The company designs, produces and sells bespoke and ready-to-wear shirts, neckties, blouses, pyjamas and suits in its Parisian store, as well as internationally through luxury retailers.

[6] Étienne Charvet's daughter Louise Caroline Catherine (1791–1861),[10] Christofle's first cousin, married at the age of 14 Constant, Napoleon's head valet.

[6] Instead, they moved to Elbeuf and invested in a weaving factory, created by Louise's brother Jean-Pierre[6] and specialized in novelty fabrics for trousers and lady coats.

[24] The same year, Charvet held the title of official shirtmaker to the Jockey Club,[16] a very exclusive Parisian circle, then headed by Prince Napoléon Joseph Ney and inspired by Count Alfred d'Orsay, a famous French dandy.

[26] In an advertisement of March 1839, Charvet, presenting himself as the Club's shirtmaker, claimed to offer "elegance, perfection, moderate prices".

[33][34] This move reflected a shift in the center of the Parisian high society[35] and the growing importance for fashion of both rue de la Paix, where the house of Worth had opened in 1858, and the palais Garnier against the Théâtre Italien, closer to Charvet's original location.

An American journalist, visiting the store in 1909, reported "there were shirts of every variety and almost every color [,] artistic enough to make one long for them all, and each and every one most beautifully made.

[53] In 1863, Charvet was considered[54] the first producer of fine shirts in Paris, claiming superiority "for taste and for elegance" on cuffs, bib and fit.

The clientele of Charvet also included artists such as Charles Baudelaire,[56] who gave a metaphysical dimension to dandyism,[57] George Sand,[15] whose lover Alfred de Musset never succeeded to become a member of the Jockey Club,[26] Édouard Manet,[58] nicknamed the "dandy of painting"[59] or Jacques Offenbach,[16] composer of La Vie Parisienne.

[62] In 1894, an administrative report praised Charvet for constantly seeking high-novelty and setting the trend for other Parisian shirtmakers, having irreproachable manufacturing standards, and successfully enticing French factories to produce the raw materials traditionally supplied by England.

[66] Its customers included not only royalty, such as Alfonso XIII of Spain (warrant granted in 1913); Edward VIII, duke of Windsor; the French president Paul Deschanel, noted for his elegant Charvet cravats;[67] but also members of the high society gravitating around dandies such as Robert de Montesquiou and Evander Berry Wall, or artists as Jean Cocteau, who called Charvet "magic"[68] and wrote that it is "where the rainbow finds ideas",[69] and his friend Sergei Diaghilev.

[81][82] In 1903, Charvet moved his "model laundry",[83] to the place du Marché Saint Honoré, on premises belonging to the city of Paris, which specially authorized him in view of an innovative ozone-based process,[84] then licensed to the Parisian hospitals.

[85] The soiled clothes, picked up at the customer's house by "special cars",[86] were disinfected and bleached with ozone, then placed in a revolving drum worked by electricity[87] and soaked in a diastatic solution, in order to remove the starch and make the linen whiter, subsequently washed in soap and water, afterwards in a solution of ammonia to remove the soap, then whitened, starched, calendered and hand ironed.

Charvet's notability also extended to other items of clothing, such as shirts,[n. 8] shirtings,[n. 9] ties, gloves,[113] dress suits,[n. 10] waistcoats (see image, left),[n. 11][n. 12] undergarments,[n. 13] pocketchieves,[119] and women's waistbands[120] or shirtwaists[121] (See figures left), worn with special models of ties for ladies, such as one called le juge modeled after a judge's lappets.

[125] Like many European companies, Charvet was greatly affected by World War I: "our looms have been destroyed, our collections pillaged, our printing blocks burned".

[131] Some famous customers of the period were fashion designer Coco Chanel[132][n. 14] and the Maharadjah of Patiala who once placed a single order of 86 dozen shirts.

At an exhibition called "L'art de la soie" held at the Musée Galliera in Paris in 1927, Charvet presented dressing gowns and neckties in matching patterns,[140] together with pyjamas,[141] shirts and handherchieves.

[142] The company developed a practice of sending merchandises to its customers for approval, allowing them to select some or none and return the rest, subsequently referred to as the Charvet method.

[161][162] However, even while developing these new pre-made lines of products, Colban always insisted on the bespoke aspect of the firm as its core identity.

He emphasised that "the essential hardest of all to accomplish in today's world of quick and easy pseudo solutions, is an atmosphere of 'yes' to the customer and, even more, a respect for that commitment",[163] re-iterating the focus of Charvet on its bespoke business.

Colban refused numerous offers to sell the company, maintaining the single store in Paris and continuing the house as a family business.

[172] Charvet creates exclusive fabrics for all its collections[173] and prides itself of going a long way to satisfy customers, remaking on request ties purchased years earlier[174] or changing a shirt's frayed collar and cuffs.

This building has a three-story Jules Hardouin Mansart facade, behind which Charvet occupies seven floors,[176] each owner on the Place having built to his own needs.

[163] Some 4,500 bolts of fabric are on display there,[172] and the walls are hung with 1960s' fashion illustrations of Dean Martin look-alikes drawn by Jean Choiselat.

[208] Buttons are made from Australian mother-of-pearl, cut from the surface of the oyster shell for added strength and greater color clarity.

It creates about 8,000 models per year,[225] Jacquard woven on exclusive commission, with silk either alone or mixed with other precious yarns, such as cashmere,[226] camel hair, bamboo yarn or covered with laminated precious metals, such as silver, gold or platinum,[227][228] with techniques dating back to the 14th century when the popes were based in Avignon,[n. 21] which were also used in the 1920s for vests.

[228] Further to a long history of brocade patterns, first used in the 19th century for vests and then for ties,[citation needed] Charvet offers, according to Bernhard Roetzel, the largest range of woven silk neckties in the world.

22] During the 1950s, it invented a special style of bow tie, a cross between a batwing and a butterfly, for the Duke of Windsor,[15] now referred to as the "Charvet cut".

Sebastian entered – dove-grey flannel, white crêpe-de-Chine shirt, a Charvet tie, my tie as it happened, a pattern of postage stamps.References to Charvet in modern British or North American fiction illustrate the brand's identity: they help describe socially a character by its external appearance, such as elegance,[137] nobility,[239] wealth[240] or occupation.

[248] Modern customers include French presidents François Mitterrand[249] and Jacques Chirac,[250] American presidents John F. Kennedy[n. 24] and Ronald Reagan,[15] French actors Catherine Deneuve[15] and Philippe Noiret,[253] American movie stars Sofia Coppola[254] and Bruce Willis,[255] fashion designers Yves Saint Laurent[190] and Jasper Conran.