1903-1994 Madame Grès

Just adding some info for this dress^
same source
pellucid pink flying in a tunic top with dazzling golden yoke, in a wide winged skirt to the floor.
 
Diana Vreeland really had a way with words, didn't she....
 
yes^ :crush: Also love the description of the skirt with wings
I wish I could see it as a diagram since it's hard to see the detail when she's moving

it's like she's wearing two skirts.
one somewhere hanging at the back..
 
The work that went into these pieces is astounding.

I'm especially taken with the draped cream Grecian style dress in post #100.
 
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I think these might be from when her collection was still called Alix
vintagefashionguild
 
The Madame Gres Exhibition, 1994

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Venue: Metropolitan Museum of Art (Costume Institute), New York
Madame Gres is one of the greatest designers of the 20th century. This major exhibition of Madame Gres was held in 1994 at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and was sponsored by Yagi Tsusho, a holder of the Gres brand. It provided the opportunity to feature the immense legacy that Gres has left on the twentieth century fashion world.
 
I'm especially taken with the draped cream Grecian style dress in post #100.

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I saw this dress at the Met and it knocked me flat. Even before i got close enough to appreciate the incredible pleating. It had the most reposeful, seraphic beauty - i could not stop looking at it.
 
A real syphide ^^^

Imagine the woman it would take to pull that masterpiece off. It belongs on a marble statue, Canova or something disgustingly classical

Imagine too what it would feel like on the body! Air from the heavens? A Mediterranean breeze?
 
Born: Germain "Alix" Barton in Paris, 30 November 1903. Education: Studied painting and sculpture, Paris. Family: Married Serge Czerefkov, late 1930s; daughter: Anne. Career: Served three-month apprenticeship with Premet, Paris, 1930; made and sold toiles using the name Alix Barton, Paris, 1930s; designer, Maison Alix (not her own house), 1934-40; sold rights to the name Alix and adopted Grés, from husband's surname, 1940; director, Grés Couture, from 1942; accessory line introduced, 1976; ready-to-wear line introduced, 1980; retired, 1988; perfumes include Cabochard, 1959, Grés pour Homme, 1965, Qui Pro Quo, 1976, Eau de Grés, 1980, Alix, 1981, Grés Nonsieu, 1982, and Cabotine de Grés, 1990. Exhibition: Madame Grés, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1994. Awards: Named Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, 1947; Dé d'Or award, 1976; New York University Creative Leadership in the Arts award, 1978. Died: 24 November 1993, in the South of France (not made public until December 1994).

According to many who attended, the Madame Grés showings were exquisite anguish. With alterations up to the last minute by the designer, models would be delayed, garments could appear trailing strings, and long intervals might occur between the display of individual garments. At the very end, a flurry of models in flowing draped jersey evening dresses would come out on the runway in rapid succession, an abrupt finale to a halting presentation. Known for designing with the immediacy of draping with cloth, Grés was the self-committed and consummate artist, never the agreeable couturiére. Her white salon bespoke her austerity in engineering and her clarity in grace.

Grés shunned the promotional grace and personal identification of many fashion designers, insisting instead on rigorous attention to the clothing. First a sculptor, Grés depended upon sculptural insight even as she, in her most famous and signature form, brought the Louvre's statue of the Nike of Samothrace to life in clothing form. Grés' draped and pleated silk jerseys flattered the body with the minimalist and rationalist radicalism of 1930s design, but provided a classical serenity as well. The real achievement of the draped dresses was not their idyllic evocation, but their integrity. They were a unified construction, composed of joined fabric panels continuously top to bottom, fullest in the swirling flutes of the skirt, tucked at the waist, elegantly pinched through the bodice, and surmounted at the neckline— often one-shouldered—with the same materials resolved into three-dimensional twists. Grés was creating no mere lookalike to classical statuary, but a characteristically modern enterprise to impart the body within clothing.

Grés, however, was never a one-dress designer. Her 1934 black Cellophane dress with a black-seal-lined cape (photographed by Hoyningen-Heuné) is, as Vogue described, a scarab, but with the cling of bias cut. Following a trip to the Far East in 1936, Grés created a brocaded "Temple of Heaven" dress, inspired by Javanese dancing costumes. Throughout the 1930s, she took inspiration from North Africa and Egypt; in the 1940s, after managing to keep her business alive through most of the war, Grés became interested in tailoring and created some of the most disciplined suit tailoring for daywear in the 1940s and 1950s.

By the 1960s and 1970s, Grés was translating the planarity of regional costume into a simplified origami of flat planes, ingeniously manipulated on the body to achieve a minimalism akin to sportswear. Ironically, she who exemplified the persistence of couture treated the great dress with the modernist lightness of sportswear, and she who held out so long against ready-to-wear turned with a convert's passion to its possibilities in the 1980s, when she was in her late 80s. The personalizing finesse of a plait or wrap to close or shape a garment was as characteristic of Grés as of Halston or McCardell; her ergodynamics brought fullness to the chest simply by canting sleeves backward so the wearer inevitably created a swelling fullness in the front as arms forced the sleeves forward, creating a pouch of air at the chest.

For evening, Grés practiced a continuous antithesis of body disclosure and hiding the body within cloth. Even the Grecian "slave" dress, as some of the clients called it, seemed to be as bare as possible with alarming apertures to flesh. But the Grés draped dress, despite its fluid exterior, was securely corseted and structured within, allowing for apertures of skins to seem revealing while at the same time giving the wearer the assurance that the dress would not shift on the body. Conversely, more or less unstructured caftans, clinging geometries of cloth, could cover the wearer so completely as to resemble dress of the Islamic world, but in these instances the softness of structure complemented the apparent suppleness.

