In 1926, a Vogue profile on prominent early 20th century French couturier Georges Doeuillet credited the designer with creating “some of the most charming and youthful dresses that come from Paris.”
Now, a century later, Doeuillet’s influence on the world of high fashion lives on in at least one unexpected venue — a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed residence turned historical museum in Chicago’s western suburbs, which houses the private memorabilia and personal artifacts of a once-prominent local couple.
Thanks to some fundraising and a monthslong restoration process, Geneva’s Fabyan Villa Museum will now be displaying one of Doeuillet’s gowns. Following a recent reception, the dress is officially being unveiled to the public when the museum opens for the season on May 2, according to the Preservation Partners of the Fox Valley, which operates the museum on behalf of the Kane County Forest Preserve District.
And, though several other museums — like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louvre in Paris — have garments designed by him in their collections, the Preservation Partners believe the gown at Fabyan Villa to be the only one designed by Doeuillet currently on display in the world, it said in a recent news release.
Just steps off the Fox River, the Fabyan Villa Museum provides a look into its own past. First a farmhouse, the building itself was redesigned by architect Frank Lloyd Wright for George and Nelle Fabyan in 1907.
Calling it Riverbank, the couple lived on a lavish estate with farms, exotic animals, concrete sculptures, greenhouses, a Dutch windmill, a Japanese garden, science laboratories and more, according to the Preservation Partners.
The Kane County Forest Preserve District acquired most of the estate following Nelle’s death in 1939, and converted its living space into a historical museum in 1940. The museum was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, and has been operated since 1995 by the Preservation Partners of the Fox Valley.
The museum holds an eclectic collection from the Fabyans, who were involved in diplomacy, scientific research, farming and animal husbandry.
Visitors who walk into the museum are greeted with objects ranging from taxidermy animals to a Japanese samurai suit.
Some of the objects were those belonging to the Fabyans, while other items are related to ventures that took place on the estate and the people that worked there, explained Al Watts, the Preservation Partners’ community engagement director.
What was once George Fabyan’s bedroom, for example, houses objects related to the codebreaking and acoustics work Fabyan sponsored on the property.
The nonprofit owns the majority of the artifacts housed in the museum, including the Doeuillet gown, according to Watts.
Later credited with drawing customers from around the world who sought out his work, Doeuillet, the gown’s designer, started his career
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as a silk merchant, but soon pivoted to dressmaking, establishing his own fashion house at the turn of the 20th century and specializing in the evening gown, according to Vogue.He later became known for his “robes de style” — a full-skirted dress popular in the 1920s — which he designed for the first performance at Paris’ Theatre Mogador. They were a hit.
It’s believed that Nelle Fabyan purchased the Doeuillet gown now displayed at the Fabyan Villa around 1910, according to the Preservation Partners. Before her death in 1939, Nelle gave the gown to Ethyl-Marie Williams, the wife of one of the Fabyans’ chauffeurs, Bert Williams. The Williams family then donated the gown to the Fabyan Villa Museum in 1987.
The museum at one point had the gown on display lying down — rather than on a mannequin — but then put it in storage, according to Kelsey Shipton, Preservation Partners’ executive director.
Later, looking to restore the dress, the nonprofit applied for and received some grants to pay for the conservation efforts, Shipton said. It was finished in 2024, but the nonprofit then sought more funds to pay for the display case and mannequin, which were completed in 2025.
The dress is made of a rose-colored silk satin, with metallic thread embroidery and a short train. It also features rosettes on the waistline and a strand of beading and rhinestones along the neckline.
Though not visible to viewers, Watts said a tag inside the gown ties the dress to Doeuillet, matching the tags of dresses of his that are still around today.
The restoration process took several months, according to Tara Hills, a textile conservator with The Conservation Center of Chicago, who restored the dress along with conservator Frank Connet.
The dress has “many layers, literally and figuratively,” Hills said in an email provided to The Beacon-News, and required a balance of what needed to be done in the moment with what future conservation efforts might wish to do.
The Conservation Center is a private art conservation laboratory, founded in 1983. During the restoration process for the gown, the conservators found that the satin had held up well, as had the silver lace along the bottom, according to Hills.
But other parts needed more work.
The bodice lining, Hills indicated, had “shattered,” a term used in textile conservation to describe when silk that becomes brittle starts to separate and fall apart. That lining, though not visible, supports the overall structure of the dress. They also had to replace the pink bobbinet — a type of tulle — trim that had largely disintegrated. They found similar material and dyed it to match the original, storing the original fragments for future research.
In addition to being an example of the work of an important designer — who later was even named an officer of France’s Legion of Honour, comparable to the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the United States — the dress is also an example of a transitional moment in fashion, according to Hills, between World War I and the Roaring Twenties.
It also brings the Fabyans’ personal history to the fore.
Nelle Fabyan was sort of the business head for the Fabyan Estate, Shipton told The Beacon-News, and was “kind of like a woman in a man’s world.” She was in charge of the estate’s farms, for example, and bred and showed animals.
“She’s a really complex person,” Shipton said. “She was … much more than just the socialite that … people thought she was.”
And the Fabyan Villa Museum — highlighting achievements accomplished in the area like codebreaking work during World War I and the development of an acoustical laboratory — doesn’t have many of the Fabyans’ personal artifacts, she noted.
“We talk about the people,” Shipton said of the museum, “but the people kind of get lost.”
Bringing an item of Nelle’s into her space, therefore, helps to bring alive the “person of Nelle, versus just a story,” Shipton said.
Displayed in a glass case, the gown now resides in what was once Nelle’s closet, just outside of her former bedroom on the museum’s first floor.
And, as far as the gown’s significance in fashion is concerned, the Fabyan Villa Museum allows visitors easier and more affordable access to this piece of history, Shipton said, as compared to museums in other parts of the country and the world.
“It’s really awesome,” she said, “to have this really unique and rare resource that we can share with the public.”