Marie-Jacques Renée "Jacotte" Perrier (22 November 1924 - 29 November 2012) was a French singer, fashion journalist, voice actress, socialite, author and art collector. She was best known for her musical collaborations with the

Quintette du Hot Club de France The Quintette du Hot Club de France ("The Quintet of the Hot Club of France"), often abbreviated "QdHCdF" or "QHCF", was a jazz group founded in France in 1934 by guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stéphane Grappelli and active in one for ...

and her fashion reporting for

Fairchild Publications Fairchild Media is a publisher of digital media, journalism, photography and design, events and summits, video and studios, and fashion. Fairchild Media brands include '' Women’s Wear Daily'', '' Footwear News'' (FN), ''Beauty Inc'', ''M'' and ...

. She was the daughter of musical composer and haute couture textile supplier

Robert Perrier Robert Charles Perrier (July 1, 1898 to April 19, 1987) was a French haute couture textile supplier, songwriter, socialite and art collector. His vintage silks rank among the world’s most coveted luxury fabrics, including exclusivities created f ...

, from whom she inherited direction of the R-26 artistic

salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon A beauty salon or beauty parlor is an establishment that provides Cosmetics, cosmetic treatments for people. Other variations of this type of business include hair salons, spas, day spas, ...

Early life and singing career

Born in the

Montmartre Montmartre ( , , ) is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement of Paris, 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Rive Droite, Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for its a ...

district of Paris in 1924, Marie-Jacques Perrier was raised among the regulars of her parents’ R-26, the informal artistic salon based in the family's apartment and frequented by artists such as

Josephine Baker Freda Josephine Baker (; June 3, 1906 – April 12, 1975), naturalized as Joséphine Baker, was an American and French dancer, singer, and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in France. She was the first Black woman to s ...

Stéphane Grappelli Stéphane Grappelli (; 26 January 1908 – 1 December 1997) was a French jazz violinist. He is best known as a founder of the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands. ...

Django Reinhardt Jean Reinhardt (23 January 1910 – 16 May 1953), known by his Romani people, Romani nickname Django ( or ), was a Belgium, Belgian-born Romani jazz guitarist and composer in France. He was one of the first major jazz talents to emerge in Europe ...

Henri Salvador Henri Salvador (18 July 1917 – 13 February 2008) was a French Caribbean singer, comedian and cabaret artist. Biography Salvador was born in Cayenne, French Guiana. His father, Clovis, and his mother, Antonine Paterne, daughter of an Indigen ...

, Jean Tranchant and

Mary Lou Williams Mary Lou Williams (born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs; May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records (in 78, 45, and ...

. Perrier began her acting career at the age of ten using the stage name Jacotte Perrier, performing in variety theaters and on French radio. Her voice soon became synonymous with the role of Mitou in the popular radio comedy '' Serpentin, Mitou et Toti'', under the direction of

Alain Saint-Ogan Alain Saint-Ogan (; August 7, 1895 – June 22, 1974) was a French comics author and artist. He is best remembered for his long-running humorous children's adventure comic ''Zig et Puce''. He was also active as an editorial cartoonist, a child ...

. As a singer, she began her recording career with

Pathé Records Pathé Records was an international record company and label and producer of phonographs, based in France, and active from the 1890s through the 1930s. Early years The Pathé record business was founded by brothers Charles and Émile Pathé, ...

in 1937, producing singles with Reinhardt and his

including the series ''Chansons de Jacotte'', written by Jean Tranchant, and ''‘Ric et Pussy’'', written by Perrier's parents. Perrier was equally introduced into the milieu of her father's haute couture business, affording her a visit in 1944 with the then-destitute and moribund Paul Poiret. After graduating from the École du Louvre in 1944, Perrier was variously employed by couturière Marie-Louise Bruyère, film producer Fred Orain, the Embassy of Pakistan in France and Panair do Brasil (Pan American Airways). Perrier's musical collaborations with Stéphane Grappelli continued until 1950, recording music written by Perrier's parents such as the single ''‘La pluie sur le toit’''.

