Grès
Encyclopedia
Grès was a French haute couture
Haute couture
Haute couture refers to the creation of exclusive custom-fitted clothing. Haute couture is made to order for a specific customer, and it is usually made from high-quality, expensive fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable seamstresses,...
fashion house. Parfums Grès is the associated perfume house, which still exists, and is now based in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
.
History
Germaine Émilie Krebs (1903–1993), known as Alix Barton and later as "Madame Grès", launched her design house under the name Grès in Paris in 1942. Formally trained as a sculptress, she produced haute couture designs for an array of fashionable women, including the Duchess of Windsor, Marlene DietrichMarlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
, Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Dolores del Río
Dolores del Río
Dolores del Río was a Mexican film actress. She was a star of Hollywood films during the silent era and in the Golden Age of Hollywood...
. Her signature was cut-outs on gowns that made exposed skin part of the design, yet still had a classical, sophisticated feel. She was renowned for being the last of the haute couture
Haute couture
Haute couture refers to the creation of exclusive custom-fitted clothing. Haute couture is made to order for a specific customer, and it is usually made from high-quality, expensive fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable seamstresses,...
houses to establish a ready-to-wear
Ready-to-wear
Ready-to-wear or prêt-à-porter is the term for factory-made clothing, sold in finished condition, in standardized sizes, as distinct from made to measure or bespoke clothing tailored to a particular person's frame. Off-the-peg is sometimes used for items which are not clothing.Ready-to-wear has...
line, which she called a "prostitution".
The name Grès was a partial anagram
Anagram
An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place, Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort. Someone who...
of her husband's first name and alias. He was Serge Czerefkov, a Russian painter, who left her soon after the house's creation. Grès enjoyed years of critical successes but, after Grès herself sold the business in the 1980s, it faltered.
Parfums Grès
Grès's first and most famous perfume was Cabochard, created by Bernard Chant, and launched in 1959 It is possible still sold in stores, and is still the best perfume she ever created.Other perfumes, launched after the sale of the company, include:
- Cabotine (1990)
- Folie Douce (1997)
- Cabaret (2003)
- Caline (2005)
- Caline Night (2006)
Biography
- Laurence Benaïm, Madame Grès, Editions Assouline, 1999 (in French)
- Patricia Mears, Madame Grès: Sphinx of Fashion, Yale University Press, 2008