Augusta Bernard(French fashion designer, 12 September 1886–7 May 1946)

Augusta Bernard(French fashion designer, 1886–1946)

Augusta Bernard, also Augustabernard, (1886–1946) was a French fashion designer who gained recognition for creating long, neoclassical evening dresses during the early 1930s. She ran a salon in Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, in Paris, until 1934 when she retired.

Toto Koopman wearing Augusta Bernard dress, Vogue, September, 1933, photo by Hoyningen-Huene

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Biography

​Born in Provence on 12 September 1886, Augusta Bernard began her career as a dress-maker by copying the designs of other couturiers of her era. She opened her first studio in Biarritz, but then moved to Paris in 1922, establishing a studio there the following year.

Augusta Bernard specialized in creating long, pale-coloured evening dresses, often cut on the bias. In order to achieve asymmetry, the simple, unadorned designs were often put together piecemeal.

Bernard became increasingly prominent over the years, especially in the 1930s after the fashionable Marquise de Paris had won the St Moritz fashion competition in the silver lamé evening gown she had designed. Her salon on the luxurious Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré became popular not only with French women interested in haute couture but also with Americans.

Fashion sketches of Augusta Bernard's evening dresses

Fashion sketches of Augusta Bernard's evening dresses

Fashion sketches of Augusta Bernard's evening dresses

In 1932, Vogue featured a photograph of one of her neoclassical evening dresses, which had been selected as the most beautiful dress of the year. 

Augusta Bernard evening dress, photo by Man Ray, ca 1933.

Augusta Bernard's elegant evening dress, 1933

Augusta Bernard's elegant evening dress, 1933

Toto Koopman wearing Augusta Bernard dress, photo by Hoyningen-Huene, 1934

One of her most prestigious dresses and one of her very last is an ivory tulle gown she created in the autumn of 1934, considered by Patricia Mears, deputy director of The Museum at FIT, to be her magnum opus.

Augusta Bernard's ivory tulle evening dress which was considered to one of her best creations, 1934

With the onset of the Great Depression, Augusta Bernard found it increasingly difficult for her clients to pay their bills for the haut couture. As a result, she closed her salon in 1934 and retired.

Augusta Bernard died in 1946.