The Worth chairs

A PAIR OF art deco chairs once used at the Worth salon in London have been donated to the Civic Society for display at the Heritage Centre.

They have gone on show in the Worth Gallery which celebrates the life and times of Charles Worth (1825-95), son of a Bourne solicitor who left home to seek his fortune and later founded the Paris fashion house which created sumptuous and artistic gowns for the world's richest and most famous women.

The House of Worth, as it was known, continued after his death under the direction of his sons, Gaston-Lucien and Jean-Philippe, who succeeded in maintaining his high standards with their designs and use of dramatic fabrics and lavish trimmings. The business flourished during their tenure but the great fashion dynasty came to an end after Charles’ great-grandson, Jean-Charles (1881–1962), retired from the family business and in 1956, the doors were closed, two years short of a century.

The two chairs were once part of the furniture from the House of Worth which opened in Regent Street, London, in 1928. It was known as a Sports Boutique and was in fact the first boutique in England. The chairs, which were originally upholstered in brocade, were specially made in France for the showroom together with the other fittings and they remained in use until 1936 when the business ceased to trade because of the political unrest in Europe prior to the outbreak of the Second World War.

One of the staff, Stanley G Cox (1912-1999), who had worked for Worth for several years in Hanover Square, bought them in September 1936 together with several other items for £2 and they have remained in the family ever since, first at their home in London until 1982 and later at Salisbury, Wiltshire.

Mr Cox’s association with Worth had been an interesting one and had started back in January 1908 when his mother, Mlle Marguerite Jeanne Fouillard, also known as Martha, was employed as a milliner by Paquin, a rival fashion house in Paris, when she was offered a job as a model at their London establishment, then in Hanover Square. In December 1910, she married Stephen Cox, who was also working for Worth as a stock-keeper, and in later years their son, Stanley, also went to work for the company.

His family inherited the chairs in 1999 and on learning of the existence of the Worth Gallery in Bourne, it was decided to present them for permanent display, donated by John and Rosemary Cox, Colin Cox and Elizabeth Hemming (née Cox), and Mrs Hemming delivered them to the Heritage Centre in South Street after a car journey from her home in Salisbury.

The Worth Gallery was opened in April 2006 by the Mayor of Bourne, Councillor Judy Smith, who cut a silk ribbon at the entrance to the gallery to mark the event. It is the latest attraction at the Heritage Centre since it was founded almost thirty years ago and since then, there has been a continual effort to add new features, archives, artefacts and displays that will stimulate interest in the history of this town.

The project came about mainly through the work of Mrs Brenda Jones, chairman of the Civic Society which administers the centre, and her husband Jim, custodian of the mill, who is responsible for much of the maintenance. It was their idea to commemorate Charles Worth and it is largely through their efforts that it has come to fruition.

The original idea was to create an area that would appeal directly to women, in sharp contrast to the other main display room on the first floor devoted to the life and times of Raymond Mays (1899-1980), the motor racing pioneer who was born and worked in the town. This conception, commemorating the life and times of Charles Worth, crystallised after they visited the Victoria and Albert Museum in the summer of 2005 to see an exhibition devoted to his work. "When I got home, I realised that we wanted something similar here in Bourne", said Mrs Jones.

It was then little more than a pipe dream but one that has since come to fruition and the gallery has now become a feature of the tourist trail. Original Worth gowns are virtually unobtainable and all surviving examples are scattered around a dozen museums in Europe and America but Brenda and a team of ladies set to and meticulously copied two of them which are now on display.

The first was a silver creation using identical material from the period and specially bought from London in a style known as visite and made from off white silk with braid and bead trimming and originally designed by Worth in 1885 and bearing the label of his salon at No 7 Rue de la Paix in Paris.

Spurred on by this success, the ladies were soon back at work on another creation, a glamorous ruby red evening gown completed from a design Worth produced at his Paris salon for one of his rich lady customers and which is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Jim and Brenda paid a visit to take photographs and make notes to ensure that they got the details right and then after an exhaustive search for a stockist, the material was ordered from a specialist firm at Harrogate in Yorkshire.

The collection also includes an original jacket bought from the House of Worth in Paris with the authentic label from the 1950s while other artefacts have been donated by many people and cabinets added to accommodate all of the exhibits, new shelving fitted and the walls covered with framed photographs and documents illustrating Worth’s life and career while a computer in the foyer has been specially programmed to play a continual pictorial record of his dress designs.

The Worth Gallery is now an acknowledged centre for information about the Parisian fashion designer and in October 2007, it was named in the Lincolnshire Renaissance Awards as the best new exhibition in the county. The awards, which were inaugurated in 2007, aim to recognise excellence in museums and heritage centres across the county.

Unfortunately, the gallery may have become a victim of its own success because it is fast running out of space. “We do need more room before we make any further major additions”, said Mrs Jones. “Despite this limitation, we will still accept items and hopefully be able to display everything in the future.”