2018
“HEAVENLY BODIES” OPENS AT THE MET.
Passionate interest in vintage design is no longer the purview of thrift shoppers and a handful of serious collectors. It is now seen as worthy of exhibiting in the world’s finest museums and, according to New York Magazine, this show helped confirm “the historical, even mystical power of fashion.”
The legendary couturier Madame Grès aka Alix Barton (1903-1993) was known for turning ordinary fabric into classically inspired wearable sculpture, like this voluminous silk taffeta gown. Her designs appear frequently in museums and in the collections of serious fashionistas (and contemporary designers).
The legendary couturier Madame Grès aka Alix Barton (1903-1993) was known for turning ordinary fabric into classically inspired wearable sculpture, like this voluminous silk taffeta gown. Her designs appear frequently in museums and in the collections of serious fashionistas (and contemporary designers).
From Introspective
Owner Marci Rosenberg is determined to show that our sartorial choices are about more than gorgeous clothes — they reflect the issues of our times.
Fit for a Goddess: The Dresses of Madame Grès
“For a dress to survive from one era to the next, it must be marked with an extreme purity,” With these words, the iconoclastic Madame Grès summed up the genius of her remarkable evening dresses. Designed over the course of her 57-year career, they remain entirely modern today and continue to inspire designers with their style and construction.
Fit for a Goddess:
The Dresses of Madame Grès
by Heather Haber
“For a dress to survive from one era to the next, it must be marked with an extreme purity,” With these words, the iconoclastic Madame Grès summed up the genius of her remarkable evening dresses. Designed over the course of her 57-year career, they remain entirely modern today and continue to inspire designers with their style and construction.
Grès was born Germaine Emilie Krebs in Paris in 1903. She initially wanted to be a sculptor, a proclivity that found full expression in her dresses, which were nothing less than soft, wearable sculpture. “For me, it’s the same thing to work the fabric or the stone,” she said.
From 1934 to1942, she designed under the pseudonym Alix Barton at her couture house La Maison Alix. She changed her name again when she married Serge Czerefkov, a painter who signed his work Grès, a partial anagram of his first name. In 1942, she launched the house of Alix Grès at 1 Rue de la Paix. The New York Times called it “the most intellectual place in Europe to buy clothes.” Her sophisticated clientele was mostly of the rich-but-discreet variety; some of the more famous names were Grace Kelly, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Jackie Kennedy, Wallis Simpson, Edith Piaf and Diana Vreeland.
Grès did not chase trends. She was inspired entirely by the female form and sought to complement it with fabric. “Her dresses were about a sense of power, strength and beauty, not objectification,” explains Patricia Mears, deputy director of The Museum at FIT and author of Madame Grès: Sphinx of Fashion. “Everyone knows Chanel, Dior and Saint Laurent,” Mears says, “but I believe that the great triumvirate was Madeleine Vionnet, Balenciaga and Madame Grès — those who knew how to make clothes with their own hands, couturiers in the old sense of the word.”
Decades of Beautiful Innovation
Over her unusually long career, Grès’s fashions evolved but were consistent in their precision. “She didn’t sketch, and she didn’t tell her workroom to do it — everything she made was crafted by her own hand,” notes Mears.
“She came from two schools,” says couturier Ralph Rucci, who considers Grès one of his primary inspirations. “The soft sculpture: jerseys and chiffons. And the harder sculpture: paper silk taffeta, duchess satin and silk voiles.”
Grès made her mark with her Grecian-inspired goddess dresses — intricately pleated gowns that would look perfectly current on the red carpet today. “She developed a technique that had never been used: fluting,” explains Rucci. “She would create a biomorphic foundation on a woman’s body. Then, it was placed on the mannequin, and each flute was sewn on individually by hand.”
These dresses were the template for an approach Grès developed over time. “Her pleated Grecian gowns became more modern and daring,” Mears notes. “In the ’70s, she did one that exposed the entire abdomen.”
Along with her pleating techniques, Grès employed what Rucci calls “her mind boggling draping in jersey. “She used jersey from Racine [a French textile producer],” he says. “They knit chiffon-weight jersey for Madame Grès that was 120 inches wide, double the width of regular jersey, so she could drape with the fewest seams possible.”
Her taffeta dresses embodied a different kind of magic, as Rucci explains: “She draped directly on the client and created cumuluscloud-like proportions that were usually full on one side and slim on the other, because she used straight grain, cross grain and bias grain, which was very unorthodox. The result was great beauty through asymmetry.” The paper taffeta used, notes Mears, weighs nothing — the volume is the result of Grès’s spectacular ability to craft the garment.
