Callot soeurs: Unsung icons of early Twentieth Century

Callot Soeurs was one of the most important Paris haute couture houses of the early twentieth century. Despite their extraordinary designs and dominant position in the industry a century ago, there is very little written documentation on their couture house. The motivation of this paper was to enhance the body of academic literature pertaining to Callot Soeurs for future generations of fashion historians and practitioners. The approach to develop this qualifying paper was twofold. The first section is a chronological history of the couture house. The second is a stylistic analysis of their designs, exploring the influence of Orientalism.;The paper is focused on the period 1897 to 1927, when the head designer of Callot Soeurs, Marie Gerber, died. This precipitated the decline of the house as a fashion leader. Another limitation was that there was substantially more coverage of Callot Soeurs in the New York Times than in fashion magazines, such as Vogue. Though French fashion magazines such as Les Modes and L'Officiel were accessible online, they did not contain much coverage of the house's collections.;A result of this study, we learn that the Callot Sisters were pioneers, as women who ran a business were relatively uncommon at the time. Another finding was that their work was exquisite, as they truly understood fabric and embroidery, appreciated a variety of Near Eastern and Asian art and textiles and applied this knowledge to their designs. In conclusion, the house of Callot was innovative, as their designs were the results of the creative play of East and West within the changed order of modern fashion in the early twentieth century.