Table of Contents
6—11
Foreword Didier Grumbach
12—23
Introduction Kaat Debo & Olivier Saillard
24—33
Madame Grès, couture at work Olivier Saillard
34—97
Couture studio
98—143
Photo studio
144—151
The œuvre of Madame Grès: a story of sculpture Laurent Cotta
152—167
Drawings
168—187
Biography 1903–1993 Alexandre Samson
188—205
Dutch translations
207—211
Captions
212—216
Photo credits & Colophon
K aterina Jebb, 2011
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Table of Contents
6—11
Foreword Didier Grumbach
12—23
Introduction Kaat Debo & Olivier Saillard
24—33
Madame Grès, couture at work Olivier Saillard
34—97
Couture studio
98—143
Photo studio
144—151
The œuvre of Madame Grès: a story of sculpture Laurent Cotta
152—167
Drawings
168—187
Biography 1903–1993 Alexandre Samson
188—205
Dutch translations
207—211
Captions
212—216
Photo credits & Colophon
K aterina Jebb, 2011
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Foreword
“All her employers called her ‘Mademoiselle’. Under the leadership of her salon director, the imposing Baroness de Vandoevre, the company secreted a convent-like atmosphere. Mademoiselle demanded silence.”
— Didier Grumbach, President of the French Couture Federation
n 1957,Madame Grès, on the advice of Daniel Gorin, one of my glorious predecessors, signed, with C. Mendès, the company that I was soon going to run, a worldwide ready-to-wear licensing agreement. My grandfather was seriously ill and, so that they could both sign the document that would bind us, I had been appointed, at the age of twenty, as the most relevant messenger. “What are you doing with your time, young man?” “I do what I’m entitled to, Madame.” After some questions that showed her interest, she said: “Come and see me whenever you wish.” So I would attend some fittings, discreetly sitting on the carpet. Mademoiselle would be working on the model. Stretching out the fabric with her left hand, she projected from her right hand on to the gestating design the pins, which she grabbed by a fast and regular movement from a little basket attached to her belt. An extraordinary piece of magic! She hated fitted sleeves and forbade bust darts. Her full doubled-sided coats, with kimono sleeves, suited large American women. Jean Rosenberg would place his first orders for Bendel New Yorks.
During that same year , 1957, Jacques Heim founded, in the context of the Haute Couture Association, “Creation Ready-to-Wear”, an association of nine couture companies: Carven Junior, Grès Spécial, Madeleine de Rauch Boutique, Maggy Rouff Extension, Jacques Griffe Evolution, Jacques Heim Vedette, Jeanne Lanvin Boutique, Jean Dessès Bazaar, and Nina Ricci Boutique. In front of five hundred buyers and journalists, the nine company heads, sitting all in a row in a lounge of the George-V Hotel or the Orsay Hotel, lukewarmly applauded their colleagues’ catwalks. It was a prefiguration of the current Fashion Week. This exercise, to which Madame Grès forced herself on the insistence of Monsieur Leyssène, her director, did not please her at all. During five years, she endeavoured to make available for a “middle class” population creations that she had hitherto reserved for the planet’s most sophisticated clients. The Grè s “Special Line” would exist until 1962. It was already problematic for a couturier to solve the problems of calendar involved in designing couture collections. So industrial constraints did not suit her. She was the survivor of a category of couturiers who were concerned not with following the movement of fashion but with creating unique, harmonious and perfect oeuvres. The letter that I sent her in 1962, giving her the deadline for submitting her collection, remained unanswered and marked the end of the experiment. Cabochard, the perfume that the young Guy Leyssène had developed for Madame Grès, resolved her financial problems for a while. The emergence of ready-to -wear in the couture field was going, right from that time, to pose acute problems both for the Association’s management board and for its members. In as much as it was allowed that innovation could come from ready-to-wear as well from couture (which was unanimously disputed until sometime in the 1960s)1, the tension would remain. How,
Boris Lipnitzki, 1933
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Foreword
“All her employers called her ‘Mademoiselle’. Under the leadership of her salon director, the imposing Baroness de Vandoevre, the company secreted a convent-like atmosphere. Mademoiselle demanded silence.”
