Madeleine Vionnet is a fashion purist. Madeleine Vionnet - “fashion architect” Special features of creativity

Creation Madeleine Vionnet considered the pinnacle of the art of fashion. A love of geometry and architecture allowed Vionne to create exquisite styles based on simple forms. Some of her patterns are like puzzles that still have to be solved.

Mastery Madeleine Vionnet was of such high class that she was called the “architect of fashion.” To create masterpieces, she did not need luxurious fabrics and intricate trims. Vionne was an innovator; without her ideas, which once seemed too bold and unusual, it is impossible to create modern clothes.

Vionnet said about herself: “My head is like a working box. It always contains a needle, scissors and thread. Even when I'm just walking down the street, I can't help but observe how passers-by, even men, are dressed! I tell myself: “Here I could make a fold, and there I could widen the shoulder line...”. She constantly came up with something, some of her ideas became an integral part of the fashion industry.

Madeleine Vionnet (Madeleine Vionnet) born in 1876 in France in the Loire department in the town of Chilleuse-aux-Bois (Chilleurs-aux-Bois), from where the family soon moved to Albertville (Albertville). When the girl was two years old, her mother abandoned her and her father, running away with another man. The earnings of her father, a tax collector, were more than modest, so despite her excellent studies, Madeleine was forced to go to work when she was only 11 years old. Subsequently, she recalled with bitterness that she was never destined to receive the prize for good studies, which she had so counted on.

Young Madeleine was sent to learn lace weaving, cutting and sewing in a workshop in the suburbs of Paris. At the age of eighteen, the girl got married, but the marriage was short; it broke up after she gave birth to a daughter, who died shortly after birth.

In 1896, the young dressmaker went to England, where she had a hard time with no connections and almost no money. Madeleine tried one job after another, from a hospital seamstress to a laundress, until she managed to get a job in a famous London tailor's shop on Dover Street. (Dover street) owned by Kate Raleigh (Kate Reily). They made magnificent ladies' outfits there, including copies of Parisian toilets. This place became an excellent school for Madeleine, and she performed so well that she was soon able to head a department in which twelve seamstresses worked.

In 1901, Vionnet decided to return home, but not to her native province, but to Paris, where she managed to get a position as chief dressmaker in the famous fashion house of the Callot sisters. (Callot Soeurs). Madeleine's mentor was the eldest of the sisters, Marie Callot Gerbert ( Marie Callot Gerber). Subsequently Madeleine Vionnet she recalled with gratitude: “Madame Gerbert taught me how to make Rolls-Royces. Without her, I would only make Fords.”

After working for five years with the Callot sisters, Vionnet moved to the equally eminent French couturier Jacques Doucet (Jacques Doucet). Doucet believed that the young and talented Madeleine would be able to bring a new spirit to the work of his fashion house, and promised her creative freedom. But after some time, Doucet and Vionnet had differences. It got to the point that the house’s employees suggested that clients not pay attention to Vionnet’s models!

Madeleine Vionnet I wanted to make dresses that didn’t require a corset. She believed that a woman should look slim thanks to sports, not tricks. She said: “I myself have never tolerated corsets. Why would I put them on other women?!” These were the years of gradual liberation of women from corsets, when fashion designers such as Paul Poiret (Paul Poiret) Chanel (Chanel) Lucille (Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon), Mariano Fortuny (Mariano Fortuny) and others began to break the usual foundations, contributing to changes in fashion.

Among the innovators was Madelyne Vionnet, her 1907 collection turned out to be too revolutionary even for Paris. Inspired by the image and dances of her idol, Isadora Duncan ( Isadora Duncan), she presented dresses that were worn without a corset, and released the models barefoot, which caused conflicting opinions among the public. Vionnet also found a fan - actress Genevieve Lantelme (Genevieve Lantelme), who wanted to financially support the young rebel. But, unfortunately, Lanthelme soon died, and Vionne managed to acquire her own fashion house only a few years later.

In 1912 Madeleine Vionnet, at financial support one of her clients Germaine Lillas (Germaine Lilas) daughters of Henri Lillas (Henri Lillas) owner of the Parisian department store Bazar de l'Hôtel de Ville, opened her own fashion house on Rivoli Street (Rue de Rivoli). She had great creative potential, but lacked business acumen, therefore, despite the fact that dresses from the house of Vionnet began to become popular, at first things were not as successful as we would like.

