Label Love: Carlette

Carlette label

When I found this super cute vintage dress, I immediately had to start looking up the label. Most of the time I don’t come up with much on these general kind of name labels. There’s so many of them and most have long lost the history of their origins. Every so often I’ll read a blog post out there that unearths some great grandchild of the legacy of a lable and I always find it fascinating. Check out my friend Lizzie’s blog The Vintage Traveler if you’re fond of historical stories about vintage. Especially her interview with Vera Neumann’s nephew and Enid Collin’s son. Both excellent reads!

Sadly, I don’t have the killer detective skills of Lizzie, but I do love vintage labels and researching them a little for my own curiosity. This time around I took a gander around for Carlette. Turns out Emmanuelle Khanh was one of the lines contributing designers. I’ve had another Khanh piece in my possession some years ago. That one was for Youthquake and included her name on the label, so we know it was her design.

Emmanuelle Khanh

Emmanuelle Khanh was born in Paris in 1937 and started in the fashion industry as a model for Balenciaga and Givenchy in the 50′s. She started designing ready-to-wear in the 60′s and collaborated with another ex-Balenciaga model, Christiane Bailly, to design their own groundbreaking Emmachristie collection in 1962. And Missoni in 1965 when she met Rosita on a trip to New York.

Sometime in the 60s she also did work for Youthquake, Cacharel, Krizia and our own little Carlette! I bet she even designed one or more of these great examples.