“Sargent and Paris” at the Met is a must-see. The galleries are populated with a cast of characters—such as the lothario Dr. Pozzi outfitted in cardinal red—who come alive on life-size canvases through John Singer Sargent’s soul-capturing brush. The exhibition’s main draw is the portrait of Madame X, Madame Pierre Gautreau, née Virginie Amélie Avegno, as temptress. She stands tall and regal, her arm in a serpentine twist, dressed in a second-skin dress with one jeweled strap “wantonly” slipped off her porcelain-white shoulder. The painting caused a furor when it was first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1884 and Sargent subsequently retouched the portrait, returning the strap to its intended position. In 1916 he sold the work to the Met for a modest sum of £1,000, writing, “I suppose it is the best thing I have ever done.”
Back in 1882, a journalist wrote of La Gautreau that “a murmur of admiration greeted her wherever she went. The crowd opened, as if awe-struck with her beauty to let her pass.” These days the crowds cluster around her, but her power hasn’t waned. This could have something to do with the classical aspects of her presentation—the sitter was often compared to a marble sculpture—but also to style. The elegant simplicity of her Gautreau black gown hasn’t dated, in contrast to many of the fussier ensembles on view. This dress reveals the natural body rather than hiding it, in a way that feels modern. Having cycled through many emotions looking at the painting, I started to wonder who made Madame X’s dress?
In Deborah Davis’s 2003 book Strapless (a fascinating read), the author definitively attributes it to Maison Félix. The Metropolitan Museum’s Elizabeth L. Block, who has written extensively about the house, is slightly more cautious, writing that “The draw of Félix for women who traveled in artistic circles supports the view that Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau wears a Félix dress in John Singer Sargent’s famous painting of 1883–84, Madame X.” There is a contemporary report that links Gautreau to Maison Felix, renowned for its attenuated silhouettes.
Although a competitor with the House of Worth—which is now being celebrated with an exhibition in Paris—Maison Félix has been relegated to the sidelines of fashion history, this despite the house being called “a shrine” when it closed in 1901. Although Vogue was founded eight years after Madame X made her debut, it’s there I started digging deeper. A Félix dress was featured in the magazine’s first issue, dated December 17, 1892. Block’s article was a foundational source as were periodical and book archives. From these I have created an impressionistic time line of the history of the house and its intersection with Gautreau. As you’ll read, the roots of the house are in hair. Coiffeur Joseph-Augustin Escalier, known as Félix, a favorite of Empress Eugenie, established the business as in 1846 and it came into the hands of brother hair dressers Auguste Poussineau and Émile Martin Poussineau, about 11 years later. The duo added millinery and then dressmaking to their activities and became known for attiring not only aristocrats and fashion leaders but some of the most famous actresses of the day, chief among them Sarah Bernhardt.
1846
Maison Félix established at 13 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré by Joseph-Augustin Escalier.
“The rise of the Maison Felix was due to the Empress Eugenie. While still the Senorita Montijo…Eugenie was suddenly robbed by death of her usual hairdresser. There was to be a grand ball that night, and a messenger was dispatched to secure a substitute. He returned with a certain M. Joseph, who pleased her so well that, after a few trials, she told him she would appoint him her coiffure in ordinary. One morning her coupe stopped at his door, No. 13, on the Faubourg Saint Honoré, Eugenie glanced at the number and frowned. When she entered the shop, she said: ‘Monsieur, your number must be changed: it is useless to reckon on success with an unlucky number.’ So much influence had Eugenie that the emperor ordered the city authorities to change the number to 15, and for 40 years 15 it has remained. Eugenie objected also to the name Joseph and commanded him to change it to Felix…. Then she advised him to decorate his shop in mauve plush, because mauve was her favorite color, and she meant to make it the fashion. On these conditions she agreed to make Felix the fashion, and she succeeded, for his genius was very great. Felix II added millinery to the coiffure and dressmaking departments, while the third Felix, without royal patronage, has become the richest and most famous couturier in Paris.” —“Late Paris Fashions,” Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, May 13, 1900
1853
Félix is appointed the official hairdresser to Empress Eugénie.
