Madeleine Vionnet

Madeleine Vionnet established her Parisian haute couture brand in 1912, and it is said that Vionnet 'exemplified fashion: iconic, trend setter, extraordinarily creative, visionary, and courageous.' She was also called the 'Queen of the bias cut' and the 'Architect among dressmakers'.Madeleine was born into a poor family in Chilleurs-aux-Bois, Loiret, France, on the 22nd of June 1876, and her story began when she took on an apprenticeship as a seamstress at the tender age of 11.  
Vionnet married at the age of 18, but it did not last long and she left her husband and moved to London to work as a hospital seamstress. After leaving the hospital, Madeleine also worked as a fitter for Kate Reily, a noted British dressmaker.
She did not remain in London, however, Vionnet eventually returned to Paris and trained with the well-known fashion house Callot Soeurs and later with Jacques Doucet, all proved incredibly valuable experience. By 1912 Vionnet had worked hard in the fashion industry and believed it was time to make a difference herself. She founded her own fashion house, a short time before World War 1, ‘Vionnet’.
Her work was considered controversial as it introduced clothes cut on the bias, a technique for cutting fabric diagonal to the grain meaning it moves with the body and can be draped, or fitted on a specific figure. Vionnet used this method of cutting to create a smooth, sleek, flattering, body-skimming look that helped to transform women’s wear and propel her to fashion stardom.
The House of Vionnet grew to employ over 1,100 seamstresses and became the first fashion house to generate prêt-à-porter (ready to wear) haute couture clothing to be sold in the United States.
The seemingly simple styles of The House of Vionnet meant an extensive preparation process. Dresses would have to be made in smaller form and would have to be cut, draped, and pinned on to miniature dolls, before recreating them in chiffon, silk, or Moroccan crepe on life-size models. Vionnet used feminine fabrics to suit her designs such as crêpe de chine, gabardine, and satin to make her clothes; fabrics that were unusual in women's fashion of the 1920s and 30s. She would order fabrics two metres wider than necessary in order to make room for draping, creating clothes that were lavish and beautiful, whilst still being modern and simple. Typical Vionnet styles that fitted and moved with the wearer included the handkerchief dress, cowl neck, and halter top.
Avoiding corsets, padding, stiffening, and anything that interrupted the natural curves of a woman's physique, her clothes were known to emphasize the natural female form. Influenced by the modern dances of Isadora Duncan, Vionnet created designs that showed off a woman's natural shape. Vionnet’s extravagant creations took huge inspiration from countries around the world. For example, in 1922 her designs were inspired by Greek vases and Egyptian paintings. The bias cut was used to insure the dresses would fit tightly at the waist and flare out at the skirt to form a bell shape. In 1925 Vionnet was also responsible for producing ‘seam decorations’. This is a technique in which she would decorate a visible seam in star of flower shapes.
The unique aspect of Madeleine’s designs assured she dominated haute couture in the 1930’s, and was one of the biggest trend setters to women worldwide with her stunning gowns. Her vision of the female form meant she transformed trends and the popularity of the bias cut formed her reputation. Vionnet struggled but succeeded to form copyright fashion laws and wanted to insure that her employees were happy too by considering revolutionary labour practices, including maternity leave, day-care, paid holidays, a dining hall, and a resident doctor and dentist. All these gracious acts led her to be awarded the Legion d’Honneur, Frances highest honour.
The start of the Second World War in 1939 forced Vionnet to close the house with the intent to re-open after the war, however this did not go to plan and the house remained closed. Till her death, Madeleine continued to follow and observe haute couture, as she had such a heavy contribution to the industry and still today remains one of the greatest designers of all time. Vionnet died on the 2^nd of March 1975, aged 98.

