par Pouillard, Véronique 
Référence Revue Belge d'histoire contemporaine, XXXVI, 3-4, page (409-452)
Publication Publié, 2006
Référence Revue Belge d'histoire contemporaine, XXXVI, 3-4, page (409-452)
Publication Publié, 2006
Article révisé par les pairs
| Résumé : | During the interwar period, in a context of protectionism and textile crisis, Paris remained the only acknowledged international fashion centre. In the production of women clothing haute couture was dominant. The export of French models determined fashion tastes. In France, but also in the import countries, haute couture had a limited economic visibility, but its cultural influence on textile industries as a whole - at the time still one of the most important sectors in the Belgian economy - was very strong. The control of the distribution of the models by France and the activities of the importers have been understudied, mostly due to a lack of sources. The archives of the Belgian Union Chamber for Haute Couture can help overcome this. They contain the correspondence of the two most important employer unions of both countries (the Union Chambers for Belgian and French Couture), through which the transmission and reproduction of the models can be studied, also on a juridical level. It appears that there were circuits of legal reproduction and that the importers had concerns of their own. Owing to its geographical proximity to Paris, Belgium received more favourable terms of sale than provincial France. Hence, Belgian enterprises attempted to create a reproduction, fabrication and distribution network of their own to put Belgium in the fashion vanguard. |