When the First World War began, the Vionne fashion house, like many others at that time, closed. Vionne herself went to Rome, where she began studying the history of art and architecture. It was there that she became acquainted with ancient costume; ancient Roman and ancient Greek draped clothes became her ideal, which she tried to bring to life.

After the closure of the fashion house, Madeleine Vionnet helped many of her employees find new jobs, so that when her house began operating again in 1918, some of the former workers gratefully returned to her. Henri Lillas and his new companion, Argentinean Martinez de Oz (Martinez de Hoz), The project was financed again, and Vionne started all over again. In 1922, Théophile Bader joined the shareholders of the fashion house. (Théophile Bader), one of the founders of the legendary Galeries Lafayette department store. The fashion house became known as Vionnet & Cie. Things were going well; in 1923, Vionnet was able to purchase a mansion on Avenue Montaigne (Avenue Montaigne). The number of its employees constantly grew and soon reached one thousand two hundred people. Then a magnificent fashion salon was opened in the resort of Biarritz (Biarritz).

In her renovated fashion house, Vionne began making models in an antique style. She managed to revive the idea of ​​draped clothing at a new level, creating toilets that corresponded to the spirit of the times. Vionnet made dresses with drapery, cut on the bias, which were striking in their simplicity of form and at the same time were distinguished by the complexity of the cut, for example, dresses sewn from four diamond-shaped pieces of fabric.

In 1922, Vione created a collection of dresses “Greek Vases” based on the painting of one of the ancient Greek amphoras from the Louvre, the embroidery for which was designed by the famous French embroiderer François Lesage (François Lesage).

In 1923, a representative office of the Vionnet fashion house appeared in New York, located on Fifth Avenue. (Fifth Avenue). Vionnet was the first, or one of the first, French couturiers to begin producing ready-to-wear clothing for American wholesale companies. The labels bore the inscription “a repeat of the original by the fashion house Vionnet & Cie.”

The first perfume was released in 1925 Madeleine Vionnet, but their production soon ceased.

The designer's main passion was the shape of the created toilet, which corresponded to the natural lines of the body. Vionnet made complex and elegant outfits. She knew how to draw and often made sketches with her own hands, and her mathematical talent and excellent spatial thinking helped bring unusual ideas to life. The sketches were born not only on paper, Vionnet meticulously worked with fabric by pinning on small wooden dolls until she achieved perfect shape dresses. When the idea of ​​the future model was finally formed, she pinned it on the customer’s figure.

The peculiarity of Vionne’s creations was that her outfits, completely shapeless on a hanger, became masterpieces on the body. Clients could not always understand how to wear this or that model, so the dresses were accompanied by verbal instructions from the creator.

At the beginning of the 20th century Madeleine Vionnet became the most significant master in working with fabric on the bias. She is often called the inventor of this cut, when the fabric is turned at an angle of 45 degrees relative to its base. Of course, bias cutting was known before Vionnet, although it was used mainly for individual details of the toilet. Madeleine Vionnet showed that with the help of such a cut you can achieve amazing results, demonstrated all its capabilities and made it popular. The bias cut made the fabric flexible and flowing, perfectly fitting the figure.

In 1927, Vionnet opened a school at her fashion house, where she taught tailors the skills of bias cutting.

Vionnet collaborated with the Lyon company Bianchini-Ferrier (Bianchini-Férier), producing excellent crepes. Her favorite fabrics were crepe romaine and a special blend of silk and acetate. In addition, the Rodier company (Rodier) produced very wide woolen fabrics for her, from which a coat could be cut on the bias without seams.

It is believed that Vionnet invented the cowl neck (cowl neck) and neck loop (halterneck), sometimes called the “Vionnet drop,” a dress with a hood, she was also the first to make evening dresses without fastening and sets consisting of a dress and a coat, in which the lining of the coat was made of the same fabric as the dress itself. Another one of her finds is a dress-scarf. (handkerchief dress) with an asymmetrical hem.

She used a scarf as part of the outfit, suggesting it be tied around the neck or hips. She created dresses that were held together only by a bow tied on the chest, as well as dresses with graduated colors, when one color smoothly flowed into another, which was achieved by special processing of the fabric.

Vionne attached much less importance to color than to cut. She mostly used soft, light colors. As for decoration, it was kept to a minimum. Considering the beauty of the draperies of Vionne’s outfits, they were quite self-sufficient. If embroidery was used, then a section was selected that did not disturb the structure of the fabric and did not break the lines that were formed in movement.

