Late afternoon light illuminates a well-dressed crowd gathered in the formal living room of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Alumni Center, in the space A. Hays Town once designed to showcase Germaine Heymann’s grand piano. All eyes are on author Tim Allis.
The former In Style senior editor and Lafayette native returned to launch his book, Henri Bendel and the Worlds He Fashioned, released on Sept. 24 by UL Press. The story of the Louisiana born, Gilded Age retail pioneer has already received praise from Vogue and The New York Times.
Bendel is a name as well known in Lafayette as businessman Heymann and architect Hays Town, but the details of his life are as murky in the minds of today’s residents as the Bayou Vermilion that hugs the subdivision bearing his name, Bendel Gardens.
Allis’ book sets out to change that. Tracing Henri Bendel’s legacy from Vermilionville to the epicenter of New York and Paris fashion, he artfully connects the dots from Grand Coteau to Coco Chanel.
Allis, wearing a crisp striped shirt evoking Bendel’s famous branding, reveals to a rapt audience (including some of Bendel’s direct descendants) what attracted him to the fashion icon’s previously untold story.
"To come — not just from here to New York — to come from humble beginnings, but with a very industrious mother and stepfather and wonderful siblings, and to take that mojo, tie it to his great aesthetic instincts, and then to run with it and become the great Henri Bendel who built this fashion empire — that's what blows me away about Henri — the journey," said Allis.
Woven throughout Bendel’s life story are nods to his tight-knit Southern family, as well as his affinity for hunting and fishing, religious traditions and French culture. These touchstones will sound familiar to anyone who ever called Lafayette home. The book illustrates how Bendel became who he was, not despite where he came from, but because of it.
Bendel, who died in 1936, lived on as a brand until 2019 when the doors to his eponymous Fifth Avenue store closed after 123 years. Henri Bendel and Worlds He Fashioned ensures Bendel’s place in fashion — and Louisiana — history. "I see this as a chance to bring him back home to Lafayette," said Allis.
Henri Bendel and Worlds He Fashioned is available now at UL Press.
Photos: UL Press author Tim Allis celebrated the launch of his new book about Henri Bendel at the UL Lafayette Alumni Center. Four of Bendel's descendants attended the event. Photo credit: Somer Greer / UL Press Illustration: A postcard of Henri Bendel's Camellia Lodge in Lafayette's Bendel Gardens neighborhood, courtesy of UL Press. Archive photo: Henri Bendel (left) with Beverly Stephens (center), wife of Dr. Edwin Stephens, president of Southwestern Louisiana Institute in the president's garden in 1930. Photo by Dr. Stephens, courtesy of UL Press.