ARCHIVES DOROTHÉE BIS

PENELOPE’S is honored to pay tribute to the house of Dorothée Bis, founded by Jacqueline and Elie Jacobson, and to celebrate their joyful creativity which, over forty years later, still radiates. There’s no nostalgia here, just a stylistic playground for all generations.

Founded in the late 1950s by Jacqueline and Elie Jacobson, the Dorothée boutique, then the Dorothée Bis brand, established themselves as one of the founding adventures of French ready-to-wear. When the couple opened their first boutique on rue de Sèvres in 1959, they proposed a radically new fashion: accessible without being banal, inventive without being demonstrative, designed for real life and free from the rigid codes of traditional couture.

In 1962, the store’s expansion gave birth to Dorothée Bis, an avant-garde concept that responded to the emergence of a young, curious and free-spirited clientele. The décor – theatrical red velvet, exposed metal structures – and the sales assistants, similar to the customers themselves. It’s all part of a new way of thinking about fashion and showing it.

Jacqueline Jacobson’s vision is deeply intuitive. “I did what I felt like doing,” she says. A free, instinctive, uncalculated creation, driven by the desire and energy of an era. A specialist in knitwear, she soon established a singular vocabulary: sock sweaters, tight-fitting dresses, hand-knitted landscape coats, reinterpreted marinières, a play of stripes and colors. Comfortable, sensual, daring fashion that embraces the body without constricting it.

Their travels are a major source of inspiration. From India to Nepal, then from Austria to the Orient, Jacqueline and Elie Jacobson bring back ideas, materials and colors. Superimpositions, jacquards, petticoats, saffron scarves, chromatic contrasts: Dorothée Bis becomes a joyful laboratory in perpetual research.

By the early 1970s, the company had moved beyond the commercial realm. Its fashion shows, notably at the Salle Wagram, made a lasting impression, helping to establish ready-to-wear as a genuine field for creative expression. The international press was enthusiastic, the number of publications multiplied, and Dorothée Bis rapidly acquired a worldwide reputation.

In the 1980s, the brand reached full maturity. The design office became the creative heart of the company, and the collections became more coherent without losing any of their audacity. Dorothée Bis joined the Chambre Syndicale des Créateurs de Mode and established itself as a benchmark for French ready-to-wear.

Today’s sale is a precious opportunity to (re)discover Dorothée Bis, and to measure its current relevance. For collectors and younger generations alike, it reveals the incredible modernity of the silhouettes, the quality of the materials, the intelligence of the cuts and the savoir-faire of handmade knitwear.

Clothes designed to be worn, lived and loved, and which continue to inspire today’s creative studios and designers.

It’s an invitation to take a fresh look at a pioneering company, whose deeply alive heritage has lost none of its strength or freedom.