Remembering my lack of rights at the beginning of my career, Madeleine Vionnet sought to protect her work from copying, pioneering the copyright system in the fashion industry. Fearing that her models would be faked, she photographed each item from three sides and assigned a number to it. All data was stored in special albums. Over the years, Vionnet has collected 75 such books. Later they were transferred to the Museum of Fashion and Textiles of Paris (Musee de la Mode et du Textile). In addition, she began to put the imprint on the labels of her clothes thumb right hand.

Madeleine Vionnet was one of the first couturiers to hire professional fashion models. She made a significant contribution to improving working conditions, providing her employees with a rest break, paid leave, and financial support for illness. In addition, Vionnet created a canteen for staff at her atelier and attracted doctors to cooperate with her, who served the workers of her enterprise.

However, the financial condition of the Vionne Fashion House, in spite of everything, became worse and worse. She was a talented fashion designer and a good man, but an unimportant businessman. The decisive blow to the Fashion House was dealt by the Second World War, business was disrupted.

In 1940, the Fashion House Madeleine Vionnet had to close. Vionne herself lived for many more years after that, being completely forgotten by the public. At the same time, she continued to follow world events with interest. high fashion.

Madeleine Vionnet died in 1975, just short of her centenary.

In the 1980s and 1990s of the twentieth century, clothing designers often turned to the brilliant ideas of Vionnet. She determined the development of fashion for several decades to come.

The patterns of even Vionne’s simple, at first glance, models resembled geometric and abstract figures, and the models themselves looked like sculptural works, characterized by asymmetrical shapes. In the 1970s, fashion designer and historical costume researcher Betty Kirk devoted a lot of time to studying Vionnet's dresses. (Betty Kirke) and as a result, many features of Vionnet's work that had remained a mystery became clear. Once upon a time, fashion designer Azzedine Alaïa (Azzedine Alaia) spent a whole month deciphering the pattern and construction of one of the dresses Madeleine Vionnet.

In 2007 fashion house Madeleine Vionnet has reopened with Arnaud de Lummen as its CEO. (Arno de Lummen). He invited Greek Sofia Kokosalaki as a designer. (Sophia Kokosolaki). However, she soon left the brand to work for given name.

Since 2009, the Vionnet brand began to belong to the Italian Matteo Marzotto (Matteo Marzotto) to the former CEO of Valentino SpA, who brought Gianni Castiglioni into cooperation (Gianni Castiglioni), general director from the fashion brand Marni.

Then Rodolfo Paglialunga became the new creative director of the house (Rodolfo Paglialunga), who previously represented fashion brand Prada, and in 2011 he was replaced by Barbara and Lucia Croce (Barbara and Lucia Croce), previously worked at the houses of Prada and Ralph Lauren.

In 2012, a controlling stake in the company working with the Vionnet brand was acquired by ex-wife American millionaire Stefan Ashkenazy, entrepreneur and socialite Goga Ashkenazi (Goga Ashkenazi, girl's name Gauhar Berkalieva).

In 2014, fashion designer Hussein Chalayan began working with the Vionnet brand. (Hussein Chalayan). The first show of the new collection took place on January 21, 2014.

Name Madeleine Vionnet little known in wide circles. A genius and classic of fashion, she created unique dresses for aristocrats and bohemians, and therefore now her name serves as a kind of password among fans of Haute Couture.

Madeleine Vionnet (1876 - 1975) - Madeleine Vionnet was born on June 22, 1876 into a poor family.

was a famous French fashion designer. She has been called the “Queen of Bias” and “an architect among tailors.” Born into a poor family in Chilleurs-Aux-Bois, Vionnet began working as a seamstress from the age of 11

Since childhood, Madeleine dreamed of becoming a sculptor, and at school she showed great talent for mathematics, but poverty forced the girl to leave school and become a dressmaker's assistant. At the age of 17, Madeleine got married and moved to Paris with her husband in search of a better life. Things were going well for the young couple: Madeleine got a job at the famous Vincent Fashion House and soon became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter. However, here fortune turned away from the young dressmaker: the girl died, the marriage broke up and she lost her job.at 18, she left her husband....

In such conditions, Madeleine decided on a desperate act: with her last money, not knowing the language, she left for England.
Quite quickly, Madeleine got a job in the atelier of Kat Reilly (as a seamstress), which was engaged in copying Parisian models. Thanks to Madeleine, the establishment became famous and prosperous in one year. The atelier's greatest success was the wedding dress created by Vionnet for the bride of the Duke of Marlborough.

