While the classically inspired “Grecian” gown designed by Madame Alix Grès is widely recognized and admired, little else of the brilliant couturier’s life or work has received close attention. This book, by far the most detailed study yet published on this influential fashion designer, carefully analyzes Madame Grès’ innovative construction techniques and connects her designs to the art styles and movements that inspired and informed her aesthetic.
Gorgeously illustrated with images of fabulous clothes designed by Madame Grès, the book focuses on her long career (spanning the early 1930s to the late 1980s) and refutes the previous understanding that her work was static and unchanging. Rather, her designs consistently changed and evolved, even as a thread of continuity connected them. The volume discusses how sculpture and the construction of non-western clothing inspired Grès’s fashion, and examines numerous couture versions of her saris, ponchos, serapes, caftans, three-dimensional sculptural pieces, and Grecian gowns. In addition, the book constructs a timeline of her career and discusses her secretive private life, including the circumstances of her death, inexplicably concealed by her daughter for over a year.
Patricia Mears is deputy director, The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She is coauthor of Ralph Rucci: The Art of Weightlessness (Yale).
This review is from: Madame Gres: Sphinx of Fashion (Hardcover)
I read about the Madame Gres exhibit at the NY Fashion Institute of Technology in the New York Times recently. Upon finishing the lengthy article I raced over to my laptop and was excited to order this book. For those who love,crave and have to surround yourself with beautiful visual images this is the book for you. To look at the actual photographs of her original pieces along with her photographs made me feel privileged to read about this amazing woman. The thousands of folds,tucks and pleats in her garments were obviously a lifelong labor of love!
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This review is from: Madame Gres: Sphinx of Fashion (Hardcover)
Stunning! Well-written story of Madame Alix Gres in four chapters: 1 life and career, 2 the grecian gown, 3 ethnic influences, 4 sculpting with fabric. Full page (> 12" x 8") photographs of selected works over her entire range of career; the photographs are high-definition. Some fashions have multiple photographs from different angles. Photographs are full page, so they are often not on the page where the text is that describes the fashion, and there is occassional lack of reference to the accompanying photograph(s) (inconsistent use of stating which plate the text is referring to). I wish every fashion and every advertisement described in the text had a photograph.
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This review is from: Madame Gres: Sphinx of Fashion (Hardcover)
I only knew a little of Madame Gres and this book brought to my attention that she was one of the major designers of our era--someone who "invented" the use of draping and fabrics, unlike they had ever been used before. Not just a product of its time, Madame Gres' fashions are timeless and have influenced everything since her time. I would highly recommend this book not just for the fashion, but for the very interesting text by the author, as well, who really puts the work in context.
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