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Works of: Charles James

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Works of: Charles James

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77.89.2

Charles James

Date: c. 1935

Medium: Silk satin

Object: Evening dress

Object number: 77.89.2

96.5.1

Charles James

Date: 1936

Medium: Wool tweed

Object: Coat

Object number: 96.5.1

77.89.3

Charles James

Date: 1937

Medium: Ivory silk organza and satin, pink silk and faille, and grosgrain ribbon

Object: Ensemble

Object number: 77.89.3

71.265.13

Charles James

Date: 1940

Medium: Red silk crepe

Object: Evening dress

Object number: 71.265.13

77.230.1

Charles James

Date: 1947

Medium: Black velvet and purple silk taffeta

Object: Evening set

Object number: 77.230.1

70.1.1

Charles James

Date: c.1952

Medium: Ivory silk satin; boning

Object: Evening dress

Object number: 70.1.1

91.241.126

Charles James

Date: 1951

Medium: Black velvet and silk satin

Object: Ballgown

Object number: 91.241.126

2010.27.1

Samuel Winston

Date: 1952-1954

Medium: Silk faille

Object: Cocktail dress

Object number: 2010.27.1

P77.1.7

Charles James

Date: 1953

Medium: Pink silk taffeta, silk satin, and boning

Object: Ballgown

Object number: P77.1.7

91.241.134

Charles James

Date: 1954

Medium: Silk satin

Object: Evening dress

Object number: 91.241.134

91.241.136

Charles James

Date: 1954-1955

Medium: Silk chiffon, silk satin, netting, and boning

Object: Ballgown

Object number: 91.241.136

91.241.129

Charles James

Date: 1954

Medium: Satin

Object: Evening gown

Object number: 91.241.129

91.241.127

Charles James

Date: 1955

Medium: Silk taffeta and netting

Object: Evening dress

Object number: 91.241.127

92.145.1

Charles James

Date: 1955

Medium: Red silk with gold metallic threads

Object: Suit

Object number: 92.145.1

P87.31.11

Charles James

Date: 1955

Medium: Pink taffeta, black velvet, and pink satin

Object: Evening ensemble

Object number: P87.31.11

91.241.131

Charles James

Date: 1956-1957

Medium: Silk crepe

Object: Evening dress

Object number: 91.241.131

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Artist Info

Charles James

Charles James was a designer’s designer. Although greatly admired by other couturiers, such as Christian Dior and Jacques Fath, he was unknown to the public at large. Indeed, he was often on the verge of bankruptcy, despite creating expensive clothes for some of the world’s most discriminating clients, such as Mrs. Randolph Hearst and Millicent Rogers. A brilliant designer, but a difficult and tormented personality, he made fewer than 1000 garments over the course of a 50-year career. There are many stories of his eccentricities: once, for example, two clients wanted the same dress, so—like King Solomon—he cut it in half. The extreme rarity and originality of his existing garments makes them among the most valuable objects in museum costume collections.

Born in England, James began his career as a milliner in Chicago, working under the name Charles Boucheron. Then he moved to New York, where he also began designing dresses. The influence of millinery can be seen in the way he juxtaposed rigid geometrical forms and fluid folds. Many couturiers of the 1950s incorporated boning and padding into their dresses, but James went much further, often creating an elaborate infrastructure, encasing the wearer’s torso. A virtuoso with fabric, he would then create a superstructure of artfully-draped silk and satin.

James is best-known for the intricately-cut, often asymmetrical ball gowns that he designed in the 1940s and 1950s, which sold at the time for about $1500, and can easily fetch 100 times that figure today. A fashion journalist described one evening gown as “so intricately shaped, so marvelously massed into drapery that every angle presents a new silhouette.” The Museum at FIT owns several gowns that James designed for the performer, Lisa Kirk, as well as a beautiful example of his most famous dress, the Abstract or Four-Leaf Clover ball gown. His quilted, padded evening jackets are also justly famous. Although best known for his ability to “sculpt” with fabric, James was also a brilliant colorist, masterfully juxtaposing unexpected colors, such as golden yellow and ice blue.