Madeleine Vionnet Biography

Without this creator's dream, Hollywood's glamour would never exist, with its naked shoulders dresses, that embrace the body as it was liquid silk. It´s avant-gardist creations, as the feminine trousers, took a long while to impose themselves, but today, they´re as essential in the fashion world as a pair of trousers is in a wardrobe. Madeleine Vionnet, is the bias-cut master, and no one as ever exceeded her fabulous technique. Even Azzedine Alaïa an artist of the cut himself, took ages until he finaly understand Madeleine Vionnet´s mysteries of the cut, and remains himself the only person to understand the technique she as used to create her ivory gown from 1935.

Since that date, we can observe this dress correctly exposed at the Musée de la Mode et du Textile de Paris, as before that date, it was considered an unfinished project. It is obviously a master-piece, wich perfect shape depends only from one stitch - Madeleine Vionnets biggest aim. Probably it was her fascination for geometry that allowed her to develop such refined cuts from basic forms like squares and triangles. In spite of his talent for the mathematics, Vionnet, born in 1876 in the middle of a modest family, she had to leave school very early, at 12 years of age. Learn the cut technique while working for a while in Paris, but, at 16 years of age, she moved to London, where she started her life as a washer-woman.

After a short marriage and the death of her little daughter, Vionnet assumed the direction of Kate Reilly´s atelier in London, only with 20 years old.
In 1900, she returned to Paris, where she took a job in one of the most conceptualized fashion houses, Soueurs Callot. In 1907, Jaques Doucet trusted her the task of rejuvenate the style of his fashion house.
She finally opened her own fashion house in 1912. However, only after the war, it began to grow.

Her necessity to promote herself was never completly understood, and she almost fell into the obvilion after 1939, when her fashion house was shut down.
Compared to Chanel, Vionnet is seen as unknown. That is probably because she builted "Rolls Royces" while the other, with her popular black belts, was the "Ford" of Fashion.

Mademoiselle Coco Chanel Biography

Coco Chanel's stylish, elegant designs revolutionized fashion during the 1910s, freeing women from the uncomfortable and stiff apparel worn at the end of the 19th century. Chanel furthered her own image: the woman of the 20th century, embodying independence, success, personality, style, and confidence.

The influential Chanel suit, launched in 1924, was an elegant outfit composed of a knee-length skirt paired with a trim, boxy jacket, traditionally made of woven wool with black trim and gold buttons and worn with large costume-pearl necklaces.

Chanel also popularized the little black dress which had a blank-slate versatility that allowed it to be worn for both day and night. The black Chanel dress was strapless, backless and more than a little risqué. It shocked the general public at large but quickly became a fashion sensation. The Chanel dress premiered in the third-ever edition of Playboy. This added to the controversy surrounding the Chanel name.

Much imitated over the years, Chanel's designs were manufactured across more price categories than any other in the high-fashion world. It was Chanel who also introduced costume jewelry to the fashion world, using a variety of accessories such as necklaces, chains or pearls of several strands. A bag with golden handles, an elegant pearl necklace, and a tailored dress in black are the symbols of elegance and status that marked forever the history of fashion. But it was Chanel No. 5^[3] - considered the number-one selling perfume in the world - which helped her become a millionaire. The perfume was created in 1921 by Ernest Beaux at the request of Chanel, who said that it was "a woman's perfume with the scent of woman." Its Art Deco bottle was incorporated into the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, New York, in 1959. Chanel No. 5 was the first synthetic perfume to take the name of a designer. One of her most famous quotes is, "This perfume is not just beautiful and fragrant. It contains my blood and sweat and a million broken dreams."

All her clothes were emblazoned with the famous Chanel symbol, the interlocking "C"s. This, however, was not her own design. The symbol was given to her by the owner of the Chateau de Cremat (a Chateau on the outskirts of Nice in the south of France). In 1923, she told Harper's Bazaar that "simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance." Chanel always kept the clothing she designed simple and comfortable and revealing. She took what were considered poor fabrics like jersey and upgraded them. She was instrumental in helping to design the image of the 1920s flapper, a "new breed" of young women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to new jazz music, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior. The flappers were seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking, treating sex in a casual manner, smoking, driving automobiles, and showing a lot of skin.

