I don’t usually look at clothes at auction, but the auctioneer was practically giving away some lovely coats and suits at this one. I could donate them to charity, I pondered, as I listened to him drop to $10 for a rack of women’s wool suits and dresses.
I’m planning an auction fundraiser for an historical house where I volunteer, and figured these would be good for that event. Then the auctioneer offered three vintage Persian lamb coats for sale – two with what he said were fur collars – for $3 each. I’m not into fur but some people still are, and I thought these were a steal. So I bought them, too.
Then I was finished with clothing – until I went into a room where the auction house was selling ephemera and other historical documents, Black Americana items and projectors, photographs, books and more in a special sale.
As I was previewing the items on a table, the dust-embedded gold-tone cover of one book jumped out at me. It had definitely seen better days: the front inside pages were almost detached and the spine was frazzled.
I wasn’t sure what the book was about but I loved the lettering on the cover: Beaux-Arts des Modes Modeles Originaux 1931. Flipping it open, past the printed explanations in French and English, I found page after page of the most lovely afternoon and evening wear. It was like flipping through an artist’s sketchbook, but these illustrations were much more refined and finished.
Each page of designs bore a signature that looked like Atelier Bachroitz. Googling, I found the name to be Bachwitz.
He was born Arnold Backwitz in 1854 in Brandenburg, Germany, and died in 1930 in Vienna. Bachwitz founded a fashion publishing company based in Vienna that produced more than 50 magazines that had a major influence on the fashion world internationally. His building in Vienna – descried as a “luxurious art nouveau house” built around 1908-1909 – is now the home of an art space called Palais des Beaux Arts.
His magazine Chic Parisien, was said to be his most popular publication.
Bachwitz hired hundreds of workers who hand-colored the designs. “On the top floor, in rooms bordering on courtyards, the blouses, dresses, and coats were designed in light-flooded studios, which, as drawings and patterns, delighted both the lady of the world and many Viennese tailors,” according to one account.
He and his family lived in an apartment on the first floor, which also held a gallery that featured artworks. The printing presses were in the basement.
Bachwitz’s wife Rosine took over the company after he died, but the Nazis seized it in 1938. She and her daughter Alice were taken to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Terezin, Czechoslovakia, where Rosine was killed in 1942. Alice died the same year while being transported from Prague.
In 2003, descendants of the family received some restitution of at least 45 fashion magazines that were seized in the Nazi takeover.
Here are some fashions from the magazine at auction:
I almost skipped over your Pinterest post but anything Vintage catches my eye and I’m glad I stopped to peek in. I admire the Designs of yesteryears. I’m sure I’ll stop in again to browse .