Madeleine Vionnet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Madeleine Vionnet (June 22, 1876 - 1975) was a French fashion designer. Known as the "Queen of the bias cut", Vionnet is best-known today for her elegant Greek-inspired dresses and use of the bias cut.
Born in Chilleurs-aux-Bois, Loiret into a poor family, by age eleven Vionnet was working as a seamstress. Her talent for design began to show in her teens and she apprenticed at the renowned Callot Soeurs haute couture house in Paris and also worked for fashion designer Jacques Doucet. In 1912 she opened her own fashion house in Paris, eventually at the cutting edge in the 1920s and 1930s with her boutique in the Avenue Montaigne.
Competing in the era of Coco Chanel, Vionnet's dresses are famous for accentuating a woman's natural form without excessive elaboration or dissimulation. Heavily inspired by Greek statues, her apparently simple gowns involved a lengthy preparation process, including cutting, draping and pinning fabric on to dolls, before making full-scale models in chiffon, silk or Moroccan crepe. The fabulous success of Vionnet's unique cuts assured the reputation of the designer right up until her retirement in 1939.
An instensely private individual, Vionnet avoided public displays and mundane frivolites and often expressed a disliking for the world of fashion, once stating: "Insofar as one can talk of a Vionnet school, it comes mostly from my having been an enemy if fashion. There is something superficial and volatile about the seasonal and elusive whims of fashion which offends my sense of beauty",
Today, there is no doubt that Madeleine Vionnet is one of the most universally respected and admired fashion designers in history and her influence can still be seen in the collections of present-day designers.
