Theophilus Bader

Theophilus Bader was born has Dambach-the-City in Alsace on April 24th 1864. He died in Paris on March 16th 1942.

In 1895, Theophilus Bader and his cousin Alphonse Kahn open drapery Kahn & Bader, which becomes the Galeries Lafayette since 1896 and the Public limit company of the Lafayette Galleries on September 1st, 1899. As of this time the Galleries have their own clothes industry and workshops which will exist until in the Sixties, period of the arrival of creations of the large specialized companies in the " fashion; large-public".

In 1909 Ernest Wertheimer and Emile Orosdi, founders of the future House " Chanel" grant a loan of 800.000 francs to the Lafayette Galleries for the purchase of a nearby building. In 1912 Alphonse Kahn yields his shares to his cousin Theophilus Bader whose two girls marry one Raoul Meyer and the other max Heilbronn.

Theophilus Bader sets up a relief fund, a pouponnière and a pension fund before the institution of the obligatory cases.

From 1916 to 1926, the Lafayette Galleries are established in province (Nice, Lyon, Nantes and Montpellier in particular). During the Twenties, Theophilus Bader will try to extend his activity to other countries but it will meet however a limited success. It will invest personally in several companies, of which in particular Vionnet & Co. It will be one of the first to be sold in its department store of the ready-made clothes, copies models haute couture.

Source

Theophilus Bader, founder of the Lafayette Galleries

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