Jacques Heim (1899-1967) was a French fashion designer and costume designer for theatre and film. From 1930 to his death in 1967, he ran the fashion house (Maison de couture) Jacques Heim, which closed in 1969.
In the mid-1930’s, following an earlier trip to New York, he started to make ready-to-wear and launched a line for younger women aiming at his clients’ daughters. The line was less expensive than his haute couture collections. In the early 1930’s, following a trip to New York, Heim created a two-piece swimsuit consisting of a bra with ruffles and pretty bloomers, which he called the Atome. However, women were not yet ready to reveal their midriff, with only a few daring to wear his swimsuit.
During France’s occupationSee Taylor, Lou & McLoughlin, Marie (editors) , Paris Fashion and World War Two –
Global Diffusion and Nazi Control, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.
in World War II the couturier became a victim of the “Aryanization” laws. Protected by a Spanish friend, he avoided deportation, joined the Resistance and survived the war.
THE BIKINI ARMS RACE
In June 1946, he relaunched his two-piece swimsuit, the Atome, which he advertised as “the world’s smallest bathing suit.” However, on 5 July 1946, Louis Réard, a French engineer, had a Paris stripper pose before reporters in an even briefer two-piece swimsuit, which Réard called the Bikini and which he promoted as “smaller than the smallest bathing suit”. Réard’s design, unlike Heim’s, for the first time presented a female swimsuit with the navel exposed.
Jacques Heim was president of the then Paris Chambre Syndicale de la haute coutureToday, the Chambre Syndicale De La Haute Couture is one of several Chambres Syndicales that make up the Fédération Française De La Couture Du Prêt-à-Porter. It is known also more simply as the Chambre Syndicale De La Couture. The Chambre Syndicale is the regulating commission that determines which fashion design houses are eligible to be true haute couture houses. Within the Fédération, the Chambre Syndicale is a body that promotes, educates, represents, defends, deals with social and working benefits and advises its members in all relations between labour and management, including great names of the Paris couture world. It also deals with piracy of styles, foreign relations and organization and coordination of the fashion collection timetables. Wherever applicable, it promotes collective international advertising. from the late 1950’s to 1962, a period of transition from haute couture to ready-to-wear clothing. In 1957 he founded the creative ready-to-wear group that included Grès, Lanvin, Jacques Griffe, Nina Ricci and Carven.
Reminiscent of André Courrèges’ helmet hats that were taken from the equipment worn by astronauts, this hat has the stark shape and dominant white color referring to the 1960’s Space Age.