Coco Chanel

Coco Chanel, real name Gabrielle Chanel, is best known for the Chanel suit, the Chanel jacket, bell bottom trousers, and Chanel no.5 perfume.
Although Chanel claimed she was born in 1893 in a place called Auvergne, France, she was actually born in 1883 in Saumur, a town in the west of France. Chanel's mother worked in the poorhouse where Gabrielle was born, and passed away when Gabrielle was just six, leaving her father with five children. He soon abandoned this responsibility and left his children in the hands of his relatives.

From 1905-1908, Gabrielle worked as a cafe and concert singer, and gave herself the stage name Coco. But this did not last long. Soon after she became a mistress to a wealthy military officer, and then to an English industrialist, but she used the wealthiness of these men to her advantage. Pulling on the resources of these patrons, she used the funds to set up a millinery shop in Paris in 1910, soon expanding to open shops in Deauville and Biarritz. Not only did she initially rely on funds from these men, but she also knew that another thing they could supply was customers. They helped her source the wealthier women of society to buy her products, and the simple design of her hats became extremely popular.

Chanel's millinery success grew and grew and soon 'Coco' was a couture brand, making clothing as well as famous trademark hats. Gabrielle's clothing was made from jersey for comfort and style, a first in French fashion. By the 1920's Chanel's brand has expanded considerably, and had a definite impact on the fashion world with its 'little boy' look. Gabrielle's mid length skirt and casual look was a sharp contrast to the current tailored, corseted trends of the previous decades. Chanel did indeed dress in mannish clothing herself, and the liberation she felt was to be passed on to other women who wore her clothing.

By 1922 Chanel's clothing was selling so well she introduced her first perfume, Chanel No.5, which became and remains an incredibly popular and profitable product worldwide. Pierre Wertheimer became her partner in the perfume business in 1924, and rumoured also to be her lover. Wertheimer owned 70% of the company; Chanel received 10% and her friend Bader 20%. The Wertheimers remain the owners of the perfume company today.

Chanel contined to introduce new timeless pieces, such as the cardigan jacket in 1925, along with the signature 'little black dress'. Her fashion's were, as previously mentioned, timeless. Gabrielle briefly served as a nurse in World War II. Nazi occupation meant the fashion business in Paris was cut off for some years; Chanel's affair during World War II with a Nazi officer also resulted in some years of diminished popularity and an exile of sorts to Switzerland. In 1954 her comeback re-established her into to the first ranks of haute couture. Her casual clothing including the Chanel suit caught the eye, and purses, of women once again. She also introduced pea jackets and bell bottom trousers for many admiring women.

Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel was still working in 1971 when she died, then eighty-seven years old. She was tired and ailing but continued to adhere to her usual schedule, overseeing the preparation of the spring collection. She died on Sunday 10 January, at the Hotel Ritz where she had lived for more than thirty years. She had gone for a long drive that day and, not feeling well, had retired early to bed. Karl Lagerfeld carries on her legacy and has been chief designer of Chanel's fashion house since 1983.

Ballet Russes influence on fashion.

The Ballet Russes was a travelling ballet company which performed between 1909 and 1929, and is considered one of the greatest ballet companies of all time. Directed by Sergei Diaghilev, it is said to have 'landed with a crash' on Parisian stages and changed the style of everything forthwith: music, ballet choreography, art, decor, and primarily, fashion. The strong relationship between choreographers, dancers, designers, and the production team ensured a spectacular performance, that quickly grew to be a very popular wonder that people would travel for miles to witness. It was also the companies relationship with fashion that certified and created one of the most influential fashion movements of the twentieth century. The Ballet Russes interpretation of fashion was not so much about the creation of a garment, 'as fashionability, a conjunction of performed glamour, conspicuous outrage, publicity and pizazz that Diaghilev exploited so well.'

