Even more important to the Tirocchi clientele was Jean Patou, who had worked as a tailor before World War I and had established his own fashion house on being demobilized in 1919. At first he produced loose dresses with sheer panels, as did many other couturiers, for a clientele that included both French and English aristocrats. In 1920, however, Patou's sister married French tennis champion Raymond Barbas, who introduced Patou to tennis star Suzanne Lenglen. In 1921, Lenglen appeared at Wimbledon in Patou's knee-length pleated skirt and sleeveless cardigan sweater, setting a fashion copied by many other women on and off court. The similarity of Patou's concept to that of Chanel's skirts and sweaters is unmistakable, but this is less a case of Patou copying Chanel than of the arrival in force of sportswear on the fashion scene. At first, Patou was aiming at a different clientele from that of Chanel: sports clothing for players of sports, wherever they found themselves [fig. 113]. For these women, simplicity was not only a design virtue, but a necessity, as Patou learned from Suzanne Lenglen.

A friend of Dunoyer de Segonzac and patron of André Mare and Louis Süe (who designed his salons in the rue St. Florentin), Patou was well aware of artistic trends. After 1921, he adapted the two-piece sweater-and-skirt format in luxurious wool jersey for morning dresses or sports suits, employing cubist ornament and collage principles to decorate them. For all the renown of Chanel (Valerie Steele calls her " the acknowledged dominatrix of fashion during the period between the wars"),(37) the Tirocchi clientele preferred Patou to Chanel by an overwhelming margin. In the 1920s and 30s, purchases of fashions and accessories by Patou outnumbered those by Chanel sixty-four to thirty-four, a definitive vote of confidence in the debonair young couturier who would die so prematurely in 1936. No labeled Patou was found among the dresses remaining in the Tirocchi shop, but several refer directly to his design principles [see fig. 34, p. 46].

In step with the "return to order" that infused a post-war classicism into all the arts, the clothing of Patou, Chanel, and others represented a new idea, one that suited the range of possibilities now opening before the modern woman: "classic" clothing that was never out of style, easily cared for, and constructed for ease of movement. Clothing based on "classical" models was a theme visited off and on throughout the modern period, beginning with Fortuny's Delphos dresses of 1906-07, which continued to be made all throughout the period and are still obtainable today. The Empire silhouettes of the 1910s also relate to this theme, and a draped satin opera coat of 1931 from the Tirocchi shop [fig. 114] marks the continuation of the trend. "Classic" clothing, however, had nothing to do with antiquity; rather, "classic" clothing meant clothing that could be worn over and over again, clothing without copious ornament or complicated silhouette to date it [fig. 115]. The "classic" was epitomized in a simple sports dress by Patou, a black lace dinner dress by Chanel, or an exquisitely fitted black dress by Molyneux or Mainbocher.

Both Molyneux and Mainbocher specialized in a kind of slim, fitted apparel that perhaps seemed simple when compared to the extravagances of the 1920s, but was wholly satisfying in its beautiful tailoring and quiet elegance. Richard Martin, in his book Contemporary Fashion, declared that Molyneux, a friend of author Noel Coward (who himself embodied classic, elegant style of the most refined manner), produced "spartan clothing" in an "early and intended version of the International Style,"(38) and this is surely what "classic" clothing is meant to be. With the coming of age of the anti-ornamental purist element in art after Le Corbusier's breakthroughs in the late 1920s and the growth in philosophical importance of Germany's Bauhaus school, fashion's own "return to order" was the "classic" clothing of the 1930s.

Mainbocher, an American from St. Louis who combined his first and last names once in Paris, was beloved for his pure, uncomplicated, simply cut designs -what Harper's Bazaar called his "deceptive plainness" -that clients viewed as investments for the long haul.(39) Made famous by his selection as designer of the Duchess of Windsor's wedding gown in 1939, Mainbocher came to the attention of the Tirocchi clientele too late to have much impact on the shop. A search of Tirocchi records turned up thirteen references to garments by Molyneux, the first purchased as early as 1924, while only one outfit by Mainbocher was supplied to a client -the always fashionable Mrs. Byron S. Watson -in 1939.