Never was a Grés garment, whether revealing or concealing, less than enchanting. The slight asymmetry of a wrap determined by one dart, the fall of a suit button to a seaming line, or the wrap of a draped dress to a torque of shaping through the torso, was an invention and an enchantment in Grés' inventive sculptural vocabulary. History, most notably through photographers such as Hoyningen-Heuné and Willy Maywald, recorded the sensuous skills of Madame Grés chiefly in memorable black-and-white images, but the truth of her achievement came in garden and painterly colors of aubergine, magenta, cerise, and royal blue, along with a spectrum of fertile browns. Her draped Grecian slaves and goddesses were often in a white of neoclassicism, but an optical white that tended, with exposure to light, to yellow over time. Grés' streamlined architecture of clothing was the pure white of dreaming, of languorous physical beauty, and apparel perfect in comfort and image.

—Richard Martin

soource: fashionencyclopedia.com
 
A Challenging Sew By Leisa Stanton



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Feb 20
A visit to Paris and a Madame Picco Skirt Panel Class
Draping, Madame Picco, Paris - A Couture Trip, Susan Khalje

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After my tailoring class with Thomas in London late last year, I headed over to Paris for a few days to catch up with friends and check out the fabric stores.

My favorite view...

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First stop is always to the amazing General Diff's in Paris - where of course, I found so much I wanted (and the exchange right was SO good!) but I eventually left with only five carefully considered fabric's instead - coupe de fil boucle and lace, guipure and one yard of silk velvet.

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Before having a lovely afternoon browse with a friend in Colette to check out their newest finds.. Oh to be a buyer at their store!

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and stopping way to many times at Helmut Newcakes GF bakery....

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Before finishing with afternoon tea at the Ritz...

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However, my main reason for being in Paris in what turned out to be fortuitous timing indeed, was that I would be there just as Susan's Paris tour was about to start.

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I've often said that the day I spent with Madame Picco in 2014 was an extraordinary experience and when Susan asked earlier last year if I would like to join her Paris tour again for their planned visit that day, I was obviously thrilled.

It's such a rare opportunity to meet with somebody who not only has worked for such well known and prestigious Couture house's, but is also willing to share the iconic and complicated draping and sewing techniques used at Gres and I was so deeply appreciative to be a part of the day again.

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Colette Picco is a Haute Couture specialist, who began as an apprentice to Pierre Balman, left to work as a seamstress for Mme Grès and was promoted over the years to head draper remaining there for 22 years. Eventually working for Nina Ricci until retirement.

She is wonderfully vibrant and enthusiastic, and has become the last living historian of the Gres Couture house and curator of some truly remarkable original items.

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While there in 2014, we spent the day creating a small sample section of pleating for the bodice of a dress or top, using dress forms, paper and curved needles. This is the only way to achieve the secure and tiny pleats on the jersey and while it was incredibly tricky and technical, it was also so inspiring as I had never imagined that fabric could be molded and manipulated in such ways before.

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In 2015, the year following my visit, Mme Picco started to teach the skirt portion of the draping instead and I could not have been happier than to spend the day learning these techniques, for while the skill set remains similar to the bodice, the steps are some what different.

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The skirt is made up of panels, and depending on both the width of a fabric and the measurement of the waist/hip etc can include upwards of six to ten yards...

The guide that is used to measure out the pleating (see Susan's detailed article on the bodice in Threads 173) is one and an eighth inches wide...

and the pleat should ideally be no wider than 1/8". Unbelievably Mme Grès could condense up to three yards of her specially designed fabric down to approx 3" or less.

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Each panel once complete are joined on selvedge and the seaming hidden within the pleating.

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I've recreated the very roughest example of how the skirt is constructed because I was concentrating so hard on the techniques that I completely forgot to take pictures past the first step while I was there!

Measuring the Jersey....

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Pinning the pleats...

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A stitch to secure each pleat...

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Use a fell stitch to hold a strip of stay tape in place at both top and bottom...

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Trim fabric close to tape...

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Snip corners off seams on the wrong side of the fabric to reduce bulk....

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Before attaching a strip of self fabric bias tape if wearing as a skirt...

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Stitch below tape...

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Fold over and finish insides with catch stitch or stitch in ditch...

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or attach to a bodice...

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SO, In theory, I've worked out if I dedicate one day a week solely to creating a simple bodice and skirt using these techniques, I should be close to finishing in a year?! although apparently some garments from the couture house could often take 300 hours or more and so i'll more than double that number I think!

I have no excuses as Mme Picco was very kind and gracious while we were there, and took time to explain to Susan and I exactly how this bodice was achieved, (not how you'd think!) so I do at least have some working idea...

As well as gifting me an original boning section, which I am trying to have replicated. It's very lightweight and flexible, an amazing design and by far my most treasured sewing notion!

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I've bought the fabric, and plan to begin prep in March, aiming to create a dress somewhat based on this mini beauty below.

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Lets see how just how much of a hot mess I can create!

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And one last picture, below is an original pin cushion from the House of Grès with their black Haute label and Couture labels.

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And for anyone interested in a more modern interpretation, there was a wonderful article in The Kinsky about Herve Leroux (better known as Herve Lèger) and his pleated design process and new company....

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and for all those who can't make, you can always buy right?!?!

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Have a lovely week!
Here is link to next post Paris - Part 2...Madame Picco — A Challenging Sew
I have some problem with my computer.


A Challenging Sew
 
Thank you SO MUCH for taking us through this process, what a truly magical experience this must be for you!
 
Thank you SO MUCH for taking us through this process, what a truly magical experience this must be for you!
I only found this blog on the Internet, but maybe in future. I always was fashion nerd and I like try find informations about how created some clothes.
 
This is the kind of stuff that makes me LOVE fashion. Gives me goosebumps.
Thank you for posting.
 

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