The relationship between couture and modernism in the arts at the start of the 20th century was strong. Diaghilev's experimentation with ballet was created for Paris, because he had made social and financial connections there with exhibitions of Russian paintings, and also because he figured out that Paris was art's pre-eminent city, it commanded the luxury trades, and in new media.
In the 1890s, the invention of moving image, plus shorter exposure times for still images, made it possible to catch movement, while cheaply obtainable photographic reproductions endorsed the change in body consciousness.
The choreography and costume of the Ballet Russes proved inspiration for popular designers of the time such as Paul Poiret and Gabrielle Chanel. Obviously the inspiration of Mikhail Fokine's choreography for Diaghilev, and the revealing, skimpy costumes of Léon Bakst, didn't single-handedly make Paul Poiret to surrender the corset, or persuade Gabrielle Chanel to simplify the belle époque evening gown into the little black dress. It’s more they answered to broader creative and technical discoveries. Chanel, whose father had sold men's underwear made of factory-knitted stockinet (jersey), was aware from childhood that the dull fabric draped well, and drapery on the natural body was readable as sexy. From about 1912, Chanel cut skirts from it for her first boutique.
 
Writing about the Ballet Russes show how an inexpensive addition to a Parisian daily entertainment paper, in conspiracy with the Russians, worked out every modern publicity method before any of the US discovered the film-fan magazine. It had vast collections of images of the members of the Ballet Russes in costume and frozen motion poses – also, for example, one sequence was bordered with photographs in strips, as if they were a reel for projection. It showed ballerinas in their preferred couture, usually Poiret, thus promoting the designers products and boosting the Russes popularity. Its artists supplied ballet articles for initial copies, and photographs for advertisers who borrowed Russian themes – the sexy east and Slavic peasant – for lingerie and cosmetics. It was no longer just hype, it went further than that, and became promotion. This is how the company became so popular and became a huge inspiration and influence to the worldwide fashion industry.

Many of these magazines and programmes still prove inspiration for designers many years after and still remains influencial with designers in the present day. in 1976, Yves Saints Laurent's catwalk exotica collection was based on the Ballet Russes.  The collection pieces are beautiful, but the true form of Bakst's colour, and of Natalia Goncharova's stunning graphics, lives on in the form of Zandra Rhodes and Celia Birtwell, both of them designing à la Russe to this day.

Paul Poiret

Paul Poiret, the explorer of the romantic and theatrical possibilities of clothing, is one of the most renowned women's wear designers of the twentieth century. He was particularly popular in the 1910s, and was known for his ability to 'divine and define the desires of women', and he became known as the 'King of Fashion' in America.

Poiret was born on the 20th of April 1879, to a cloth merchant in a poor neighbourhood of Les Halles, Paris. As he grew up he developed an overwhelming sense of natural pride, which was not taken kindly by his parents. To rid him of this fault, they apprenticed him to an umbrella maker, where he would collect scraps of leftover silk from the umbrellas and fashion clothing for a small doll he owned. This early hobby was where Poiret's passion began, a passion that would one day mean his name was known all over the world.

After he had developed his talent, as a teenager he took his sketches to a talented dressmaker, Madeleine Cheruit, who loved them so much she purchased a dozen from him, which sparked a steady flow of purchases from many important fashion figures. Poiret continued to sell his illustrations and eventually was selling to the likes of major Parisian couture houses, which led him to be hired by Jacques Doucet, a popular fashion designer in 1898, where he produced his first famous creation, a red wool cloak with gray crêpe de chine lining and revers, which sold 400 copies. But it was a piece he created for the actress Réjane in a play called Zaza that would secure his fame. Using the stage as a runway grew to be a typical strategy of Poiret's marketing techniques, meaning he could present his most avant-garde creations. The piece created for Réjane was of black tulle over a black taffeta that had been painted by Billotey, a famous fan painter of the time, with large white and mauve irises. In Poiret's words, "All the sadness of a romantic dénouement, all the bitterness of a fourth act, were in this so-expressive cloak, and when they saw it appear, the audience foresaw the end of the play".

