Fashion, of course, is centuries if not millenia old, but haute couture style fashion is a modern invention. It's already 2007 in Paris, which is where it counts, so here's to you, fashion industry.

Although I don't know the exact date, my recent studies have informed me that in 1857*, Charles Frederick Worth, an English couturier, opened the first maison in Paris. He proceeded to rule the industry he created for several decades. Among his innovations was being the first couturier to use the recently invented aniline dyes to produce clothing in vivid colors which up until then had been impossible to make, as well as the first to have a seasonal introduction of a new line of clothing displayed on live models. The House of Worth survived until 1953, when it was bought by the Paquin firm, which then closed in 1956, leaving the world's oldest maison just short of the century mark.

What fashion will look like in another fifty years, I'm sure I don't know, but it certainly has made the world a more interesting and a more beautiful, if at times also slightly more ridiculous, place.

M

*Several online sources insist that Worth actually went into independent business in 1858. The text I am reading says 1857. I feel like posting this now instead of next year, so I'm going with that.