After this triumph, Madeleine Vionnet was invited to work for the Callot sisters. Vionne became the main assistant older sister, Madame Marie Gerbert, and thanks to her I was able to understand cutting techniques and the world of fashion in all its subtleties
In 1906, fashion designer Jacques Douzet invited Vionnet to update his old collection. Madeleine removed the corsets and shortened the length of the dresses, which displeased the couturier.
Then Vionnet created her first own collection. The dresses were cut on the bias, which gave the products additional flexibility and allowed them to fit the figure, like knitwear that was unknown at that time. During the show, Madeleine did not want to disrupt the harmony of the lines, and she demanded that the models wear the dress on a naked body.

A scandal followed, which attracted the attention of free-thinking women, bohemians and ladies of the demimonde to Madeleine’s models. Thanks to these clients, Madeleine was able to create her own fashion house.
It opened in 1912. That's when Vionnet was able to bring her various ideas to life. Madeleine's favorite method was cutting "on the bias", i.e. at an angle of 45% to the direction of the grain thread, for which she was called the “master of bias cut”. Vionnet rarely drew her models; she usually made sketches by pinning fabric onto a mannequin about 80 cm high, and then enlarged the resulting pattern and created another masterpiece. The models used a minimum of seams, and the relief was achieved through a variety of draperies and folds. Madeleine admired the clothes of the ancient Greeks, but she argued that modern people must go further in the ability to create clothes. And she developed the art of draping and cutting to incredible heights. Each Vionne dress was special, unique and created specifically to highlight the individuality and style of the customer: "If a woman smiles, the dress should smile with her."
At the same time, Madeleine Vionnet's dresses were a real puzzle. Many clients had to contact a fashion designer to learn how to put on a dress. Patterns of even simple, at first glance, things from Vionne resembled geometric and abstract figures. To decipher the pattern and construction of one dress from Vionne, fashion designer Azedin Allaya spent a whole month!

Madeleine herself thought her creations were simple, so since 1920 she tried to protect herself from counterfeits: before reaching the client, each dress was photographed from three sides and the pictures were placed in a “Copyright Album”. In total, during the work of the Vionne Fashion House, 75 such albums were collected, on the pages of which about one and a half thousand models are displayed.

Each dress had a tag sewn onto it with Madeleine's signature and her thumbprint, an idea better than hologram stickers, which had not yet been invented. Vionne tried not to give her models to stores, fearing that they would be copied, but she regularly organized sales of old collections, which were no less popular than the shows.

Madeleine Vionnet's personal life was unsuccessful. In 1923, she married Dmitry Nechvolodov, with whom she separated in 1943, and spent the rest of her life alone.

In 1939, Vionnet released her last collection and closed her fashion house.

Madeleine lived to be 99 years old, remaining vigorous and lucid. Before last days she gave lectures to young fashion designers who literally prayed for her.

Madeleine Vionnet spoke about fashion as follows: “I have always been an enemy of fashion. There is something superficial and disappearing in its seasonal whims that offends my sense of beauty. I don’t think about fashion, I just make dresses.”

Of Vionnet's several thousand pieces, not many things have survived. What remained became the decoration of fashion museums in Paris, London, Tokyo, Milan and private collections.

Patterns for bias trousers and dresses with a scarf.

Vionne dress with tricky sleeves:

Analysis of the dress shown by Hecuba in the topic "Interesting sleeves" post No. 7, where the back turns into sleeves draped at the collar.
I apologize in advance for the unprofessionalism of the professionals.
We make a pattern for a tight-fitting bodice. She sits well

