Labeled as the “Queen of the bias cut” and “the architect amongst dress makers”, Madeleine Vionnet was one of the leading designers in Paris during the 20s and 30s.
While Coco Chanel is the much more recalled name when we think of iconic French designers, one of her contemporaries, Madeleine Vionnet had her own significant impact on fashion, namely through her use of the bias cut, and her simple Grecian inspired dresses.
Madeleine Vionnet was born to a humble family in a region of North-Central France known as Loiret, and following her parents’ separation, she lived with her father who was a toll collector. She became an apprentice as a seamstress at the age of 12, and was married for a short time at 18. Having already lost a young child, she left her husband for London to work as a hospital seamstress, and was also a fitter for dressmaker Kate Reilly. When she returned to Paris and worked as a toile maker for the fashion house Callot Soeurs, she was offered a promotion by Marie Callot Gerber. Due to the promotion, she was able to improvise designs more and add her own inputs with Gerber herself. Vionnet would later remark on Gerber as “a great lady.” “Without the example of the Callot Soeurs, I would have continued to make Fords. It is because of them that I have been able to make Rolls-Royces.” Later however, her preference for simplicity would be different from the vision of the fashion house. After working for Jacques Doucet where too, her use of barefoot models was at odds with the fashion house, she founded her own house “Vionnet” in 1914, which would be disrupted due to the first world war, and later re-opened in 1923 in a street called Avenue Montaigne, an area that would later be known as the “Temple of Fashion.” Later the fashion brand Vionnet would also expand to the famed Fifth Avenue in New York City.
Vionnet’s use of the bias cut quickly caught the attention of 1930s haute couture and Hollywood, and actresses such as Katherine Hepburn and Joan Crawford donned her designs. With a large number of 12,000 garments over the course of her career, she also focused on copyright laws in fashion by founding the first ‘anti-copyist association’, and gave her employees many benefits before employee benefits had become a thing, such as paid maternity leave, day-care, paid holidays and a resident doctor and dentist. She made her staple in the world of fashion with her idea of the female form. She was quite a private person, and although she was part of the fashion industry, she stated a dislike for it. “Insofar as one can talk of a Vionnet school, it comes mostly from my having been an enemy of fashion. There is something superficial and volatile about the seasonal and elusive whims of fashion which offends my sense of beauty.”
“When a woman smiles, her dress must smile with her.”
~Madeleine Vionnet
She preferred to accentuate the natural female form, and so wasn’t particularly fond of corsets, padding, or anything that brought with it stiffness and took away from the natural curves of a woman. She was inspired by the dances of Isadora Duncan, who was a dancer that preferred more free-flowing moves to the rigidity of ballet. Both Duncan and Vionnet were inspired by Greek art, and her focus on motion was an embodiment of the “art-deco” movement in art. Her work also referenced Cubism and Modernism. Although she didn’t invent the technique of the bias cut, her use of it all over created clothing that simultaneously fit the wearer and followed their movements. Although her styles looked simple, they involved a lot of hard work with cutting, draping, and pinning, due to which she always ordered an additional 2 yards of fabric. Iconic styles that are accredited to Vionnet include the halter top, the handkerchief dress and the cowl neck. In 1925, British Vogue would comment on her being “perhaps the greatest geometrician among all French couturiers.” The greatest fashion photographers of the time such as Edward Steichen and Cecil Beaton would document her genius in their photographs. Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyaki remarked, “the impression was similar to the wonder one feels at the sight of a woman emerging from bathing, draped only in a single piece of beautiful cloth.
Vionnet disliked self-promotion and publicity unlike Coco Chanel, and her business was greatly aided by entrepreneur Theophile-Bader, one of the co-founders of the Galeries Lafayette. She would later liquidate her assets and donate a significant amount of her archive to the Union Francaises des Arts du Costume.
As for the Vionnet brand, it was revived in 2006 by CEO Arnaud de Lummen. Under the leadership of Creative Director Sophia Kokosalaki, the brand launched its first collection in 67 years in the Spring/Summer 2007 season. In October 2007 however, she would be replaced by Marc Audibet. In 2008, the brand collaborated with a number of anonymous designers, as Arnaud Lummen wanted the label to expand without the focus shifting on the fame of the designers. From 2009-2011, Vionnet was under the leadership of Matteo Marzotto, and several celebrities such as Natalie Portman, Emma Watson and Madonna wore Vionnet pieces. From 2012-2022, the brand was acquired by Goga Ashkenazi, and in October 2018 it liquidated voluntarily. In 2023, it was acquired by ChimHaeres. ChimHaeres is a joint investment venture of Chimera Abu Dhabi and Haeres Capital, and was their first step into luxury fashion. The fashion critique channel “understitch,” commented, “unfortunately I don’t have high hopes for Vionnet under their leadership because of this, luxury fashion is a tricky business, it doesn’t turn a profit very easily and so when the uninitiated start buying fashion companies, they do turn into vessels for low quality, high margin items like shoes and bags, when they don’t see a return on investment immediately, or as immediately as they think that they should. These products are often without the best design and then that in turn really affects the brand value over time. The Vionnet name still does have value, so it is unfortunately really vulnerable to this kind of bastardisation. So, I just genuinely hope it doesn’t go this way when and if they do eventually re-relaunch the brand.”
References
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MadeleineVionnet
- https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/madeleine-vionnet-an-introduction
- https://modametiers.com/2021/04/22/madeleine-vionnet-1876-1975-fashions-revolutionary-designer/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vionnet(company)
- https://youtu.be/CT58Sh-4MnU?si=zzBbYdWq0cW-CNCS
Citizen of The World. A musician, artist and writer. Social media manager at Abir Pothi
