Mainbocher

Fashion designer, born in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He studied and worked in Chicago, and after service in World War 1 stayed on in Paris, eventually becoming a fashion artist with Harper's Bazaar and editor of French Vogue. He started his couture house in Paris in 1930. One of his creations was the wedding dress designed for Mrs Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor (1937). He opened a salon for ready-to-wear clothes in New York City in 1940, but returned to Europe in 1971.

Mainbocher (1891-1976) (born Main Rousseau Bocher) was an American couturier who operated fashion houses in Paris and later New York from the 1930s through the 1960s. He is best known for designing Wallis Simpson's wedding dress and trousseau for her 1937 marriage to the former Edward VIII (the Duke of Windsor) which was photographed by Cecil Beaton

Mainbocher was a native of Chicago, where he studied art at the University of Chicago and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.

In 1929, he established his own fashion house, designing expensive, elegant haute couture dresses and gowns for an exclusive clientele, and charging them for the privilege of viewing his collections.

In 1939 , he relocated his business to New York on 57th Street next to Tiffany's, and continued to design for generations of discerning women of means like Gloria Vanderbilt through the 1960s.

After he achieved fame for dressing some of the world's most famous women, Mainbocher was commissioned to design the costumes for Ethel Merman in the 1950 Broadway musical "Call Me Madam."

Recently, Mainbocher and twenty-three other American fashion designers were honored with bronze plaques on New York City's "Fashion Walk of Fame" in the legendary garment district.