Véronique Pouillard Maliks

Principal Investigator for The Enterprise of Culture
Associate Professor in the History of Modern Europe
Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History
University of Oslo

Véronique Pouillard Maliks is a specialist on the business-cultural history of fashion and of advertising in Paris, Brussels, and New York. She has published three books—La publicité en Belgique, 1850-1975. Des courtiers aux agences internationales (2005); C’est du belge. Dit is Belgisch. The History of Advertising in Belgium (2004); and Hirsch & Cie, Bruxelles, 1869-1962 (2000)—and has contributed articles on fashion, public relations, and marketing to several peer-reviewed journals, including Business History Review, Revue du Nord, and Cahiers d’Histoire du Temps Présent. Besides her post in Oslo, Pouillard Maliks is affiliated with the European Institute at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and with the Institut d‘Histoire du Temps Présent in Paris. As part of The Enterprise of Culture, Pouillard Maliks is studying transatlantic relations in the fashion business for the cases of Paris and New York after World War II, examining the paths taken by the European fashion business, in reference to the scholarship on Americanization.

Abstract

Haute couture goes global: Networks, markets and challenges in the post-war era

The post-war period was a transformative era for the fashion industry. The old pyramidal structure of the fashion system was challenged like never before by new entrants, by new consumption habits and by the development of the welfare state. Paris haute couture managed to come back to the centre of the stage.

This talk examines how haute couture firms like Balenciaga, Dessès, and Dior, shifted the business model of haute couture, and asks what was lost and what was gained in the process.