Fashion journalism career

Leveraging her father's contacts within the fashion industry, Marie-Jacques Perrier became employed in 1955 as an English-language journalist for the Paris office of

, partnering her with the budding illustrator Kenneth Paul Block. Her contributions from Paris, London and New York City to the company's Women's Wear Daily and the Daily News Record soon became extremely popular, earning Perrier's reputation as one of Fairchild's most distinguished journalists of haute couture. Perrier earned wide acclaim for her interviews with many of the decade's most fashionable women, including Jacqueline Kennedy, Estée Lauder (person), Estée Lauder, Princess Margaret and Farah Pahlavi, Farah Diba Pahlavi. An interview with Maria Callas first quoted the singer's famous assertion, ''"Paris dicte la mode au monde entier"'' (''"Paris dictates fashion to the whole world"''). Through the course of her seven years with Fairchild Publications, Perrier interviewed most of the major Paris-based fashion designers, including Pierre Balmain, Hubert de Givenchy, Nina Ricci (designer), Nina Ricci and Elsa Schiaparelli. She was also one of the first to feature interviews with many future luminaries, among them James Galanos, Karl Lagerfeld, Yves Saint Laurent (designer), Yves Saint Laurent and Emanuel Ungaro. Perrier was a member of the Fashion Group Paris alongside colleagues Eugenia Sheppard and Diana Vreeland. Throughout Perrier's career, she maintained a close professional relationship with designers such as Pierre Cardin, André Courrèges and Givenchy, contacts that were much in demand by Perrier's publishers. In 1962, Fairchild Publications underwent a major restructuring resulting in the departure of most of the Paris office's journalists, Perrier included. Perrier then moved to Los Angeles to work as a foreign correspondent and freelance for ''The Hollywood Reporter'', though the birth of her daughter encouraged Perrier to return to Europe. Later writing for a variety of publications in Paris, London, Milan, Sydney and Buenos Aires, she continued to report on haute couture shows, interviewing a new generation of then up-and-coming designers including Calvin Klein, Thierry Mugler, Oscar de la Renta and Kenzo Takada. Perrier's career as a fashion journalist was remarkable in that it spanned essentially three distinct eras of haute couture, from that of Schiaparelli to Saint Laurent to Mugler. She contributed reporting to a total of eighty-seven publications worldwide, in addition to co-authoring numerous books on the subject of fashion.

Later life

Well into her eighties, Marie-Jacques Perrier continued work as a reporter while managing the archives of both her parents’ music and her father's Société de Textiles Robert Perrier. Perrier was the inheritor of her father's art collection, including numerous paintings by Sonia Delaunay. To this she added works of abstractionism, surrealism and minimalism, such as some by Yves Klein. The collection was eventually dispersed by auction and donation. Perrier was the subject of several television documentaries for History (U.S. TV channel), History and ITV Network, ITV. She was regularly a guest of honor at retrospectives and festivals celebrating

, as she was one of the guitarist's longest living collaborators. In 2004, Perrier renewed her singing career to record an anthology of her parents’ music, ''Echos du R. 26''. Following her father's death, Perrier decided to modernize the R-26 artistic salon by offering long-term residence at her family's apartment to foreign students studying in Paris. Over the next twenty-five years, Perrier shared her home with over a hundred young artists and freethinkers of diverse nationalities. She also organized student dialogues with members of the French leadership, among them former Prime Minister of France, Prime Minister Alain Juppé. On 29 November 2012, in Paris's 18th arrondissement of Paris, 18th arrondissement, Marie-Jacques Perrier died suddenly at the age of eighty-eight of a pulmonary embolism. A commemorative mass was held in her honor several weeks later at the church of Saint-Pierre de Montmartre."Nécrologie: Marie-Jacques Perrier." Le Figaro. Paris. 11 December 2012.

Partial discography

* ''Chansons de Jacotte'' - 1935 * ''La Ferme enchantée'' - 1937 * ''Gros émoi parmi les souris'' - 1937 * ''Close to You'' - 1938 * ''Noël des Enfants qui n'ont plus de maison'' - 1938 * ''Par un fil'' - 1938 * ''Vingt Ans'' - 1938 * ''Ric et Pussy'' - 1938 * ''Les salades de l'oncle François'' - 1938 * ''La pluie sur le toit'' - 1950 * ''Tu m’as dit'' – 1983 * ''Les cinglés du Music Hall'' – 1995 * ''Intégrale Django Reinhardt'' - 1999 * ''Echos du R. 26'' - 2004 * ''Chansons d’enfance'' - 2007 * ''Soirées à Montmartre'' – 2007 * ''Django et la chanson'' - 2008

References

External links