Madeleine Vionnet: “le couturier des couturiers”
Didn’t make it to the Chanel runway for the unveiling of Lagerfeld’s prête-a-porter collection for the coming season? Or perhaps you did, and yet are still craving more. In either case, modistes will not want to miss the Madeleine Vionnet exhibit on display at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, which features over one hundred of the French designer’s confections, predominantly from the 1920s and 30s. Contemporary designers including Issey Miyake, and before him, Christian Dior, cite Madeleine Vionnet as one of the most influential designers of the 20th Century, earning her the distinction of “le couturier des couturiers” in the fashion world.
Born in 1876, Vionnet was twice divorced and the sole founder of her own fashion enterprise. Her audacious independence exploded the conventions of femininity of her time, an attitude she carried over into her work. Among other “shocking” advances, Vionnet’s designs, along with those of Coco Chanel and Paul Poiret, liberated the female body from the corset—although Vionnet is seldom given due credit for her contributions in this regard. It is a historical oversight the exhibition undoubtedly helps to remedy.
Madeleine Vionnet’s couture house first opened its doors in 1912 on the Rue de Rivoli, only to close shortly thereafter at the beginning of the First World War in 1914. The house reopened in 1918, before relocating to the Avenue Montaigne in 1922. It was in this iconic location, sumptuously decorated by Georges de Feure, that Vionnet’s atelier remained until the closing of the house in 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War.
Vionnet’s invention of the biais cut remains the most emblematic of her surfeit of creative contributions. The biais cut is the technique responsible for the movement that so marks Vionnet’s dresses and their effortless way of falling “just-so”. The exhibit offered only a glimpse of Vionnet’s work in motion: a short film in which models briefly showcased a few of Vionnet’s gowns. Vionnet’s genius particularly suffers in an exhibit of this kind, in which the dresses are displayed in large glass cases on mannequins, as she had always so resolutely sought to create a harmony between the clothes that she made and the body on which they were worn.
The bodies that wore Vionnet were among the most glamorous and prestigious of the day, including the likes of Marlene Dietrich and Diane de Rothschild, though Vionnet was retiring when it came to rubbing elbows with her elite clientele. Issuing from a modest background herself, Vionnet’s position on the Avenue Montaigne was hard-won. Years of consistent labor, talent, and diligence are the secret recipe for the nonchalant elegance of Vionnet’s gowns. “Une vraie création,” Vionnet once said “doit être nécessairement et naturellement laborieuse: quiconque crée doit peiner et souffrir.” [A true creation must necessarily and naturally be laborious: whoever creates must struggle and suffer.]1
One look at Model 4411, a robe du soir from Winter 1931, and one begins to understand that suffering in a more concrete sense. The cascading floor-length evening gown in coral muslin is embroidered with thousands of miniscule grey pearls, pearls so tiny that they are only identifiable as such upon concentrated inspection. The draped neckline is so entirely overlaid that the coral of the fabric all but disappears behind the embroidery, which gradually becomes more and more sparse as it descends the torso, increasingly revealing the brilliant coral of the material. The overall impression is one of a sunset, or, more in keeping with the movement of the dress, of night falling. The dress serves as an excellent example of the mix of complexity and simplicity that characterize Vionnet’s creations.
Despite their artistic quality, Vionnet was candid about the commercial aspect of her work, writing in a letter from February 1965 “La couture est un art dont les produits sont plus directement consommables que ceux des arts dits majeurs, peintures, musique, par exemple.” [The products of couture are more directly consumable than those of the “major“ arts, such as painting and music.]2 The designer attached her name on a label on every one of her pieces, even going so far as to mark them with her own thumbprint in an attempt to guarantee the authenticity of the garment. Though one of her first jobs as a seamstress was copying the patterns of more well-known designers, she campaigned passionately against fashion plagiarists later in her career and was heavily involved in the founding of L’Association pour la Défense des Arts Plastiques et Appliqués in 1922. Vionnet demonstrated that she was equally progressive in her management style as she was in her designs, providing benefits such as maternity leave and on-site childcare, dental and medical offices for her workers.
Vionnet, though with a different vision, is every bit the equal of Chanel—and at the museum you’ll have a front row seat.
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Mode et Textile) is located at 107 rue de Rivoli. The museum is closed on Mondays and open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends. (On Thursdays, the museum stays open until 9 p.m.) Metro: Palais-Royal, Pyramides ou Tuileries. More information on-line at www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr.
Unlike fashion week, the exposition will run until the 31st of January 2010, leaving plenty of time for fashion hobbyists to enjoy Vionnet’s creations.
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