expertise.  Hours of painstaking work were involved in achieving the designer's intended results.  So full were the dresses, they could very nearly stand up on their own, and some were reported to have weighed nearly 50 pounds.  However, their engineering balance made them wearable.

Charles James cut his waists on the curve, and boasted that he used no bust darts.  He actually achieved this primarily by having many pattern pieces converge at the bust to create a shaping normally provided by a well made foundation garment - in this instance a bra.

James cited nature as a source of inspiration in his work.  In the late 1940s and 50s, many of his designs were named after living things, including the Petal, Swan, Tulip, Butterfly, Four Leaf Clover and Tree dresses.

Although James was best known for his evening wear, he also created fabulous coats and capes, many inspired by North African capes and caftans.  His late 1930s "Ribbon" evening cape is a petal shape with ribbons and wings, whilst the "Gothic" coat which he repeated often in the 1950s was an A line cone with a simulated Empire waist fashioned from satin.

At the beginning of this article, I referred to Charles James' influence on Barbie's Solo in the Spotlight
The Glamour Years Continued
ensemble.  Charles James' interest in this silhouette developed between 1948 right through the 1950s, when he constructed designs of form fitting sheaths gripping the hips, and kicking out to a wide circumference only at the knee.  Barbie's Solo outfit would appear to derive from James' famous Tulip dress of 1949.  The well known photograph of this dress (see right) features a model leaning forward, smoking seductively on a cigarette holder - the epitome of the "Femme Fatale", which is precisely what Barbie resembled when modelling her version.  More recently, Charles James' Tulip and Petal styles are surely the influence behind the fabulous Unforgettable Gene doll designed by Dolly Cippola.  It is interesting to note that James achieved the volume of flounce in his Tulip design through boning, but this was eliminated in later 1950s versions, as the boning was perceived as too severe and traditional, plus it would have been extremely heavy and uncomfortable to wear!  Mattel, specifically Charlotte Johnson, acquired a similar affect with Solo in the Spotlight by substituting layers of tulle at the flounce, which worked spectacularly well.
In 1954, Charles James married Nancy Lee Gregory with whom he had two children.  In 1956 he designed his first collection for children.  Increasingly, James concentrated more on designing for the mass market, a vehicle hardly suited to his romantic idealism.  This is probably confirmed by the fact that in 1958 he became bankrupt after numerous business failures.  In 1964 he moved into the Chelsea Hotel in New York.  His marriage had broken up in 1961, and he established a small studio at the Chelsea, but attracted very few clients.  It seems his work was not suited to the new climate of modernism taking place.  An attempt at designing jewellery brought him little success, however at this time he did meet the famous illustrator Antonio Lopex, who over the following years was to draw the best of James' designs.  There were two major exhibitions of Charles James' work.  One was in 1975 - a solo exhibition at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracruse New York, the other in 1980 at the Brooklyn Museum - which was a large retrospective of his work.  James died of Pneumonia at the Chelsea Hotel in 1978.

It has been said that Charles James was a modernist, striving for integral form, but his memoral ballgowns suggest a born fantasist, born in the wrong time, who longed for court elegance and Second Empire magificence.  The 1960s must have come as a real shock to him.  James was more appreciated in the Art world than the fashion world.  He was a deeply complex man; for on the one hand, whilst celebrating the beautiful things in life, he could also be cynical, caustic and malicious.  He was mean and aggressive even to those who tried to befriend him and his work.  He was the inspiring force to Halston (another great American designer) but he ended their relationship in a state of acrimony.  He also offended some of his most loyal clients with insults and abuse.  Personal behaviour traits aside, it is thankfully, Charles James' work that he will most be remembered for.  Dior called his designs "Poetry", but I like the following quote from Bill Cunningham in Interview magazine (July 1992): "He (James) presented women with a shape that was not their own.  You went into Charles James deformed, and you came out a Venus de Milo.  He was the equivalent of someone from the Renaissance who made ceremonial armors".

Take a look again at the vintage Barbie wardrobe.  Apart from Solo in the Spotlight, Charles James' influence can also be seen in Gay Parisienne, Enchanted Evening, Debutante Ball, Magnificence, Midnight Blue and many others of a similar ilk.  The Master is gone, but his legacy lives on.

by Gary Alston.