Charles James: Genius Deconstructed

In 1926, at age nineteen, James started his fashion career as a milliner, or hat maker, in Chicago. His daring designs quickly gained attention both locally and in New York. Although James remained in hat making for only a few years, the skills he acquired as a milliner stayed with him throughout his career.

James designed this cocktail-length dress in 1950. Four years later, he created a floor-length version for Mrs. William Randolph Hearst Jr. Although most fashion historians consider Mrs. Hearst’s gown to be James’s first four-leaf-clover skirt, this dress is similarly constructed, suggesting that James worked with the concept for years prior to creating the more famous version.

In 1934, as James’s reputation as a dressmaker was growing, his mother arranged for a showing of his collection at Marshall Field and Company. Chicago’s socialites “came to see their insouciant young friend, whose hats were thought clever but whose dresses were another thing,” wrote Elizabeth Ann Coleman. James recalled it as “the biggest success I really ever had,” an unsurprising sentiment considering the value he placed on the public presentation of his work. His notes state that he created this garment, a version of a 1931 design, for the Field’s event

James launched this mermaid-like gown early in his career and created several versions of it over a period of twenty years. The name refers to sea creatures of Greek mythology who used their enchanting voices to lure sailors to their deaths. The soft folds cascading around the wearer’s hips beautifully highlighted her silhouette, seducing any suitor.

James used a series of hand-stitched horizontal pleats down the front and sleeves of La Sirène. This CT scan of the bodice reveals the intricacy of his work. The drapery created by the pleats also allowed for slight variations in the width of the wearer’s hips.

Although this ensemble looks like a high-waisted skirt and satin blouse, it is actually a one-piece dress with a center back zipper. If James had not joined the blouse to the skirt, the wearer would have had to continually adjust the fit. He solved this difficulty by creating a two-layered top: the inner layer is cut tight to the body and joined to the skirt, while the outer layer is allowed to blouse but held in place by the waist seam.

James covered this dress with tiny jet bugle beads from its sweetheart neckline to its low hip. He created the voluminous skirt with numerous layers of colorful tulle, ranging from black to orange, yellow, and pink. The interior layers were barely visible when the wearer stood still but flashed brightly when she moved. The design was intentionally flirtatious: these layers were technically petticoats, or underclothes, and not often visible in the 1950s.

James’s Pouff was considered daring for its time, as its materials—silk satin, silk velvet, and silk taffeta—were not typically combined in one garment. When viewed from above, the skirt presents an infinity symbol. James held the undulating shape in place with precisely placed rows of folded, stiffened crinoline and supported it with a multilayered petticoat.

James designed the Petal for New Yorker Millicent Rogers in 1949. Two years later, the design appeared in Vogue, when it was photographed by Horst and included in James’s Black and White collection. James described the dress as a “curving stem of black velvet above petals of black satin, above 25 yards of blowing, billowing white taffeta.” He revived the design in 1958, as a ready-to-wear dress for the junior market.

By far the most complex design in this exhibition, the Swan is made of more than thirty layers and nearly one hundred pattern pieces. Although James usually focused on one or two concepts per design, this dress suggests he was exploring combinations of influences and approaches. In it James expertly blended his own techniques with those popular in the past, such as “tie-back” supports, a type of bustle popular in the 1870s and 1880s.

In James’s ranking of his top four creations, the Pagoda came in at number four for its emphasis on the “fine art of tailoring.” Originally designed in 1954, Harper’s Bazaar featured the garment in July 1955, the same year it was purchased by Mrs. Newman. Alterations to the side seams show that the circumference of the skirt was taken in for a tighter fit.

Although James created numerous designs for the ready-to-wear market, a closer inspection of this dress presents some clues as to why his contracts often failed. The pattern pieces are cut in a way that creates a lot of extra, unusable material. Typically, patterns for mass-produced garments are tweaked to create the least amount of waste, but James was often unwilling to alter his designs to meet others’ budgets.

James created his first Tree gown in 1955; this version followed two years later. He stated that the design used “faille stretched like a ruched membrane over a stiffened shell molded NOT to the figure of the client, but to the shape I wished it were.” He executed numerous versions of this dress in various colors between 1955 and 1958. Its wearers included Gypsy Rose Lee and Mrs. Cornelia Vanderbilt Whitney.

Although the gathered exterior of this dress looks like the bark of a tree, its name allegedly comes from a Mrs. Tree, one of the clients who ordered it.