He also designed computers, cars, scooters, telephones, domestic appliances, children’s clothes and toys. Boutiques followed in Europe, the Far East, the Middle East, the Americas and Australia. In 1973 he went into menswear and opened his first separate menswear boutique in Paris in 1974. I still wear my mother’s black triple gabardine trapeze dress from the autumn-winter 1967 collection it’s as band-box smart and iceberg-lettuce crisp as the day she cast fear aside and stepped into it.ĭiversification into menswear, scent and accessories ensured Courrèges’ financial survival. Exploiting his engineering skills, his ready-to-wear gained the reputation for being the most meticulously produced in Paris. He launched three ready-to-wear lines: “Prototype”, “Couture Future” and “Hyperbole”. In disgust he sold his house to L’Oreal in 1965 and worked for a few private clients.īut by 1967 he had come up with a better solution – to copy himself. Floppy copies failed, aesthetically if not commercially. High fashion is not protected by patents, and within a couple of years Courrèges’ look was being copied around the world, invariably badly because few understood the importance of triple gabardine. By 1967 Courrèges’ bare midriffs, bare backs and see-throughs had prompted Coty cosmetics to introduce body paint. Space Age was followed by Bare as you Dare, when Courrèges showed the barest back in Paris – a white lace evening catsuit, modestly covered up in front and caught only at the back of the neck from where it plunged naked and sun tanned to the other cleavage. Her tongue-in-cheek innocence was thought wildly amusing by a generation that was playing with the Pill, free love and iconoclasm for the first time. Superficially they may have seemed “ingenue” but the customer who wore these couture togs was as mondaine as one could be. His Space Age look evolved and was juxtaposed with a de-frilled Baby Doll look consisting of round-collared shifts in white or sugar almond-coloured guipure lace, baby caps fastened under the chin, white knee socks and flat white baby sandals tied over the instep. Gloves, hats, boots, belts, make-up, all were honed down to Space Age simplicity by Courrèges and finished off with a silver wig, which was worn with the same nonchalance as frosted pink lipstick. The future was white, scientific and young, and so were Courrèges’ clothes. Wearing my clothes is a question of spirit.” Courrèges translated the 60s space-craze into clothing, and when at last in 1969, man landed on the moon, Courrèges celebrated with a range of mirror-disc stamped overalls, created in the White Salon at his Avenue Kléber studio.Courrèges’ vision worked because he caught the optimistic euphoria of the times, epitomised by the Space Race, and because he played up this futuristic vision to the hilt. “I believe one can make women happier by bringing both more white and more colour into their lives,” Courrèges preached. His technical garments pioneered a new look that blended avant-garde geometry with sport classics, driven by the youthful energy that defined the decade, and are celebrated in a new book by Emmanuelle Dirix and Charlotte Fiell, considering fashion in the 70s. The French designer André Courrèges is best known for introducing the revolutionary Space Look – an intergalactic breed of dressing, featuring white boots, goggles and boxy dresses, designed in futuristic metallic shades, high-shine fabrics and PVC. Trends in the 1960s can be credited to a few sartorial pioneers: Mary Quant invented the mini-skirt, Jackie Kennedy popularised the pillbox hat, Yves Saint Laurent created the Le Smoking tuxedo.
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