“The first Felix was the coiffeur en titre at the court of Prince Louis Napoleon during his presidency, and when, later on, Napoleon became Emperor and married Mlle. de Montijo, the new Empress, delighted by her coiffeur’s masterly fashion of disposing her superb auburn tresses, soon granted him unprecedented eminence among coiffeurs.” —“Paris,” Vogue, January 18, 1894
c. 1857
Two hairdresser brothers, sons of a coiffeur, acquire Maison Félix. According to Elizabeth L. Block. the elder, Auguste Poussineau learned his trade in France, while the younger, Émile Martin Poussineau, trained in England in St. Petersburg. After the latter rejoined his brother in Paris, circa 1860, the decision was taken to add millinery—Jeanne Lanvin reportedly trained there—and then fashion, under the direction of Émile Martin (Félix III). Auguste Jean would become involved with real estate in Dinard, France.
1877
Here is a contemporary account of the popularity of Maison Félix millinery.
“Another style adapted by a celebrated French house—the ‘Maison Felix’—for receptions or full dress is nothing but a double wreath of flowers: These are large double pansies of velvet, or Marshal Neil roses, or the General Jacquimino rose, or some other large flower arranged in a double wreath ona wire band, and this forms the the hat, the back being formed of tulle veils of color, or black and white, which hang almost to the waist, This style is known as the ‘St. Felix,” and is very elegant.” —“About Bonnets,” The Ogle Country Press, November 17, 1877
1880
Virginie Amélie Avegno moved from New Orleans to Paris in 1867. A celebrated beauty, she married Pierre Gautreau in 1878 and became a fixture of Parisian society.
“Mme. Gautreau may be so much as four-and-twenty. Her head is classical, and she wears her naturally wavy hair in Grecian bandeaux…. At first sight one is literally stunned by her beauty, which her dress sets off. In shape and color the ensemble and the details are perfect. Mme. Gautreau is a statue of Canova transmitted into flesh and blood and bone and muscle, dressed by Félix, and coiffed by his assistant Émile. All her contours are harmonious…. I have seen her thrice in rapid succession. I know that she is the loveliest creature that I ever beheld coming out of the hands of a Paris dressmaker.” —“La Belle Americaine,” The Citizen, April 21, 1880
It turns out La Gautreau wasn’t the only one in Paris with a penchant for jeweled shoulder straps.
“Two American ladies made a sensation and were really the queens of beauty at the fete. Mme. Gautreau, née Avegne…. Her lovely golden hair was parted on her brow in a bandeaux a la Vierge. And for sole ornament she wore a diamond crescent that shone on her youth of twenty springs….. Madame Mitford […] was dressed in a white satin dress and what shoulders! […] and how richly they were replaced by those diamond shoulder-straps that were less brilliant than your eyes, madame.” —“American Beauties,” The Kalamazoo Gazette via The Parisien, March 25, 1880
1882
Mme. Gautreau continued to fascinate. Parisians also found the new Musée Grévin of interest. Among its display of wax figures was one of Sarah Bernhardt, outfitted in Maison Félix. As Marie-France Faudi, who has written a book about the Poussineaus said in a 2016 interview, “It was also a pivotal period in fashion, when the aristocracy was in decline and the bourgeoisie copied the models they saw in the theater. It’s the birth of great couturiers.”
