The Fashion Historian

"For a dress to survive from one era to the next, it must be marked with an extreme purity." ~ Madame Grès


Madame Grès c. 1946.
Photo Credits: Eugene Rubin/ FNAC/Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris

Madame Grès (1903-1993) was a remarkable couturier in the 20th century, known for using delicate pleats which turned ordinary fabric into Greek sculpture.


On display at the Musée Bourdelle in Paris.

Grès was born Germaine Krebs in Paris in 1903. She originally wanted to be a sculptor, but was unsuccessful. She then ventured into millinery, changing her name to Alix Barton. Her design house would be known as Alix from 1934 through 1942. She first gained attention by designing the costumes for Jean Giraudoux's play The Trojan War Will Not Take Place, and quickly became a leading designer of the day, whose clients included everything from duchesses to movie stars (Grace Kelly, Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich are a few of her more famous clients). In 1942 she created the name Grès, a partial anagram of the first name of her husband at the time, Serge Czerefkov. The New York Times called her couture house "the most intellectual place in Europe to buy clothes".


On display at the Musée Bourdelle in Paris.

“I wanted to be a sculptor. For me, it’s the same thing to work the fabric or the stone” Grès once said. And it is a truth universally acknowledged that Grès was indeed a true sculptor of fabric. Her favorite fabric was silk jersey, and a single dress could take from 13 to 21 meters. Her talent for pleating could reduce 9 feet of fabric into a mere 2.8 inches. The drapery of her gowns also showed her technical virtuosity. Long swags of continuous strips of fabric would be incorporated into the front and back of a gown, giving her work a sense of classical antiquity. She also introduced the idea of cutouts, creating little windows in her gowns which revealed the back or shoulder. Wearers of her gowns have said that they felt perfectly secure in her gowns, so impeccable was the construction.


On display at the Musée Bourdelle in Paris.

While Grès is most known for her draped Grecianesque gowns, she also showed talent in less formal designs. Her every day wear showed the same attention to detail and impeccable tailoring that her gowns did.


On display at the Musée Bourdelle in Paris.

Grès had an extraordinarily long career, working until the late 1980s. Throughout this period, which encompassed huge changes in fashion, her work remained consistent and timeless. "Once one has found something of a personal and unique character, its execution must be exploited and pursued without stopping," she said. Her work remains timeless, any one of her elegant gowns could be seen walking a red carpet today. It is easy to see the "extreme purity" Grès would strive for in her work.


On display at the Musée Bourdelle in Paris.

The ceremony of the toilette was an important part of fashionable society in the 18th century. The toilette was the act of getting prepared for the day, including dressing, and doing your hair and make up. It first became a ritual during the reign of great Absolute Monarch Louis XIV. In yet another brilliant move at consolidating his power and controlling the nobility, Louis XIV ritualized the process of dressing (lever) and undressing (coucher), giving nobles in the royal favor the privilege of watching the great monarch prepare for the day or night. The ritual then spread to other courts in Europe, and to the nobility, with different levels of formality accompanying the event.


From the Monument du Costume Physique et Moral de la fin du Dix-huitième siècle, 1789

For most, the most intimate portion of the toilette was performed in private, as it's rather difficult to look glamorous when you first wake up. After privately putting on the most intimate garments and getting your hair and face to look presentable, although casual, it was time to present yourself to your visitors. Fashion historian Aileen Ribeiro describes the process:

“On awakening, the fashionable lady rang for her maid who handed her a lace-trimmed manteau de lit for her early ablutions, after which she was dressed in a negligee du matin, a loose robe worn over chemise and stays. Then she was ready to receive visitors in her cabinet de toilette; these could include men, and very often abbes, who acted the part of cicisbei and were always there with the latest news and gossip. It was then that her hair was done, either by a personal maid or a male hairdresser, and the finishing touches applied to the face… The light-hearted intimacy of the lingering toilette was an essential part of dressing in the eighteenth century."

Ribeiro also notes the intimacy of the ceremony, with the lady getting dressed lingering on the undergarments, giving an almost sexual experience. Men also had a morning toilette, using the time to discuss business affairs rather than social ones.


