He then entrusted his shop to a friend, a 'war nurse'. In December 1941, the shop was placed under the control of the Commissariat-General for Jewish Affairs, which affixed a yellow star to the shop front and forced the removal of the name Samuel from the sign. Returning to Paris by September 1940, he resumed his shop on the Rue Royale in October 1940. However, on 6 June 1940, he managed to escape from the Germans and their zone interdite. Samuel was taken prisoner and sent to the citadel of Cambrai. At Marchélepot, one of the villages being defended in an attempt to secure the route to Paris, his regiment finally succumbed, after withstanding 48-hours of heavy aerial and artillery bombardment, followed by hand-to-hand combat once their ammunition ran out. As a member of the 22nd Regiment of the RMVE, he saw heavy action during the Villers-Carbonnel offensive of the German Case Red campaign. Instead, in September 1939, he joined one of the Marching Regiments of Foreign Volunteers ( French: Régiments de marche de volontaires étrangers, RMVE) set up by the French Foreign Legion, for foreign nationals or the stateless who wished to assist in France's defence in World War II. Īs a citizen of Argentina, Samuel was ineligible to volunteer for the French army. His growing fame and creative daring for the time earned him recognition from Hollywood stars such as Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Barbara Hutton and Marlene Dietrich. The name of a particular shade of pearl, a light pinkish cream, dates from this period : the 'Fred colour'. He was one of the first importers into France of the cultured pearl, a Japanese innovation that upset the French jewellery industry which had previously been devoted to fine pearls. He chose to have printed in capital letters on his first business card: “Fred Samuel, the modern, jeweller, creator” in French: Le Moderne-Joaillier-Créateur. Īfter his national service at the age of 28, he set up his own business in 1936, opening a shop in his name in the eighth arrondissement of Paris, at number 6 Rue Royale. They decided to second Fred Samuel to their customs operations in 1925. The Worms brothers, founders of the company, were contacted by Mikimoto Kōkichi to market cultured pearls in France.

He arrived in France at the age of 16 and trained in the jewellery industry with the Worms company as a trader in precious stones and pearls. The son of Alsatians who emigrated to Argentina fleeing the German annexation that followed the 1870 war, Fred Samuel was born in Buenos Aires in 1908. History Foundation and beginnings (1925-1944) 1.2 Development and diversification (1960-1990).

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