operetta The Merry Widow (1907), the Ziegfeld Follies revues on Broadway (1915–21), and the D. W. Griffith silent movie Way Down East (1920). Her fashions were also frequently featured in Pathé and Gaumont newsreels of the 1910s and 20s, and she appeared in her own weekly spot in the British newsreel "Around the Town" (c. 1919–21).
Early Lucile Ltd sketches, archived at the Victoria and Albert Museum, provide evidence that in 1904 the salon employed at least one sketch artist to record Lucy Duff Gordon's designs for in-house use. As demands grew on the designer's time, especially in the United States during World War I, she was aided by sketch artists Robert Kalloch, Roger Bealle, Gilbert Clarke, Howard Greer, Shirley Barker, Travis Banton and Edward Molyneux, who created ideas based on the "Lucile look." In her memoir, the designer credited her corps of assistants for their contributions to the success of the New York branch of Lucile Ltd. Many of these assistants' drawings were published in the press, signed "Lucile," though occasionally the signature of the artist, such as Molyneux, appeared. It was general practice for couture houses to use professional artists to execute drawings of designs as they were being created, as well as of their own ideas for each season's output and for individual clients. These drawings were overseen by Lucile who often critiqued them, adding notes, instructions, dates and sometimes her own signature or initials, indicating she approved the design.
Like many couturiers, Lucile designed principally on the human form. Her surviving personal sketchbooks at the V&A, although revealing often incomplete drawings, demonstrate an adroit skill and indicate her exceptional understanding of color. However, she considered the work of the professional artists she employed superior to her own and preferred their use in publication. Surviving Lucile Ltd sketches indicate numerous artists of varying talent, and these are often mis-attributed to Lucile herself. Howard Greer admitted in his autobiography that the sketches he and his colleagues executed were often confused interpretations of the Lucile style that did not match their mentor's vision. Moreover, he claimed customers were not always pleased by the actual dresses created from the sketches he and the other assistants submitted.
Unprecedented for a leading couturiere, Lucy Duff Gordon promoted her collections journalistically. In addition to a weekly syndicated fashion page for the Hearst newspaper syndicate (1910–22), she wrote monthly columns for Harper's Bazaar and Good Housekeeping (1912–22). A Hearst writer ghosted the newspaper page after 1918 but the designer herself penned the Good Housekeeping and Harper's Bazaar features throughout their duration, although the responsibility of producing a regular piece proved difficult and she missed several deadlines. Lucile fashions also appeared regularly in Vogue, Femina, Les Modes, L'art et la Mode and other leading fashion magazines (1910-1922). Along with Hearst publications, Lucile contributed to Vanity Fair, Dress, the The Illustrated London News, The London Magazine, Pearson's Magazine and Munsey's.
In addition to her career as a couturière, costumier, journalist and pundit, Lucile took significant advantage of opportunities for commercial endorsement, lending her name to advertising for shoes, brassieres, perfume and other luxury apparel and beauty items. Among the most adventurous of her licensing ventures were a two-season lower-priced, mail-order fashion line for Sears, Roebuck & Co. (1916–17), which promoted her clothing in special de luxe catalogues, and a contract to design interiors for limousines and town cars for the Chalmers Motor Co., later Chrysler Corporation (1917).
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