Charles Frederick Worth was born Oct. 13, 1825 in Lincolnshire, England. His father was a lawyer with a gambling habit and left the family in precarious financial condition. Young Charles was sent to be an apprentice at age 12 to the drapery firm of Swan and Edgar in London. He served that firm for eight years.

This was an era when men were the fashionable ones, with beautifully cut coats, satin vests and elaborately tied neckerchiefs. Young Charles had the opportunity to study the dandies and fops of Piccadilly as he studied fabrics, trimmings and shawls. He began to dream of moving to Paris. Even in the 1840's, young Charles knew that "all the newest ideas of fashion emanated from the dressmakers and milliners of Paris"

the house of Worth which was originally founded in 1858 by Frederick Charles Worth (1826-1895), an Englishman established in Paris who was to lead Western fashion in the 19th and well into the 20th century thanks to successive generations of the Worth family. The Worth perfumes appeared, according to the official chronology, in the 1920s, with the first one, Dans La Nuit, having been introduced in 1924. The house closed in 1956 to be revived only in January of 2003 when the Worth couture lingerie collection was presented at the Paris salon.

Links to additional material:

• http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/wrth/hd_wrth.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Frederick_Worth
• http://www.mimifroufrou.com/scentedsalamander/2007/06/courtesan_by_worth_perfume_rev.html