You probably did not know that the designer behind strapless dresses, beaded sweaters and other fashion staples was once a plainclothes spy for the United States government. Neither did the curator Petra Slinkard before her research for Making Mainbocher: the First American Couturier, the first comprehensive exhibition on the career of Main Rousseau Bocher, which opens at the Chicago History Museum in Chicago, Illinois on 22 October (until 20 August 2017). “The greatest discovery [while organising the show] is how complicated and multifaceted his life was,” Slinkard says of the Chicago-born designer, who had no garment training before he launched his career as a couturier in Paris in 1930, aged 40—after serving in the United States Army, training as an opera singer and careers as an illustrator for Harpers Bazaar and the editor in chief of Vogue Paris.
The exhibition brings together 30 outfits by Bocher, from highbrow couture gowns under his Mainbocher label to the uniforms he made for Girl Scouts and the Waves, the women’s reserves in the United States Navy during the Second World War. In addition to learning about Bocher’s impact on fashion, Slinkard says she hopes visitors are “inspired and pleasantly surprised by how much he accomplished and how he was able to do it—and that was by not giving up and continuing to push himself and try new things”.