THE EVOLUTION OF THE MOST NOTABLE DESIGNER IN FASHION HISTORY
Haute Couture started with the father of Couture - Charles Worth. Worth started his own fashion house named house of worth this is how his reputation started, he was the first person to use models to showcase his work and revolutionised fashion internationally.
Coco Chanel, I would say the second most recognised name in fashion after Dior. She was critized for her masculine style as a female, she was known to wear the classic Chanel suits that enhanced her shoulders with shoulder pads and a more boxy, structured silhouette. Her use of jersey - usually worn only in sportswear before Chanel used them in everyday garments and soft tweed, created comfort in her garments and took materials that weren't considered luxurious and mixed them into couture pieces. Her use of tweed make me uncomfortable, I hate tweed like hate it hate it, the texture the look and I can just feel the itchiness on the skin from looking at the items. I have never been a fan if the Chanel suits as I think there boring, rigid and look like something a 90yr old would wear, I prefer more exciting garments. I understand why the suit is such a revolutionary garment because of the masculinity of the style but looking at Chanel suits now and still seeing the exact same style, silhouette and materials just in different colours makes me disappointed in Chanel creative directors because I would have expected the same aura of her suits but changed and modernised with new ideas whereas all that happened is a colour change.
Elsa Schiaparelli, a better rival for the fashion title. Schiaparelli started as an Italian fashion designer and Cocos biggest rival, Elsa designs where intriguing, different and unique she collaborated with surrealist artists to use there work and make almost visual illusions on her garments, her most notable being the tear dress. The tear dress combined work by Salvador Dali a surrealist artists who had painted the 'tear dress' in his work previously. She used layered fabric and cut out to create 3D visual illusions and flaps on the dress. Her work now I adore Daniel Roseberry's fresh outlook for the brand. He is able to combine golds which easily can be tacky it make is elegant and royal.
Balenciaga opened in Spain, moving to Paris in 1937 to expand his creative vision in the fashion capital. Soon after moving he was faced with the limitations of WW2, a time were most designers and creatives struggled to keep there fashions houses alive. Balenciaga however managed to import materials from Spain to creative work throughout the war and keep creating.
Its Diors time to shine, creative from a young age in Paris, Dior opened a art gallery under his fathers approval and one condition that he didn't use the Dior name. The art gallery was incredibly popular and featured Diors favourite artists including Pablo Picasso, Dior was also faced with troubles much like Balenciaga, during the Great Depression he had to shut the gallery to fund his families needs and look after his father after his sister and mother died. To carry on his creative passion he sold small clothing designs on the streets and then worked under designers Robert Piguet and Lucien Lulong. After working for many years as an intern and designer for other brand he opened the house of Dior in 1946 and released his first collection. This collection coined the 'New Look' the most famous silhouette in fashion history. The new look featured glamour and structure with broader shoulders, tight corsetry and padded underskirts creating a hourglass silhouette. Still now Dior's collections refer to the new look, I mentioned before about hating that the current Chanel under Virginie Viard was repetitive and uncreative, I feel Dior's are also repetitive but Maria Grazia Chiuri has took the silhouette and created new forms and styles, building but not taking away from Christians Dior's original vision.
From before the war when women wore corsets underskirts and harsh, uncomfortable boning, to Coco Chanel's use of jersey and tweed to introduce comfort and fluid styles into fashion, to after the war Dior bringing back the silhouettes, the uncomfortable garments, the small waist etc - doesn't it seem like we moved forward in fashion and then just went back? Yes we moved to less structured feminine styles and women had more freedom with clothing and more comfort, but that need for women to feel feminine and empowered in there clothing. I can imagine many women missed the corsetry as they were used to it and it was there everyday life, after awhile I imagine they found comfort in the structured styles - the whole reason women more corsetry was to embrace what they saw as femininity for men but also for themselves so moving to masculine shapes I feel many women would have lost that comfort into what they were used to and were happy to come back to feminine shapes with Dior's New look.
I mentioned about feminine styles for men, was it that female shapes were sexualised? I wouldn't say sexualised but possibly fetishized even by women. The hourglass shape was seen as so beautiful that women as well as men obsessed over the shape and tried everything to tighten the waist, create more shape and become more beautiful in the current society. Women are always changing there appearance and body to suit the time period, for example some trends after the hourglass have been fuller bust, small waist, big shoulders, larger arse - these are more modern requirements but is shows how un healthy the need to be recognised as beautiful in society is and how un important it is as the trend will soon change.
Dior's work has been worn for years by the most influential of people, Young Princess Margret loved Dior's work and wore many if his dresses from the late 40s to the early50s, as well as Natalie Portman, Josephine Baker and Jenifer Lawrence.
This dress in this image is just absolutely breath taking, from the materials, the layers, the hand sewn embellishments and just everything in the picture - the luxurious seat, carpet and stunning painting it is just a breath taking image.
Late Dior. Unfortunately Dior's life was short lived and he really should have listened to the tarot reading he got before every show. His last reading told him not to go to Italy on a trip, he went anyway and unfortunately died en route of a heart attack in 1957. This death was a shock and mysterious fatality that is still speculated now as to what really happened. His successor Yves Saint Laurent, took over Dior's reputation and the Dior House. Yves Saint Laurent had known Dior before hand and interned in his studio with him from the age of 18. Dior saw promise and talent in the young designer, telling his mother that he would take over the Dior house before he died. Ysl carried the Dior house until he opened his own fashion house 1967.
Since YSL Dior has housed great creative directors such as Marc Bohan, GianFranco Ferre, John Galliano, Raf simmons and as from 2016, Maria Grazia Chiuri.
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