Week 3- Vivianne Lee

     

     Today, France is considered a fashion capitol of the world. With designer brands such as Chanel, Dior, and Louis Vuitton, French designers have long created the most renowned fashion brands in the world. Louis XIV was a key factor to how France re made itself along with the support of Colbert and his reforms. Louis xiv and his beautification of Paris created a crucial period in France pertaining to elegance and goods. He ruled over centuries of luxural trade that had dominated commerce ever sense, inspiring sophisticated aesthetics for example, fashion, art and technology. Louis XIV is “remembered as the most powerful monarch in French History, “The king who transformed France into a modern nation” (Essence of Style, pg 4). Colbert thus assisted king Louis XIV by first ensuring that all the goods king Louis considered essential would be produced in France and by French workers. Second to make certain that the majority of the population in France were buying these goods. Thus Colbert established a new economic policy in which France’s prosperity and strength would be directly ties to the quantity or gold and silver. Colbert thus made reforms that were liberal in character and emphasised on advanced instruction, training in the fine arts, and upon technology. An example of this is the Academy of painting and Sculpture. These institutions were supplemented by a group of establishments devoted to the manufacture of objects of art, furniture. As the "Grand Monarch" was to be surrounded by a luxury and magnificence that should represent new standards of artistic achievement and technical skill (Usher, page 3). If this focus on the arts, fashion and technology continues it will achieve maximum “beautification” and “national aesthetic status”. Although I still do not have an idea of what to create for my startup project, I want my startup to achieve new standards of technical skill, similar to what the Academy of painting and Sculpture has created, that will help the country in some way. 

Citation:

 Dejean Joan. 2005. The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafes, Style, Sophisticated, and Glamour. Free Press: New York 

Colbert and Governmental Control of Industry in Seventeenth Century France. (n.d.). The MIT Press. Retrieved February 4, 2019.

Neha.tandon. (2015, July 20). 7 French Designers Who Changed the Face of Fashion -. Retrieved from http://luxurylaunches.com/fashion/7-french-designers-who-changed-the-face-of-fashion.php