Madame Grès, the Designer’s Designer
Many of fashion’s most important and innovative designers have considered Grès an important influence, including Yohji Yamamoto, Haider Ackermann, Jean Paul Gaultier, Calvin Klein and Jil Sander. “They all celebrate the female form, which was Grès’ philosophy,” says Mears, describing their shared approach. “But they all use different methodology.”
Notably, Grès and Halston had a similar aesthetic, creating elegant, innovative dresses and caftans during the 1970s. Azzedine Alaïa was also inspired by Grès — although their styles were different, he too was an exacting craftsman who designed clothes around a woman’s body. “She is a woman who counts for so much in the history of fashion,” he told the New York TImes in 2011.
Rucci recalls meeting Grès as a 21-year-old, in 1978, when she was showing her couture at the Pierre in New York. “I snuck backstage and was assigned a rack along with the professional dressers,” he says. From there, he peeked out at the arriving guests, a who’s who of the era’s glitterati: “Tatiana with Alexander Liberman, arriving in Madame Grès black velvet cape with a train, with kid gloves and major Cartier diamonds on each wrist. Nan Kempner in draped white jersey. Chessy Rayner in black jersey. Mrs. [Mica] Ertegun in flaming red taffeta.”
Then, he recounts the most exciting moment. “Madame Grès appears in black paper-taffeta tunic, turban and long skirt, and there’s a whoosh of taffeta at her sleeves, and she has a small leather pouch she always wore around her neck, with her scissors in it to trim things.” The young Rucci was lucky enough to make an appointment to show his portfolio to Grès the next day. “She looked through my book very quietly,” he remembers, “and she put up an index finger and said, “First I want you to work in the couture for 20 years. Then, come see me.’ ”
The Ongoing Influence of Madame Grès
Madame Grès lives on in periodic exhibitions dedicated to her work. In 1994, she was the focus of a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Others, at The Museum of FIT in 2008 and the Musée Bourdelle in 2011, followed.
Her influence also continues on the runways. Among the fashion houses and designers paying tribute to her designs recently are Balmain, Richard Malone and Burberry. The fashion historian Olivier Saillard, who curated the 2011 Musée Bourdelle show, put a new twist on Grès homages in 2018 with his Moda Povera collections. With the help of Martine Lenoir, Madame Grès’s last seamstress , he reworks oversize tees and men’s shirts that he buys online, pleating and draping these humble garments to create unique, easy-to-wear pieces.
According to Mears, even a vintage Madame Grès gown has tremendous comfort and ease. “The clothes feel like nothing,” she says. “They are so lightweight they give you a real sense of freedom. Because they take their form from the body, many of her clients kept their dresses for decades.”
And that, ultimately, is the mark of a timeless dress — that you can wear it year after year. As Grès herself once said, “Simplicity and elegance are never boring: You can never get enough of them.”
If fashion is the icing on the cake, our sellers always curate something delicious. Below is a mere taste of the outstanding pieces you'll find on 1stDibs.
Seller Spotlight
Drawn from Childhood
"I love the print —it’s inspired by Russian fairy tales. It’s particularly dear to me because my family is Russian. I remember some of these images depicted on these little lacquered boxes my mother used to collect when I was growing up."
Marlene Wetherell,
Marlene Wetherell Vintage
Ever en Vogue
Fashion historian Kate Strasdin shares three museum-worthy pieces that are as rich in historical significance as they are breathtaking.
I started to work in museums with dress collections when I was 19 and I remember the first time I saw an 18th-century dress. The silk brocades of the mid to late 1700s are so special, partly owing to the complexity of their weave with silk designers reaching new heights in terms of skill, but also the quality of the cloth. Unlike some later 19th-century silks which were often treated with tin salts that could shatter the fabric, 18th-century silk retains its integrity and vibrancy.
This is a wonderful example of late 19th century couture which had developed into an important part of the French economy by this time. It is significant that this dress was made by one of the early female couturieres out of an industry that had been dominated by men. It is also a testament to the unnamed army of skilled women sewing and embroidering these garments, their work remaining but their lives uncharted. This has a beautiful spray of embroidered blooms creeping from the hem, hand stitched by the ‘petites mains’ the little hands whose work was renowned worldwide.
Tailored styles for women had grown in popularity from the 1870s but by the 1950s more designers were producing beautifully constructed garments that relied on exquisite pattern cutting to produce smart, pared-back garments. This red wool suit by Mme Grès plays with layers with a short crop jacket that sits on top of a sharp A-line dress. Madame Grès studied fine art and sculpting before entering the world of fashion and became most famous for her draped goddess-like gowns. She is arguably one of the most significant and influential designers of the 20th century.
