If her recent biographers have it right, Wallis Warfield Simpson applied the skills she learned in a Hong Kong brothel to Edward VIII’s impotence, back in the 1930s, and thereby got him to give up the British throne and marry her. Then she needed a special dress for the occasion. She turned to Mainbocher, the most exclusive couturier in Paris. No one could turn a great lay into a great lady like this former Marshall High School baseball team water boy.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Main Rousseau Bocher was born in Chicago in 1890. He grew up in his family’s home on Monroe Street, a diminutive, handsome fellow who attended the University of Chicago and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, then studied art and music in New York and Europe. During World War I, he returned to Europe with an ambulance crew, staying on in Paris after the war to pursue his dream of a career in grand opera. When his voice disappeared in the middle of a critical audition, he had to look for a new line of work. The Paris bureau of Harper’s Bazaar took him on as a fashion illustrator; a year later, he was hired by Vogue and was rapidly promoted to editor of the French edition.
During the 30s and 40s Mainbocher created the classic styles our mothers and grandmothers spent their happiest days in: the strapless evening gown, the little black dress, the dressy beaded cardigan sweater (inspired by wartime fuel rationing), the superbly tailored suit. In the late 30s, years before Dior’s “New Look,” he introduced evening wear with a cinched waist that presaged the exaggerated silhouette of the 50s.