The German designer Karl Lagerfeld is, since 1983, the art director of Chanel, both for the haute couture and prêt-à-porter.

* source: wikipédia

Paul Poiret´s Biography

Someone that lives daydreaming and doesn´t manage to discipline himself at work simply had to born to be an artist.Plump, joyful and a dreamer, Paul Poiret was born at the 8th of April 1879. His parents were cloth commerciants in Hallen in the heart of Paris. He served an apprenticeship with Jacques Doucet in the 1890s, moved to the Maison Worth in 1900, and in 1902 opened his own small studio. Dominating Paris couture from 1909 to 1914, Poiret revolutionized fashion with his designs for the “new woman,” ending wasp waists and constricting corsets, reviving a simple, Empire-waisted silhouette, and introducing pantaloons.His first fashion house was on the Rue Auber in Paris. There he produced innovative designs such as the kimono coat, and enlarged his clientele of famous customers. The richness of materials, violence of colouring and style and taste for orientalism in such designs as that for the Sorbet dress all suggest a profound affinity with the Ballets Russes. In 1910 he opened new salon in a large 18th-century house, in the Avenue d'Antin, where he created his famous 'hobble-skirted' dresses, drawn in at the hem.
He adopted an orientalizing style in the theatrical costumes he designed later for Nabuchodonosor, first peformed in January 1911 at the Theatre des Arts in Paris; Le Minaret, performed during the spring of 1913 at the Theatre de la Renaissance in Paris; and Aphrodite, performed during the spring of 1914 at the Theatre de la Renaissance. Alike other famous figures of history Poiret had great moments of glory, and died in misery, forgotten by everyone. However, Poiret was the very first fashion designer of the twentieth century and changed the history of clothing forever.

John Galliano´ s Biography

"My work is about pushing the boundaries of creation"

John Galliano is one of the hero's of the British fashion. Son of emigrant parents, Galliano was born and was born in 1960 and was baptized Juan Carlos Antonio. Galliano´s mum is Spanish and his father is from Gibraltar, the British colony that saw him born and grow. At his six years of age, his family moved to the south of London. But his past, with the religious ceremonies and the culture full of colour and sun, end up being a constant inspiration for Galliano, who proudly assumed his Latin vanity as his signature and his trademark. After completing Wilson´s Grammar School for Boys, Galliano entered Central Saint Martin’s College of Arts, where he graduated in 1984. His graduation collection, inspired in the French revolution and called "Les Incroyables" was immediately bought by Joan Burstein from Browns and it launched him to success. In 1992, after a past marked by financial difficulties, problems with supporters and collections considered commercially impracticable, Galliano moved to Paris, where he started to present his collections. In 1995, he was announced successor of Hubert at Givenchy house. One year later, he jumped from Givenchy to Dior where he presents his fabulous collections today.




Here´s some of his creations for Dior House:

A Fashion Genius

Today I am going to write a little bit about someone that I deeply admire. Someone that completely changed the fashion world.

John Galliano.

More than an extravagant fashion designer, Galliano is a genius.
He is - in my opinion- one of the greatest artists of all time.
Yes, I rather call him Artist than a simple Fashion Designer.
Because that is what he does. Art!
Those things he presents at his theatre-like fashion shows aren't only expensive garments. Those, are masterpieces.
Once a teacher told me that the first fashion designers have already invented what we (humankind) had to invent in terms of Fashion, so what new designers does, is to reinvent what was done in the past.
He also criticized my first collection because my designs were "too different, and too complicated".
That upset me a lot because as a teenager, I thought somehow I could change the world...
and by saying that we were unable to create, but only reinvent, he was...in other words ...tying my hands...
He made me believe that there was nothing we (youth) could do, that no matter how hard we tried, we would never be able to create anything new, because everything is already invented. And so I saw Galliano´s work.
John Galliano is the living proof that we are still capable to create.
Although its always obvious which part of history he took as an inspiration every time we look at one of his creations, we can also say, that his creations are unique.
I deeply admire John Galliano, because he proved the world wrong, and made me believe.
Viva la Vida!