We add new lines (green, cut along them). One on the shelf - from the top of the chest to the navel (H), the second on the back from the middle of the bottom of the back (A) through the top of the waist dart to the intersection with the armhole line. Here we put point B, and it is individual for everyone. Having closed all the darts, cut along these lines. We bend the shelf where we want to see the neckline (for example, where they measure the width of the chest, very nice). Let's put point E, it is also individual. Place point C strictly under the armpit. As a result, we get an almost triangular segment from the back and a breast that takes on this appearance
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With the front, everything is more or less clear, but the back-collar-sleeves, which have the shape of a butterfly ("Interesting sleeves, post No. 7, Fig. 3), need to be designed. Its basis is this segment of the back. From point B we are strictly in a straight line set the distance perpendicularly downwards, equal to length from the same point B, but on the front part to point C (armpit). Moving on to the top of the butterfly. It looks like a long, relatively horizontal curve, rising slightly upward. The height of this “up” is equal to the distance from the top of the back to the level of the middle of the shoulder + the distance from the middle of the shoulder perpendicularly down to the level of point C. The length of this curve is equal to the distance from the top of the back forward over the shoulder and down to point E (neckline) + the distance from E to N. There are three more curves left on the side. The two smaller ones, facing each other and marked CD, are the sides of the sleeve that need to be sewn. According to their proportions, it’s about 20 cm. Now there’s a long, relatively vertical curve. Its length should include the following: a free arm circumference and an additional length sufficient to pull the cut of the sleeve to the cutout at point E and also fold it into the folds. In this case, the sleeve panel at the back should be longer, closer to the floor than this panel in front, which is why the butterfly has exactly this appearance.
Let's start collecting. The corners of the shelf extending onto the back should meet at point A.

We begin to mount the butterfly back there. We connect the back and shelf along line AB. Got wings
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We adapt the straight line BC from the butterfly to the curve BC on the main part.
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We throw the protruding wings forward over the shoulders and first fix the points E to each other, and then connect the lines EC. The sleeves have formed, which we sew together (or sew the sleeves first, and then fold them forward...)
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Now we lift the edge of the sleeve to the cutout at point E and make a fold.
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This is where I couldn’t do it completely; the doll’s shoulder girdle was too wide.
That's all. Surely d.b. very beautiful, I’ll make one for myself, it covers my arms too, a very flattering dress...
Sorry if I was stating the obvious. but I was so carried away by the process...
I'm afraid the pictures are a bit large, but I think I measured them...

Paris.chance continues a series of articles based on the book by Bertrand Meyer-Stable “12 couturiers. Women legends who changed the world." As we have noted more than once, the first half of the twentieth century turned out to be generous with talents, the scale of which seems great to us even from the standpoint of today.

Today our heroine is M Madeleine Vionnet, who is rightly called the “architect of fashion.” Her name may not be as well known to the general public as the names of Coco Chanel or Elsa Schiaparelli, and it has not appeared often in fashion magazines over the past half century, but! fashion professionals - Balenciaga, Dior, Alaïa, Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto bowed before her genius. Why? This is what our story is about today.

Madeleine Vionnet- a talented child of the French province, all her life she shunned Parisian gloss and fashionable PR campaigns. On the other hand, completely aristocratic perfectionism and a mathematical mindset allowed her to create true masterpieces. As Bertrand Meyer-Stable writes, "at Madeleine Vionnet's simple tastes: She recognizes only the best and most beautiful. She demands from suppliers not even an exclusive product, but one that no one else has had before.” The story of Madeleine Vionnet is full of accidents that, upon closer examination, look quite natural. As a child, she was so talented in her studies that the local press even wrote about her. Probably, her innate perfectionism was already taking its toll, so when she found herself in a modest sewing workshop as an apprentice, Madeleine showed amazing perseverance and a desire for perfection. Then in her life there were Paris, London and Paris again. At the age of twenty-five, Madeleine went to work at a fashion house Callot. The best characteristic Madeleine herself gave this period of her work, or rather, the period of development of professional skills: “Thanks to the Callot sisters, I was able to make Rolls-Royces.” If it weren't for them, I would be making Fords..
Her outfits were truly the Rolls Royce of fashion. At first there were more thorns than stars, and she had to introduce her innovations, overcoming the misunderstanding of her colleagues.

Only after opening her own business did she understand the beauty of creativity “without quarrels, without constant exhausting struggle.” But real story fashion house Vionnet began after the First World War. What can you say about aesthetics? Madeleine Vionnet? She has a mathematical mind, so her patterns are more like puzzles, which are almost impossible to repeat. For her, fashion is the art of wrapping a woman in fabric and ensuring that the woman and the fabric maximize and highlight each other’s advantages. Each fabric lays differently, and you need to carefully study it in order to lay it on the bias, perfectly adapting it to a woman’s figure. What is needed here is a jeweler's precision of cut, optimal proportions and, of course, a worthy figure of the model! However, in the 30s of the twentieth century, a sporty lifestyle, a healthy tan and a fit appearance gained popularity.

