Living in a world without innovators and history would create boredom. With boredom we would not have the great designers and artists we are fortunate to have. Chanel being one of the greatest and most famous designers, she created the wearable jersey knit in her every day garments and Natalia Goncharova famous for her originality of Rayonism, a way of painting and expressing ones spiritual beliefs through vibrant colors. These two women have an outstanding place in history creating a more radical and modern way of life through their work.
Chanel (pronounced Shanel) revolutionized Haute Couture at the age of 20. She was a young innovative designer with a strong, unique personality that showed in her designs. She replaced the confining corset design with the comfortable fitting suits and longer, straighter dresses. The silhouette of Chanel’s designs were less form-fitted and more for comfort. The very popular Chanel suit consisted of a knee-length skirt and boxy jacket. Chanel introduced to the world her cardigan jacket in 1925. Her designs were incredibly popular for the elite and powerful. Chanel became a symbol of wealth and status for the majority of the twentieth century.
In 1909, Chanel opened her shop in Paris selling hats. Her hats were worn by famous actresses who helped build the Chanel name. In 1913 she started to use jersey in her fashions. “Her line of jersey clothing was a reaction to the lifestyle changes surrounding WWI” (wikipedia.com/Chanel). In 1914, WWI led to the change in design with the women working in factories instead of the men. They needed warm clothing that would stand up to working conditions. Chanel’s designs were inspired in the time period where women sports were being introduced...
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...the liberties they wanted, they applied for French nationalization on April 14 (Bowlt, 169). Full French citizenship was granted on September 8, which secured their lives, home, and future. They remained in Paris for the duration of the war. Life during the Nazi occupation was hard, but not as hard as one perhaps would expect. There were surprisingly many shows in which both Goncharova and Larionov exhibited. Goncharova also had a commission for a series of plays running in Paris from 1940 to 1942.
Through the hard times both artistic innovators have made history in today’s world. Their art and fashion has inspired us and our current designers to come up with things that are new and exciting. Through our current events and their past experiences and designs, we can create something untouchable that will inspire future artists to keep inventing a work of art.
...s far as the author is concern, the fact that CoCo Chanel left the Victorian ideas and lived a life of her own made other women admire her. According to the author, clothing design was her star that raised her above other women. It would be better if other women would emulate her character and moral beliefs that should attract other women.
During her time in Moulins Chanel met and courted Etienne Balsan, an affluent textile hier. For three years she lived with him at his castle in Compiègne serving as his mistress. There Chanel lived a life of wealth and luxury that would not have been possible without Balsan. Later in her career it was those riches that inspired many of her iconic designs; her times spent on yachts lead her to incorporate those traditionally sailors looks of striped shirts and bell bottoms into her later
Givenchy’s love for fashion grew when at the age of ten he attended the Pavillon d’ Elegance Paris Exposition. Once looking through Vogue magazine, he was inspired by Balenciaga men’s wear. He wanted to be a couturier and attended Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, to start a formal education in fashion. His designing inspirations came from Elsa Schiaparelli and Madam Gres’s work. His experience also came from working at the House of Piguet in Paris; this salon was known for its dramatic yet simple style and after, at the House of Lelong that was known for their high quality clothing. Those positions gave him knowledge on how to work with couture customers and gave him an opportunity to build strong relationships with them (Press, 2002).
People always ask me who my favorite designer is. I always find it to be a pretty impossible question. How can you choose between someone like Alexander McQueen and Channel, or what about the clothes I wear every day? I do not even know who designs most of those. I feel like there are too many designers with vastly different ascetics, yet, they are still so breathtakingly impeccable. So now, I choose Diana Vreeland. Although she did not design clothing, nearly her whole life was spent creating beauty and interest with a taste level that hit the sky. She also launched careers of countless people many still follow today and she created trend after trend with her worldly eccentric eye and not to mention an sensational appetite for originality and beauty.
...e meeting the world with new bold designs, and will live on as an icon for future designers to aspire to for years to come. (“Coco Chanel Photos Prove the Designer was her own Muse”)
Graphic designer and typographer Stefan Sagmeister has always had a unique way of viewing the world, therefore has created designs that are both inventive and controversial. He is an Austrian designer, who works in New York but draws his design inspiration while traveling all over the world. While a sense of humor consistently appears in his designs as a frequent motif, Sagmeister is nonetheless very serious about his work. He has created projects in the most diverse and extreme of ways as a form of expression. This report will analyse three of Stefan’s most influential designs, including the motives and messages behind each piece.
Louis Vuitton, a French designer and entrepreneur quickly made a name for himself in the fashion industry by becoming Napoleon’s wife “personal box-maker and packer.” At the age of sixteen, Vuitton and his family started the legendary workshop by creating travel trunks and the famous unpickable locks in 1859 (Louis Vuitton, 2015). As the legendary brand continues to remarkably exceed both sales and expectations, Louis Vuitton as a brand strives for pure distinction and exclusivity.
In Deauville, she introduced casual knit dresses which was shockingly different from what others were creating and wearing. “She introduced relaxed dressing expressing the aspirations of the 20th century woman, replacing impractical clothing with functional styling.” (Martin 80). Her designs stressed simplicity and comfort and revolutionized the fashion industry. Within five years of her original use of jersey fabric to create a poor girl look, had attracted the attention of influential wealthy women seeking relief from the prevalent corseted style. In 1954, Chanel presented her new collection of the signature suit. The Chanel suit is a standard garment in modern fashion. “The key to her design philosophy was construction, producing traditional classics outliving each season’s new fashion trends and apparel.” (Martin
Working at her father’s clothing shop, she became very knowledgeable about expensive textiles and embellishments, which were captured in her works later in career. She was able to capture the beauty and lavishness of fabrics in portraits of aristocratic women.