“[Madame Gautreau’s] form is faultless. She is the Venus de Medici transmitted into flesh and blood and covered by the best man or woman dressmaker of the capital. We stood and looked at this, the loveliest person that ever came out of the hands of a Paris couturiere…. Her dress fitted her form like gloves should fit one’s hands.” —“Paris’ Lovely Woman,” Midland Empire News, October 28, 1882
“The style of this house is essentially Parisian, and the artist who directs it dresses equally well élégantes and actresses according to their different rôles. Mmes. Bernhardt, Théo, and the actresses at the Française all have their toilettes prepared here. M. Félix aims at making long waists, scanty skirts, small panniers, large simple trains, the only drapery of fulness being below the back of the waist, and thus he manages to give that slimness to the figure combined with a bunchy tournure which is the aim of fashionably dressed women at present: ‘une tornure élégante, une taille fine’ is their motto apparently.” —“Costumes in Paris,” The Weekly Times, March 11, 1882
1884
John Singer Sargent’s Madame X was revealed to the public at the opening of the Paris Salon in January. Scandal ensues.
1892
Émile Martin Poussineau co-founded Mutualité Maternelle. A “pioneer employer for maternity benefits, [he] argued that maternity protection was not alms or charity but a ‘right,’ ” note the authors of Maternalism Reconsidered: Motherhood, Welfare and Social Policy in the Twentieth Century. “With several other leaders of employers’ groups in the sewing, embroidery and trimming industries–trades with predominantly female employees,” they explain, “he established a system of maternity leaves funded with mutual insurance benefits and jointly administered by six employers and six employees.”
The first issue of Vogue, dated December 17, 1892, includes a Maison Félix dress.
1893
In fashion reportage and fiction, Vogue’s coverage of Maison Félix, emphasized its predominance and prestige among the gratin, be they royals by birth or so-called dollar princesses.
“The Grand Duchess Vladimir wore a dress made by Félix, of palest pink velvet, with a long train bordered by rouleaux of sable; two black wings powdered with diamonds in her hair, and a stomacher of diamonds and rubies.” —Vogue, March 18, 1893
“2:30 a.m. I have just returned from the Countess of Ludleigh’s grand dinner in a ruined new Felix gown, as well as in a state of exhaustion bordering upon hysteria.”
…“In America they say, ‘She has bought herself a duke.’ Here they say, ‘He was obliged to pawn his escutcheon to an American’…. The duke pocketed my two millions, began the restorations in the town and country-houses…and now when my Felix gowns arrive from Paris with a C.O.D. bill of a thousand or so, it is always the same: ‘So sorry, don’t you know, m’ dear; but it’s very awkward just at present. If you want your gowns without delay, just draw on Denver, y’ know, for a thousand or two!’ ”—“Which Is Preferable? In the Event of an International Marriage, Ought the Bride to Retain Absolute Control of Her Property? Decidedly Yes!”, by Nina, Vogue, September 29, 189
“‘When, to console him, I told him you were not worthy of him, he turned on me like a tiger. He left Paris because of you. He worshipped you body and soul. When I told him I would write to him of you, he kissed my hands devouringly. Does that sound like Félix gowns, Thenier pictures, and all such trash?’ ” —From “Entre Deux,” by Laura Spencer Porter, Vogue, June 7, 1894
1896
Vogue gave lavish descriptions of the designs of the house.
“Collets, or the short capes of this season, differ from those of last year by being still more elaborately trimmed, and, it is to be taken for granted, are as much more costly. One of these creations of Félix is indeed charming. If you will imagine a short black satin, pointed yoke, overwrought with surpassingly fine steel and jet paillettes, and attached to it a white satin round cape, lined with white satin, reaching the waist, with a full straight flounce of white gauze with satin edge falling over. Over this, again, a very light beautiful Chantilly flounce, a trifle shorter, hangs gracefully. On the high white satin collar are feather swirls of white chiffon, intermixed with plisses of cream-white lace, and in front delicious bunches of Nice violets. The cape is fastened very simply by a hook-and-eye, hidden under the yoke. —“What She Wears,” Vogue, April 2, 1896
1897
“Every fashionable woman is interested in any gown or wrap that emanates from the Maison Felix.” —“Fashion Tips for Christmastide,” by Marcella, The San Francisco Call and Post, December 12, 1897
1900
At the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, Maison Félix took on the creation of the Palace du Mode, a series of vignettes of fashion through the centuries.
