![]() ![]() Although her output of such garments was to drop off significantly during the 1940s and 1950s, she responded to a strong revival of ethnic influences during the mid-1960s, creating caftans, capes, and pajamas for "couture hippies." These gowns were different from her prewar creations in that Grès relied on construction techniques she observed in non-Western dress. Non-Western art was a major source of inspiration to her beginning in the 1930s, with the proliferation of exhibitions and expositions that displayed the products of France's colonies. Madame Grès's ethnic-inspired garments were an important part of her oeuvre during this time. Literally meaning "pigheaded," it describes the tenacity of the couturier. ![]() She engaged in several licensing agreements, the most successful of which was her perfume, Cabochard, released in 1959. By the 1970s Grès has eliminated the corset and, simultaneously, cut away portions of the bodice, thus exposing large areas of the nude torso. She also employed inner reinforcement or corseting. ![]() In the late 1940s Grès resumed the use of larger quantities of fabric as well as a tighter and finer style of pleating. By the onset of World War II, because of textile restrictions, Grès focused on the manipulation of the bodices, sleeves, and necklines of much shorter garments. In the 1930s these "Grecian" garments were primarily white in color, made from uncut lengths of double-width matte silk jersey, most often sleeveless, and cut to enhance the female body without physically restricting its movement. Grès was her classically inspired floor-length, pleated gown. The most famous and recognizable design of Mme. This now legendary group of garments was made using only the red, white, and blue of the French flag. Finally, in the early summer of 1944, she was authorized to resume her business in time to show a final collection before the liberation of Paris. After refusing to accommodate the Nazi's insistence that she reveal her trade secrets and adhere to the regime's fabric restrictions, she was forced to close the shop in January 1944. In 1941 Grès returned to Paris and opened her own salon. The one enduring legacy of her exile was the donning of a turban she took to wearing the headdress initially because she could not go to a hairdresser. After a falling out with Barton, Grès fled the city, like many other Parisians, and moved south with her infant daughter. In the spring of 1940 the Nazis occupied Paris. Months earlier, however, Serge had left France and relocated to Tahiti. In August 1939 their only child, Anne, was born. It was then that she became Alix Grès, Grès being an anagram of her husband's first name, which he used to sign his paintings. On 15 April 1937 Grès married a Russian-born painter, Serge Anatolievitch Czerefkow. That same period she began to work for a couturier named Julie Barton, who renamed her house Alix to reflect the astounding success of her assistant. Around 1933, during a brief apprenticeship of three months at the couture house of Premet, she learned the basics of dressmaking and changed her first name to Alix. ![]() Born Germaine Emilie Krebs on 30 November 1903 in Paris, France, she became a couturier after her bourgeois Catholic parents discouraged her desire to pursue a career first as a professional dancer and then as a sculptor. Grès's life, like the creation of her gowns, was unconventional. Her garments are noted for their three-dimensional, sculptural quality. She employed innovative construction techniques in the service of a classical aesthetic, creating her hallmark "Grecian" gowns as well as a wide range of simple and geometrically cut designs based on ethnic costume. Madame Alix Grès is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant couturiers of the twentieth century. ![]()
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