Let's give the floor to Madeleine herself: “My most important finding is asymmetry. I was the first to start cutting the fabric diagonally. My colleagues at first said that this was senseless damage to fabric... and then many of them began to do the same. But in order for you to succeed in a bias cut, you need to have the makings of a sculptor, a sense of volume.”

Fashion historians see her place between Paul Poiret and Gabrielle Chanel - “she is a bright, irresistibly attractive point in space, separating these two stylistic and ideological opposites.” If Chanel is democratic, then Vionnet- that's what the French call sur mesure (by measure, i.e. individually). Her dresses are made for specific women, but they fit so flawlessly that the model can do not only without a corset, but also without a bra, which was a kind of revolution at that time!

Madeleine Vionnet, Evening Dress, 1934, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Amazing drapery style antique statues fits without any fastenings, being solely the result of a unique cut and a special donning system. In the twenties and thirties, the rivalry between Madeleine Vionnet and Coco Chanel emerged. Let's just say that the clients were divided into two friendly camps: some were impressed by outright luxury, even if it was easily copied by all and sundry, while others were close to the idea of ​​perfection - that discreet and inimitable perfection that organically merges with a woman, setting her apart from the crowd.

Bertrand Meyer-Stable writes about this: “Madeleine Vionnet is a purist with a masterful command of cutting techniques, and Chanel should rather be called a stylist, the creator of modern women’s uniforms and comfortable silhouettes.”

Madeleine Vionnet created unique method cut on the bias, which was difficult to copy. In one of her letters she writes: "I invented it myself new system cut, and now she has turned into her slave.” To reproduce some dress Vionnet, it had to be torn apart, laid out in pieces on the table and reassembled. But at the same time, there were a lot of details, including decorative finishing, which were completely impossible to copy. Interesting fact: American wholesalers purchased a batch of models Vionnet with the specific goal of organizing their production overseas. As you know, during this period, clothing production in the USA was already automated; dresses were practically not sewn by hand.

Madeleine Vionnet, Quatre Mouchoirs Dress, Winter 1920

But it turned out that the machine was not capable of copying Vionnet products, and American couturiers did not have the slightest chance to keep up with the Parisian fashion house. Under pressure from their clientele, overseas buyers were forced to purchase original models, regardless of the price. The price was certainly high. But the products Vionnet did not belong to consumer goods! Among the clients at home Vionnet You can list such wonderful ladies as poetess Nathalie Barney, Princess Natalia Paley, Princess Marina of Greece, wife of automobile magnate Christina Louis-Renault, ....

You can’t ignore the design of a fashion house Vionnet. Of course, the creative process required dedication and hard work. The house was arranged in accordance with a guild hierarchy, which allowed for precision and order. Madeleine Vionnet paid great attention to the organization of the work of her workers - comfortable chairs, spacious workshops, services unheard of at that time: medical office, dental services, library, nursery. The company had a warranty service system. If a dissatisfied customer called, a truck with a driver dressed in a smart Vionnet uniform would immediately be dispatched to pick up the dress for troubleshooting.

Being alien "Parisian snobbery of Coco Chanel", Madeleine Vionnet avoided fashion trends, did not make high-profile connections, but the great Rene Lalique, took over the interior design of the house Vionnet. As a result, the interior was as perfect as Madeleine Vionnet's models.

Madeleine Vionnet set the tone in Parisian fashion until 1936. Having successfully survived the craze for geometric silhouettes in the Art Nouveau style and the return to the waist and sculptural forms, she created in full force. According to Azzedine Alaïa, “Madeleine Vionnet created her best things in the thirties, these were dresses with fantastic draperies, absolutely modern, because they are not sewn to the fabric or secured in any way, they must be re-invented every time you put on a dress.”

The second half of the thirties brought adjustments to the life of Europe. Disregarding the working conditions that Madame Vionnet created for them, her workers joined the general strike. It was as if a crack had passed through my life... A second divorce occurred. War was approaching. Madeleine Vionnet was already in her seventies, and she decided to retire. She was destined to live another thirty years in modesty and provincial oblivion, pleasantly surprised by the fact that her outfits were exhibited in many museums around the world.

If you had to make a film about the life of Madeleine Vionnet, you would have to start with the image of an old wise lady who remembers her past with bright sadness. About the revolutionary past in Parisian fashion. With her creativity, she made an invaluable contribution to the formation of the image of a modern woman, for whom the desire for perfection is as natural as for Madeleine Vionnet.

