Pre-1945
The role of the house model began to be clearly defined in the mid-19th century, when Charles Frederick Worth gained a reputation for showing his designs to prospective clients upon live models. Worth's own wife, Marie Vernet, had been a model for the Parisian drapers Gagelin and Opigez before their marriage, and she continued to act as a model for Worth's early designs.
The London couturier Lucile, is widely credited with training the first professional fashion models in about 1897. She is also linked with the first runway or "catwalk" fashion shows. The use of live models as mannequins became increasingly popular throughout the 1910s, leading to those that followed the trend such as Georges Doeuillet of Paris becoming noted for it.
By the 1920s, it was standard practice for fashion houses to employ in-house mannequins. Such a profession was considered normal enough to be the job of the heroine of the 1927 Alfred Hitchcock film The Lodger.
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