About fashion

Patou came from a comfortable, bourgeois background. His family were tanners, but himself became first a furrier, then a dressmaker and fin ally in 1911, a tailor, so he had a solid grounding for couture. Indeed, such was the quality of his workmanship that his clothes, like those of Chanel, wore well even after being well worn. His style was of rigorous simplicity and neatness, and a clean-lined, almost geometric elegance. It was very much in the Cubist, Art Deco manner of symmetrical design broken by oblique seams; the style was very pervasive in the Twenties, when even patisserie was decorated in what was called the 'New Style'. Patou used Cubist motifs on bathing costumes, on beautifully tailored day dresses, sweaters, blouses, skirts and jackets, some bearing, as part of the intrinsic design, his monogram,JP.
In his immaculate, dark suits, spats and grey Homburg hat, Patou was the acme of masculine elegance, a playboy par excellence and according to his close friend and associate,the Society columnist Elsa Maxwell, a passionate gambler.