Charvet

Tag: charvet

by Tom Stubbs
12 June 2010 - Online exclusive

Charvet, Place Vendome, Paris

It may pain more patriotic style enthusiasts to know a Frenchmen invented the shirt. Christophe Charvet’s Dad was “keeper of the wardrobe” for Napoleon Bonaparte. From this elevated vantage point over men’s style, he founded the first shirt maker and founded his first shop, dedicated to shirts, in Paris in 1838. Before Charvet, there was no such establishment; shirts were previously shapeless affairs, bearing little relation to the body, and were run up by toothless women behind closed doors. (NB. Absolutely the correct place for toothless women). By applying tailoring techniques to shirt construction, Charvet revolutionised the shirt. He also invented the turn down collar that we wear today. While Charvet’s pieces are an exclusive luxury, their endeavours have touched any man who dons a shirt, and one should give credence to this Parisian institutions significance. Charvet has occupied various premises at Place Vendôme since 1877, its current location is at number 28 in a converted bank. It’s been an internationally renowned destination for men’s sartorial elegance for over a century.

Paris’s best dressed were involved from the start however, and by 1839 Charvet had garnered the title of official shirt maker to the Jockey Club, a group of dedicated artiso’ poseurs, far more concerned about dressing well than riding horses. By the time of the Paris World’s Fair in 1855, Charvet was already attracting the attention of globally esteemed customers. King to be, Edward VII, was a huge fan, giving Charvet the royal warrant of ‘Cheimisier’.

Charvet’s role-call of patrons, lists dozens of heads of state and endless eminent writers and actors. Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh and Noel Coward were all Charvet devotees, as were Cocteau, Debussy and Matisse. The likes of King Farouk I of Egypt, Georges Pompidou, and John F. Kennedy also loved a bit of Charvet under their jackets. It’s a remarkably formidable list on any level, let alone a shirt-based one. Jean Cocteau The shop now comprises five floors of finery, including one dedicated to scarves and ties and another to ready-to-wear. For a bespoke shirt 27 measurements are taken and advice is offered by Charvet’s experts on how to achieve the desired look (according not only to taste, but physical form). A full toile in white cotton is made, then after a second fitting, one of the 4,500 fabrics available are selected by the client with guidance from the team. The process of perfecting your shirt style can take decades, as sophisticated design nuances and finishes are indulged and discovered.

Charvet is also notable in the luxury arena for remaining privately owned. When the family proprietors wished to sell the company in 1965, Charvet supporter, General De Gaulle, helped Denis Colban, a supplier of fabric to Charvet, to purchase the business. Colban made some significant changes (aside of painting everything inside the shop with black varnish), including expanding the remit of what Charvet would produce into more varied and flamboyant style areas. He also led Charvet into producing a ready-to-wear range that retains the ethos of the house. Denis would explain his intentions very clearly. “I do not feel bound by fashion trends. Every object, every fabric, every carpet, every price ticket or button or window display, is precisely what I want, what I like, what I consider to be in good taste. If a woman wants just one pair of shoes in a slightly different colour from what we have in stock, if a man wants a billfold a quarter of an inch wider or narrower than ours, we immediately say yes. Of course, such special orders are expensive, but our customers don’t come to us to save money – they come to us to get precisely what they want”.

What remains important to Charvet’s customers?

“To be able to have the proper execution and advice, they grow into what they really want. Customers develop their own signature look; businessmen come with ideas, then evolve into more subtle looks. We enjoy their bravery”A charming salute from the Frenchman, to lovers of shirts worldwide. Men in turn should hail the work of Charvet, possibly France’s greatest ever invention.

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Tags: Charvet, Cocteau, Debussy, Evelyn Waugh, Matisse, Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde

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The City of Light

by Nick Foulkes
8 March 2010

There I was lounging on my day bed when a call came through from Bernard Arnault. OK it was not from Bernie himself, rather one of his palanquin bearers, inviting me to Paris to cast my eye over the new Christian Dior collection. I wavered. My visits to the various outposts of Bernardo’s empire have not always gone that smoothly, in fact I don’t recall one that has yet run without trammel. I wavered and my interlocutor, clearly sensing my indecision, asked whether, while I was flaneuring around Gay Paree doing my impression of Maurice Chevalier, I wanted to see Victoire de Castellane.

The answer was an immediate yes. You see while Mr Galliano is indeed a very talented fashion designer and, so I understand, a fellow worshipper at the shrine to shirting that is Charvet (any friend of Charvet and all that…); Victoire de Castellane, the creative force behind Dior jewellery and watches, is a genius and what is more she is a descendant of one of my great heroes Boniface de Castellane.

Boni was one of the greatest Frenchmen ever to utter the language of Molière and Racine; he married the daughter of one of late 19th century New York’s most colourful Gordon Gekkos, a man called Jay Gould, and did his best to empty the Gould coffers by entertaining on a scale that made even the shindigs of Emperor Nero seem sotto voce. Boni raised conspicuous consumption, a term invented around this time by Thorstein Veblen, to artistic levels that few have since been able to match.

His descendant Victoire is a chip off the old block; with more taste in the smallest of her ringed fingers that many soi-disant creative directors. Ever since I had spoken to her on Mr Alexander Graham Bell’s new-fangled ‘telephone’ about the beauty of Tiger’s Eye watchdials (and there are very few people with whom one can have that sort of conversation these days) I have been looking forward to making her acquaintance.

And so, having given Mr Galliano’s frocks the once over, having signalled my approval to the chief, and having paid my respects to my new best friend the Sartorialist who was busy snapping away at the various types attending the dėfilė I was in the back of a mafia-spec Mercedes flying over the Parisian cobbles to Victoire’s studio, where I enjoyed a delightful hour’s conversation about everything from the design of cowboy boots during the 1950s to the difficulty in getting woven gold ‘Milanese’ watch bracelets of sufficient suppleness these days. I am pleased to say that we agreed on all important matters such as the exigency of the work of Gay Frères and the whimsical charm of Meisner’s architecture. Moreover she was sweet enough to compliment me on my rough turquoise and textured gold cufflinks from Nardi.

And then, with the satisfaction of a man who has put in a good honest day’s toil, I headed for supper at the Relais of the Plaza Athenee – the Relais is a little piece of the 1920s and 1930s on the Avenue Montaigne where it is possible to eat great classic food that has not been rendered overly fashionable. Then, pausing only for an hour or so to enjoy a Cohiba Siglo VI on the hotel’s charming cigar terrace (every hotel should have one), I called it a night. I needed to be well-rested and in tip-top condition for the busy morning ahead of me. As luck would have it the charming Anne-Marie Colban of Charvet had called to say that my shirts were ready and as I happened to be in Paris I wanted to see how the new monogram we had selected on my last visit to the City of Light, had turned out. You can understand that I wanted to be in full possession of my faculties; although such was the sense of mounting expectation that I found that I could hardly sleep a wink.