— Didier Grumbach, President of the French Couture Federation
n 1957,Madame Grès, on the advice of Daniel Gorin, one of my glorious predecessors, signed, with C. Mendès, the company that I was soon going to run, a worldwide ready-to-wear licensing agreement. My grandfather was seriously ill and, so that they could both sign the document that would bind us, I had been appointed, at the age of twenty, as the most relevant messenger. “What are you doing with your time, young man?” “I do what I’m entitled to, Madame.” After some questions that showed her interest, she said: “Come and see me whenever you wish.” So I would attend some fittings, discreetly sitting on the carpet. Mademoiselle would be working on the model. Stretching out the fabric with her left hand, she projected from her right hand on to the gestating design the pins, which she grabbed by a fast and regular movement from a little basket attached to her belt. An extraordinary piece of magic! She hated fitted sleeves and forbade bust darts. Her full doubled-sided coats, with kimono sleeves, suited large American women. Jean Rosenberg would place his first orders for Bendel New Yorks.
During that same year , 1957, Jacques Heim founded, in the context of the Haute Couture Association, “Creation Ready-to-Wear”, an association of nine couture companies: Carven Junior, Grès Spécial, Madeleine de Rauch Boutique, Maggy Rouff Extension, Jacques Griffe Evolution, Jacques Heim Vedette, Jeanne Lanvin Boutique, Jean Dessès Bazaar, and Nina Ricci Boutique. In front of five hundred buyers and journalists, the nine company heads, sitting all in a row in a lounge of the George-V Hotel or the Orsay Hotel, lukewarmly applauded their colleagues’ catwalks. It was a prefiguration of the current Fashion Week. This exercise, to which Madame Grès forced herself on the insistence of Monsieur Leyssène, her director, did not please her at all. During five years, she endeavoured to make available for a “middle class” population creations that she had hitherto reserved for the planet’s most sophisticated clients. The Grè s “Special Line” would exist until 1962. It was already problematic for a couturier to solve the problems of calendar involved in designing couture collections. So industrial constraints did not suit her. She was the survivor of a category of couturiers who were concerned not with following the movement of fashion but with creating unique, harmonious and perfect oeuvres. The letter that I sent her in 1962, giving her the deadline for submitting her collection, remained unanswered and marked the end of the experiment. Cabochard, the perfume that the young Guy Leyssène had developed for Madame Grès, resolved her financial problems for a while. The emergence of ready-to -wear in the couture field was going, right from that time, to pose acute problems both for the Association’s management board and for its members. In as much as it was allowed that innovation could come from ready-to-wear as well from couture (which was unanimously disputed until sometime in the 1960s)1, the tension would remain. How,
Boris Lipnitzki, 1933
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The e xhibition Madame Grès, l a couture à l’œuvre at the Musée Bourdelle, Paris 2011
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The e xhibition Madame Grès, l a couture à l’œuvre at the Musée Bourdelle, Paris 2011
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“madame grès’ work embodies an endless search
for pure perfection. an absolute modernity of embracing, following the movement of the body in the most natural and elegant way possible.”
— Haider Ackermann
Haider Ackermann, Spring/Summer 2012 Haider Ackermann, Autumn/ Winter 2010 –11
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“madame grès’ work embodies an endless search
for pure perfection. an absolute modernity of embracing, following the movement of the body in the most natural and elegant way possible.”
— Haider Ackermann
Haider Ackermann, Spring/Summer 2012 Haider Ackermann, Autumn/ Winter 2010 –11
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Je an Paul Gaultier, Haute Couture Autumn-Winter 2002–2003 Je an Paul Gaultier, Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2006 Je an Paul Gaultier, Haute Couture, Autumn-Winter 2011–2012, dress inspired by the Madame Grès e xhibition at Musée Bourdelle Je an Paul Gaultier, Haute Couture Autumn-Winter 2006 –2007
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Je an Paul Gaultier, Haute Couture Autumn-Winter 2002–2003 Je an Paul Gaultier, Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2006 Je an Paul Gaultier, Haute Couture, Autumn-Winter 2011–2012, dress inspired by the Madame Grès e xhibition at Musée Bourdelle Je an Paul Gaultier, Haute Couture Autumn-Winter 2006 –2007
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Automne-Hiver 1961-1962
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Autumn/ Winter 1961-1962
Spring/Summer 1964
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Automne-Hiver 1961-1962
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Autumn/ Winter 1961-1962
Spring/Summer 1964
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Studio Dorv yne, 1935 George Hoyningen-Huene, 1935
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Studio Dorv yne, 1935 George Hoyningen-Huene, 1935
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L’Officiel de l a Couture et de l a Mode de Paris, June 1956, June 1952, June 1955, covers
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