Paul Poiret was born on April 20th, 1879 in Paris, France. His contributions to twentieth-century fashion has earned him the title in many people’s eyes as the “King of Fashion”, because he established the principle of modern dress and created the blueprint of the modern fashion industry. Poiret’s designs and ideas led the direction of modern design history. He was born into a working class family and his natural charisma eventually gained him entry into some of the most exclusive ateliers of the Belle Époque. Jacques Doucet, one of the capital’s most prominent couturiers, hired him after seeing promising sketches he had sold to other dressmakers. Furthermore, he was hired by the House of Worth and was put to work to create less glamorous and more practical, simple items because his out of the ordinary designs were not welcomed in open arms by opulent clientele. Despite this experience he was still confident in his ideas and ventured out on his own with money barrowed from his parents and opened a storefront. Moreover, he wanted to promote of the concept of a "total lifestyle” was seen as the first couturier to merge fashion with interior design. His independent work broke the normal conventions of dressmaking, and overturned their underlying presumptions. He liberated the woman’s body from the petticoat and the corset to allow clothing to follow woman’s natural form. Poiret also radically revolutionized dressmaking to switch from the emphasis surrounding the skills of tailoring towards those based on the skills of draping and began to use bright colors. Furthermore, Poiret was apart of the art deco movement, which was surrounded by a period of immense social upheaval, particularly for women, and emergence of technol...
In the early 1800s, France was the sole fashion capital of the world; everyone who was anyone looked towards Paris for inspiration (DeJean, 35). French fashion authority was not disputed until the late twentieth century when Italy emerged as a major fashion hub (DeJean, 80). During the nineteenth century, mass produced clothing was beginning to be marketed and the appearance of department stores was on the rise (Stearns, 211). High fashion looks were being adapted and sold into “midlevel stores” so that the greater public could have what was once only available to the social elite (DeJean, 38). People were obsessed with expensive fashions; wealthy parents were advised not the let their children run around in expensive clothing. People would wait for children dressed in expensive clothing to walk by and then they would kidnap them and steal their clothes to sell for money (DeJean, 39). Accessories were another obsession of France‘s fashion; they felt no outfit was complete without something like jewelry or a shrug to finish off the look and make it all around polished (DeJean, 61). As designers put lines together, marketing began to become important to fashion in the nineteenth century; fashion plates came into use as a way to show off fashion l...
Gabrielle Chanel remains one of the most well-known fashion designers of all time. She was born on August 19, 1883 in France and died in 1971. Chanel revolutionized the fashion industry with her distinctive style. After the death of her mother, she spent much of her childhood in an orphanage. The challenges of her early life helped build her strong character which influenced her path in life. Chanel was nicknamed “Coco” after a lost dog in a popular song she loved to sing. Her early career was funded by a succession of her rich lovers. This allowed her to open her first shop in Paris in 1910. She sold hats as well as some garments. Coco developed a significant following of clientele who enjoyed her practical sportswear creating great success.
Pantalettes, sometimes indicated major transitions in a girl's life signifying the going forward from infant to schoolgirl. From 1350 to mid 1500s, real fashion started to appear, as clothes were tailored to display the figure. During the 1700s, the Age of Enlightenment, ladies dressed in voluminous draped fabrics putting on a few more pounds. Tightly laced corsets were used in the bodices of their gowns, and hoops worn under their dresses, were made of flexible whalebone (a thin plastic strip used in stiffening corsets and bodices) held together by tapes (Fig. 1). During the industrial revolution in the 1800s, French designs dominated women's clothing, and women discarded the corset in favor of a softly bodice. Gowns were made with fewer layers and had leg-of-mutton sleeves (Fig. 2). In the 1870s, synthetic dyes were introduced due to the fact that they were cheaper and color-fast. Toward the 1900s, the Space Age, fashion quickly moved forward into the 20th century. By the end of the 19th-century, the fashion industry had broadened, partly due to the demand of women who had a more independent life style. In 1910, rayon was invented, the first man made fabric that substituted silk. Also, for the first time, hemlines rise above the ankles. During the early 20th century, nearly all high fashion originated in Paris and London. Fashion magazines from other countries sent editors and department stores sen...
Fashion has been around ever since ancient times, since the time of the Romans, it survived the world wars and is yet today a business with rapid changes. Fashion started off as an art form, a way for the riches to show their social status with unique and innovative designs that only they could afford. It was a way to separate the social classes of the society. In this paper I will include the creator of haute couture, and how the following designers developed couture, as well as having leading names in today’s ready-to-wear industry. The list is long, but I chose to focus on the three most important designers of the modern fashion industry.
Clothing has been around for thousands of years; almost as long as the modern human has. At first, it served the practical purpose of protection from the elements; but, as life for early humans stopped being a constant struggle to survive, they started noticing how they looked and the concept of fashion began to take shape. These first few garments were typically dyed draped cloth that was pinned at the shoulder and/or waist. This was seen in many ancient civilizations around the world, Greek and Roman the most notable. Over time, clothing began to get more and more complex and formed to the body’s shape, eventually leading up to the tailored style we now have today. However, the sophisticated world of Haute Couture; or high fashion, can distinctly trace its roots to Paris during the mid-19th century. Clothing from there was thought to be superior to those from anywhere else, and women began to come from all over Europe just to buy dresses. This was probably due in part to one notable dressm...