He was soon to leave Doucet, however, in 1901 and move to the House Of Worth, (son of Charles Frederick Worth) another renowned Parisian fashion house, where he was asked to produe what Worth called 'fried potatoes'; simple, practical garments that were 'side dishes' to Worth's creations, or 'truffles', evening and reception gowns. Conversely, Poiret's designs were not favoured by the public, as the 'brazen modernity of his designs' proved too diverese for Worth's clientele. For example, Poiret chose to present the Russian Princess Bariatinsky with a innovatively designed Confucius coat, which had a distinctive kimono-like cut, which was not popular at the time it was designed. It was not appreciated by the princess, however, and she is said to have exclaimed 'What a horror! When there are low fellows who run after our sledges and annoy us, we have their heads cut off, and we put them in sacks just like that'. Poiret's exotic tendencies were expressed through his use of vivid color combinations and enigmatic silhouettes such as his iconic "lampshade" tunic and his "harem" trousers, or pantaloons. However, these oriental fantasies detracted from Poiret's more enduring innovations, namely his technical and marketing achievements. Poiret effectively established the canon of modern dress and developed the basis of the modern fashion industry. Poiret not only changed the course of costume history but also steered it in the direction of modern design history.

The unpopular nature of his designs through the Worth house, and the ill-disposed reaction of the Russian Princess led Poiret to open his own house in 190 at 5 rue Auber, where the controversial kimono coat became a trademark piece.  Later, in 1906, he moved his atelier to 37 rue Pasquier, and then, in 1909, to 9 avenue d'Antin. Two years later, he created and established a perfume and cosmetics company named after the eldest of his two daughters, Rosine, and a decorative arts company named after his second daughter, Martine, both located at 107 Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Poiret became the first couturier to merge fashion with interior design and endorse the concept of a "total lifestyle."

Despite Poiret's classical fashion education at two of the oldest and most revered couture houses, the creations of his first decade as an independent couturier broke established settlements of dressmaking, and undermining and eventually destroying their core presuppositions. He liberated women of their petticoats in 1903, and eventually rid them of their corsets in 1906. He was not alone in this vision of dress reform. Lucile (also known as Lady Duff Gordon) and Madeleine Vionnet also developed an uncorseted silhouette, but it was Poiret, largely down to his insight for publicity, who became most widely associated with the new look.

Poiret formed a revolution in dressmaking. He used the draping technique, so pattern cutting and technical skills were not required.  It was a fundamental departure from the couture traditions of the nineteenth century, which relied on intenseley precise pattern pieces for their effectiveness. Looking to both antique and regional dress forms, most notably to the Greek chiton, the Japanese kimono, and the North African and Middle Eastern caftan, Poiret promoted garments cut along straight lines and constructed of simple rectangles. These garments hung of women's shoulders and therefore made a multitude of techniques possible. Poiret exploited its fullest potential by launching, in quick succession, a series of designs that were startling in their simplicity and originality. From 1906 to 1911, he presented garments that promoted a high-waisted silhouette.

During World War I, Poiret left his fashion house to serve the military by restructuring uniform manufacture. When Poiret returned after being discharged in 1919, the house was on the brink of bankruptcy. New designers like Chanel were producing modest, feminine clothes that relied on perfectly precise workmanship. In comparison, Poiret's sumptuous designs seemed drab and poorly produced. (Though Poiret's designs were groundbreaking, his construction was not—he aimed only for his dresses to "read beautifully from afar.") Poiret was suddenly shoved brutally out of fashoin, in debt, and without support, so he soon left his fashion house. In 1929, the house was closed, and its leftover clothes were sold by the kilogram as rags. When Poiret died in 1944, his genius had been forgotten. His extreme poverty led him in odd jobs as a street painter, a very different life to the one he had been used to. Poiret would try to sell drawings to the customers of Parisian cafes. At one time it was even discussed in the 'Chambre syndicale de la Haute Couture' to provide a monthly allowance to assist him, but when the idea reached the Worth's (at that time at holding the presidency of that body), they strongly rejected it, an action that now seems spiteful and selfish. Only the help of his friend Elsa Schiaparelli prevented his name from being forgotten completely, and it was Schiaparelli that paid for Poiret's burial in 1944.