The State Funding Programme for Haute Couture in Paris - Defending and Promoting a Tradition (1952-1960)

This essay is a first analysis of the funding system used by the French government between 1952 and 1960 and coordinated by the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture in Paris, together with the French Union des Industries Textiles, designed and defined to protect the French textile industry, on one hand, and to preserve the creative force of Parisian couture in order to safeguard its characteristic, representative elements on the other. It was from this that aspects and initiatives of interest defined in France during the fifties, such as international promotion of French fashion, combating couture model counterfeiting and the intensification of relations with the United States market developed. This analysis focuses on studying archive materials stored at the French Ministry for Economy and Finance’s Centre des Archives Économique et Financiers concerning the Paris haute couture textile production fund.