From the Monument du Costume Physique et Moral de la fin du Dix-huitième siècle, 1789

The toilette is often called a ritual, bringing a religious connotation to the event and subsequently showing the importance of fashion in society. The very act of dressing itself is not just a simple daily task, but an important, ‘religious’ experience, showing the status clothing took in eighteenth century society. Clothing was not merely something to cover the body, but to express position and quality. By ritualizing the activity of dressing, each layer takes on an importance, not simply the outermost layer, showing that fashion was not only what was seen but what was unseen. Furthermore, ritualizing the act of dressing makes fashion a performance. A morning dressing ritual shows the elegance and wealth in each layer, not just the ones that will be seen, an important consideration for a culture obsessed with showing off wealth and power. While the toilette started with the French monarchy, in becoming a ritual for the rest of society, the non-royals could emulate the power and style of the monarchy.

A perhaps unintended consequence of turning dressing into a performance is dressing then becomes playing a part. Just as a theater performance is false reality, a woman dressing is emulating a false reality of herself. On the one hand, this performance she is beginning could be an act of submission. As viewers watch her body on display, with each layer she becomes the woman society wants her to be— beautiful, accomplished in the arts, and most importantly a dutiful daughter, wife, and mother. On the other hand, this performance could be an act of rebellion. While society wants to mold the woman into one ideal, with each layer she makes herself into who she wants to be and takes control of herself. The Petit Dictionnaire de la Cour wrote in 1788 that "a charming woman uses more subtlety and politics in her dressing than there are in all the governments of Europe."


The Toilette from William Hogarth's Marriage a la Mode series, 1743-1745.

A similar dichotomy can be seen with men, with the act of dressing either turning a man into a dutiful son or respectable patriarch, or expressing his personal fashion taste which may have been in rebellion to his family or societies' expectations (for example, many young Englishmen, returning from a Grand Tour of continental Europe, would dress in a flamboyant French style, much to the disapproval of the more subdued English view on fashion). It may be argued that taking control of ones identity was far less important for a man, as he already had greater personal autonomy in society. But it may also be argued that men too were under pressure to fit into a certain mold- father sons, run estates, be active in politics, etc- when their desire may have been for another path in life. Society wanted Louis XVI to be a great and gallant monarch like his predecessors, while the man himself was quiet and shy and had no taste for the court ceremonies he nonetheless was forced to participate in (his wife, on the other hand, bucked tradition entirely which greatly contributed to her downfall, but that's for another post).

Mary Victoria Leiter Curzon, Baroness Curzon of Kedleston and Vicereine of India (1870-1906), was born in America and was the daughter of Levi Z. Leiter, an early partner in Marshall Field and Co. After being introduced to London society, in 1895 she married George Nathaniel Curzon, a British statesman who would have an extremely successful career. In January 1899 George Curzon was appointed Viceroy of India, giving Mary the honor of holding the highest political position ever gained by an American woman. Tragically, after a long illness, Mary died at age 36 in 1906.

Mary was known for her beauty, and the owner of many stylish gowns. And as a rich and powerful woman, she was able to afford the very best couture, designed by the House of Worth, founded by the father of couture himself, Charles Frederick Worth.




Oak leaf dress by House of Worth, copyright of the Fashion Museum in Bath and the NE Somerset Council.

The oak leaf dress was created in 1903, several years after Worth's death. However, his sons continued his couture business and it is clear that they inherited their fathers skill in design and detail. The silk satin dress features over 400 oak leaves, outlined in satin cord and chenille thread. The darker leaves on the skirt were created by actually cutting out oak leaf shapes, and backing the holes with silk net.

But this beautiful dress is merely a walk in the park compared to Lady Curzon's most famous gown, the peacock dress.


The peacock dress by House of Worth, in the collection at Kedleston Hall.

The peacock dress was commissioned for the Delhi Durbar in 1903, a celebration honoring the coronation of Edward VII. The dress is made of cloth of gold, worked by craftsmen in India, and has a pattern of overlapping peacock feathers. The eye of each feather is not an emerald, as many guests believed, but an iridescent green wing from the scarab beetle (cetonia cyrata).


Detail of peacock feathers.

The fabric was sent over to the House of Worth in Paris and designed into the ornate dress seen today. In addition to the sparkling fabric itself, the hem of the dress is decorated with white roses, and elaborate jewel work sparkles on the bodice.


Detail of bodice front, photograph by Victor Swain.

With all of the decoration, the dress weighed over 10 pounds. Lady Curzon sparkled in the new electric lights, and reportedly left guests breathless. One commented, "You cannot conceive what a dream she looked."

The dress is currently on display at the historic Curzon family house, Kedleston Hall in Derby, England. Although it's over 100 years old and the metal has tarnished, it is still breathtaking. The detail of the cloth is extraordinary and the way the dress sparkles is magical. I imagine Lady Curzon looked like a fairy queen or a goddess when she moved in her gown.