(French Madeleine Vionnet; born June 22, 1876) - French female couturier. She owns many inventions in the field of fashion that are still relevant today. Today only a few people know Madeleine herself, but her creations are familiar to everyone. This woman made a huge contribution to the development of fashion in the 20th century.

Biography and career

Madame Vione was born in 1876 in the small French town of Albertville, which is located in the Alps. Madeleine was from a very poor family, so she had to start earning money herself early. She dreamed of being a sculptor, but at the age of 11 the girl became an assistant to a local dressmaker. She then went to Paris, where she got a job as a seamstress at the Vincent Fashion House on Rue Cadet. Madeleine was 17 at the time, and her prospects were not bright, because the girl did not even have a school education. However, she has already become an experienced and skilled seamstress.

At 22, Vionne went to London. There she first got a job as a laundress, then ended up in the Katie O’Reilly workshop, which was engaged in copying fashionable clothing models from France. Fate presented her with many difficulties and problems. Madeleine married an emigrant from Russia and gave birth to a daughter, but she died at a very young age. Vionne was grieving the loss, and her family immediately broke up after the death of the child. Therefore, the woman had no choice but to throw herself into work and creativity.

For the first time, luck turned to a woman in 1900. It was in Paris when Madeleine began working at the then famous fashion house of the Callot sisters (). Very soon, one of the sisters, Madame Gerber, made Madeleine Vionnet her main assistant. Together they were involved in the management of the artistic part of the company's work. Subsequently, Madeleine recalled her mentor as follows:

“She taught me how to build Rolls-Royces. Without her, I would be producing Fords.”

After the House of Callot, the woman went to work for the famous Jacques Doucet. There she was a cutter. But working with the fashion master was not successful for the girl. With her enthusiasm and creative impulse, she slightly discouraged and frightened Jacques Doucet himself, as well as his clients. Vionnet proposed doing away with rigid corsets, various linings and frills that restructured the figure. She believed that it was not a corset that should give a woman slimness, but gymnastics and a healthy lifestyle. Madeleine suggested sewing simple, comfortable outfits from soft fabrics, and those who showed them had to be without underwear. Such views were truly revolutionary for that time. And Doucet’s work ended in a big scandal.

In 1912, Madeleine decided to open her own business, and it was then that the Madeleine Vionnet fashion house appeared on the Parisian Rue de Rivoli. Although in fact, the full-fledged work of the atelier began only in 1919, the First World War prevented him. However, immediately after its completion, the new brand gained real fame, and it was at this time that women were finally able to understand and appreciate Madeleine’s views. Time has changed, and with it the attitude towards ladies, their bodies and clothes has changed.

Madeleine created very complex and elegant outfits. She couldn’t draw at all, but her mathematical talent and excellent spatial thinking helped Viona create masterpieces. Subsequently, this woman began to be called a fashion architect. Her sketches were born not on paper, but directly on a mannequin. True, he was small, half the height of a man. Madeleine meticulously pinched the fabric until she achieved the perfect shape of the dress.

Vionnet's innovation

The main and most famous invention Madame Vionnet is a bias cut. She came up with the idea of ​​turning the fabric at an angle of 45 degrees relative to its base. Without outfits with such a cut, it is impossible to imagine the fashion of the 30s. Similar techniques were used in clothing modeling before, but they were used only in detail, because dresses with corsets did not give complete freedom to designer creativity. Madeleine, in turn, created entire products in this way. This cut gave the fabric a natural elasticity and gave it the ability to perfectly fit the figure. The materials she chose were fluid and fluid, such as satin, crepe and silk. It was she who introduced the fashion for these fabrics.

The supplier for Vionnet's atelier was the Bianchini-Férier factory, the largest textile manufacturer at that time. Madeleine ordered very wide strips of fabric, they reached two meters. Created especially for her new material soft pink color. It was a mixture of silk and acetate. However, the shade was of little interest to this woman; she was always rather indifferent to color. Madeleine's main passion was the shape of the outfit, which corresponded to the natural lines of the body. On this occasion she liked to say:

“When a woman smiles, the dress should smile with her.”

The peculiarity of Madame Vione's creations is that they are absolutely formless on the hanger, but incredibly lively and elegant when worn. After all, Madeleine considered the main task of fashion to be adaptation to a person, to his needs and requirements. Under no circumstances should the body adapt to the shape and cut of a fashionable outfit.