“M. Felix has completed a remarkable piece of work…. M. Felix has brought to life fashions of generation after generation. He has given a complete history of costumes worn by women of many centuries….. The visitor sees a series of tableaux; he passes from one epoch to another. The figures which wear the beautiful gowns are gracious, living! Each one has been sculptured in the ateliers of ‘Le Palais Du Costume,’ and after living models. Moreover, each has been placed in its proper setting, with rigorous attention to the authenticity of every detail.” —“The First Month in Paris,” The Plain Dealer, May 20, 1900
“The figures are life-size and most carefully modeled, and, so far as realism has been carried, that where the stuffs for the costumes were not to be found ready to hand, they have been, regardless of cost, woven for the purpose after the best specimens preserved in the museums.”—“Walks through the Paris Exhibition, 1900,” Western Daily Press, April 25, 1900
“No such waxworks ever before were seen. The art of the modeler, the scene painter, the stage manager, the historian, the archaeologist, the collector, the historical romancer and the portrait panter are employed together not only to illustrate the history of costume, but to bring back the daily life of bygone centuries.” —“ ‘The Street of Algiers’ ”—The Midway of the Paris Exposition,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 8, 1900
“Foremost among the great fashion kings of today stands Felix, the master sartorial artist of Paris," enthused The Macon Telegraph, which published a letter from the couturier, quoted from below.
“…this year has not created a style truly new and original. Several dressmakers have endeavored to restore to favor the crinoline of olden time, but the good taste of women have shipwrecked these attempts. How much more suggestive in effect are the present styles which, while veiling the charms of women, permit one to guess audaciously what one does not see. . . . To speak truly, and that is always my principle, La Mode is a meaningless word. Every elegant woman should have a style for herself, and should not severely follow that of the moment, and that is what I wished to show by my Palais du Costume which was the great success of the exposition.” —“Vive La Mode! Felix, Its King, Tells the Ladies Something of Art in the Twentieth Century,” The Macon Telegraph, October 28, 1900
1901
Maison Félix closes its doors, prompting reminisces.
“One feature of the establishment was a room filled with clay figures to display the last fashions in ball gowns. The electric lights were so arranged as to exactly duplicate the light effects of a ball room. Most of the dresses were however, displayed on living models of whom M. Felix retained a large staff, They were all young and beautiful women of perfect figure. The gowns made by M. Felix cost on average of $3,000 each, although there were many the price of which exceeded $10,000. ‘There is absolutely no limit as to the cost of gowns,’ M. Felix told a visitor.” —“Condolence for Aged Felix,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 30, 1901
“Since the inauguration of ‘Openings,’ those semi-annual events that each spring and fall illustrate freely to all who choose to gaze at the domestic and foreign edicts of fashion, the name of ‘Felix’ has been talismanic. The garment might not be enticing to the eye, nor even appropriate to the figure, yet if it bore the label ‘Felix’ it defied all criticism, in was the sin qua non of style.” —“Sing a Song of Seasons…,” by Tillie May Forney, Table Talk, 1901
“Women the world over are mourning the retirement of Felix, the greatest dressmaking artist of the present day. Royalty, even, is reported to have shed tears over the close of the Maison Felix. […] Felix closed his work rooms early in the year. It was rumored that he lost money in financing the Palais de Costumes at the exposition…. When Felix was shown the dispatch from New York referring to his reported bankruptcy, he said: ‘I have decided to retire from business after working hard for 40 years and amassing a fortune of 6,000,000 francs, with which I intend to retire to the country for life.’ ” —“Royalty and Queens of the Stage Mourn the End of Maison Felix, A Gown Paradise,” Star Tribune, July 5, 1901
