In this week’s fashion history, we will be taking a look at the history of Carven. The house of Carven was established in 1945 by Marie-Louise Carven, a French fashion designer who was born Carmen de Tommaso on August 31, 1909, and died on June 8, 2015.
She was renowned for her petite-friendly designs, her use of airy materials like lace and pink gingham, and for being one of the first couturières to introduce a prêt-à-porter line. She was the first designer in Paris to obtain a push-up bra patent.
Read Also: Carven Appoints Louise Trotter as New Creative Director
One of the first fashion houses to do runway shows all around the world was Carven. The travels of the designer encouraged her to use a variety of fabrics into her creations, including raffia, madras, and batik. One of the first Western designers to employ African textiles was Carven in the 1950s. For the 1976 French Olympic team, Parisian traffic police, Eurostar employees, and more than 20 airlines, Carven created uniforms.
Moreover, Carven created the costumes for eleven movies, such as Manon (1949), Rendezvous in July (1949), Edward and Caroline (1951), Holiday for Henrietta (1952), and Le Guérisseur (1953). She also contributed her time to the costume and wardrobe teams for the 1948 film The Red Shoes and the 1952 Foreign Intrigue episode Gold.
She was a member of the Perry Mason episode The Case of the Gallant Grafter’s art department (1960). At age 84, Carven retired in 1993.
With their recent appointment of Louise Trotter as the new creative director the brand is sure to come back into the limelight after seven years of going off the radar.