In 1923, Madeleine's small atelier became so popular that it could no longer cope with the huge flow of customers. That's why The workshop moved to a new, more spacious premises on rue Montaigne. The interior decoration of the studio and workshop was created according to sketches by such artists as Georges de Feure, Rene Lalique and Boris Lacroix.

A year later, a representative office of the House of Madeleine appeared in New York, located on Fifth Avenue. And then a branch was opened in southern French Biarritz - the richest people in the world gathered at this resort.

In 1925, the first perfume from Madeleine Vionnet appeared, but their release did not last long, and they were soon forgotten.

Another invention of Vionnet was outfits, the fabric of which is gathered either with one seam or with a knot. She came up with a tube collar and a cowl neck, as well as triangle, rectangle and diamond-shaped details. She invented evening dresses with a hood and a lining made of the same fabric and the same color as the outfit itself. This detail found a second life and a new flourishing in the 60s.

Madeleine loved to sew dresses from one piece of fabric; they fastened at the back or did not have any fastening at all. This was unusual for the clients and they had to specially learn how to put on and take off these models. However, freedom-loving women liked the dresses, because now they could cope with their toilet themselves, without outside help. Moreover, such outfits were simply created for dancing fashionable jazz and driving a car. Madeleine made dresses that were held together only by a bow tied at the chest. This outfit was the real pride of Madame Vionnet. In general, Madeleine every new idea I subsequently used it regularly, each time trying to bring it to perfection. The Vionnet Fashion House was visited by the wealthiest and most stylish ladies of that time. Distinctive feature There was harmony in Madeleine's products, which consisted in an amazing combination of simplicity and luxury of her outfits. This is exactly what he strives for modern fashion. Her clients included Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich.

With the onset of the 30s, Vionnet almost stopped using bias cut, and gave preference to classic and antique styles. In this she was not a pioneer, but followed the example of other fashion designers such as Madame Gres and Augustaberbard. Ancient Roman motifs could be seen in knots, plaits, complex cuts and flowing forms. Models posed as nymphs and goddesses against the backdrop of ruins, columns and ancient ornaments. This direction of evening fashion is called “neoclassicism”. As for the draperies, Madame Vionnet was consummate master. They emphasized the figure and did not weigh down the outfit. The secrets of the creation of some of them still remain unsolved.

Madeleine Vionnet feared that her creations would be counterfeited and her ideas stolen. Therefore, each product was photographed in detail from three sides, and each was assigned its own number. The designer kept all the data in special albums. Over all the years of work in her atelier, Madeleine collected 75 such books. They were later transferred to the Paris Fashion and Textile Museum. This woman became the world's first fighter against counterfeit products. The works were for Vionne like works of art; she believed that they should live forever, like the canvases of artists, and only add value over time.

Madeleine was among the first to hire professional fashion models for their companies. She made a significant contribution to the fact that this profession began to be considered prestigious. Relations with employees in general at the Vionnet House were built at a high level. Rest breaks were mandatory in the working day; in addition, workers could go on vacation and receive financial support due to illness, which was very rare at that time. Moreover, Madeleine created a hospital, a canteen and even a travel agency for employees at her atelier.

Decline of the House of Madeleine Vionnet

However, the financial condition of Madeleine's company, despite everything, was depressing. She was an excellent fashion designer and kind person, but a bad businessman. The company had no stability and good earnings. The Second World War dealt a decisive blow to the Fashion House; it completely undermined the business.

The Madeleine Vionnet fashion house was closed in 1940, she herself was left almost without funds and after that she lived for 36 years, being completely forgotten by the public. At the same time, she continued to follow events in the world of high fashion with interest. Her products were sold all over the world, they were sold at auctions for huge amounts of money, of which Madeleine received nothing. Vionnet died in 1975, just short of her centenary. This woman had impeccable taste, she always looked perfect and dressed her clients perfectly. Her style was borrowed by her contemporaries and other designers. She was the main trendsetter of all Parisian fashion throughout the 20s and 30s of the last century.

New life

In the 80s and 90s of the twentieth century, clothing designers often turned to the brilliant ideas of Madame Vionnet. Thus, she determined the development of fashion for several decades to come.

In 2007, the Madeleine Vionnet fashion house resumed its work again, when about three decades had passed after the death of its creator. The company is owned by a man named Arno de Lummen. His father bought the company in 1988. He invited Sophia Kokosolaki, a fashion designer from Greece, to work. However, she soon left the brand to work for her own name. After her came Marc Audibet, who in the past worked for