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André Courrèges

IN MEMORIAM: ANDRÉ COURRÈGES (1923-2016)

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André Courrèges, fashion designer responsible for the mini skirt, pasted away on January 8, 2016, aged 92 and was survived by his wife and their daughter.

André Courrèges was born in Pau the 9th of March 1923.  
The website www.courreges.com says: “Sportsman, in love with light. Studies at Ponts et Chaussées, where he discovers architecture, an art and a technique that will influence all his work. Arrives in Paris in 1945, starts working at Balenciaga in 1950. Opens his couture house in 1961. Thanks to him, women discover pants in 1963. Revolution in 1965. Miniskirt. Creation of Couture Future in 1967, high-end ready-to-wear for all women. Second-skin stockings in 1967: a Courrèges idea. Courrèges is also perfumes, with the first one Empreinte in 1971, and numerous design inventions… One to follow!“

Posted 11 January 2016

"Courreges clothes are so beautiful, everyone should look the same, dressed in silver. Silver merges into everything, costumes should be worn during the day with lots of make-up," Warhol reportedly said of his designs, according to AFP.

The Fashion Model Directory says: “In his first appearance on the French couture scene, Courrèges introduced a revolutionary concept of styling: space-age clothes. This included boots, goggles, and dresses three above the knee. The main features of his boxy, uncluttered look spread quickly throughout the fashion world, especially the miniskirt, which he introduced to France. Among Courrèges‘ later creations were sweater pants, parkas, tennis dresses, beach clothes and mechanic-style coveralls. In contrast he also came out with a glow-in-the-dark jersey dress and an array of sexy swimsuits, held together only by thin strings on the sides. He favored bright acid colors and geometrical designs. He was the most copied and plagiarised dress-designer of his era. Shortly after he showed his space-age collection in 1964, the market was flooded with plastic skirts and jackets, angular seaming, crash helmets, white boots, and googles, for a boxy silhouette. He had his greatest time in the 60’s and 70’s when he was know for his refreshing new look.

The Guardian wrote om 8 January 2016: “Within a few years, only those aspects of Courrèges’s work that derived from sport (he personally played or followed rugby, motor racing and the Basque game pelota) remained relevant; he was awarded the contract to design uniforms for the 1972 Olympics. He would have stayed ahead of fashion (we now wear sportswear for much of the day) if he had transferred to full-time sportswear design, but he kept his couture house, although his spare style was isolated in the flamboyant Paris of the 1980s.

L’Oréal ceded the label to the Japanese ready-to-wear firm Itokin in 1982, and Courrèges regained control in 1993. Jean-Charles de Castelbajac designed two collections for Courrèges in 1993-94, and the house revived original 1960s concepts for retro appeal, including the gogo boots. Courrèges took back his perfume business in 1996 and produced a celebratory fragrance, 2020, but the date was no longer a distant fantasy. His more practical predictions about clothing had already come true, including those he made in a 1982 book about a future of gym- and sports-toned bodies in tight-fitted stretch fabrics and knits.”

The Vogue commented: “He may also be the only designer to dress both Jacqueline Kennedy and Miley Cyrus—the former having been a dedicated client in the ’60s, along with Catherine Deneuve, Brigitte Bardot, and Françoise Hardy, while the latter wore several Courrèges pieces to host MTV’s Video Music Awards in 2015.
In addition to designing clothing, Courrèges also produced iconic accessories and perfumes, all part of his vision for a new modern lifestyle. Though he left his namesake brand in the ’90s, he continued to watch over it from his home in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. Today, his legacy is being carried on by creative directors Sebastien Vaillant and Arnaud Meyer, who presented their first collection for the brand for Spring 2016. Co-presidents of Courrèges, Frédéric Torloting and Jacques Bungert released the below statement, translated from French: “All his life, André Courrèges, with Coqueline, continued to advance, invent, and stay ahead of the curve: [He was] a visionary designer who saw, in advance, what the 21st century would be and who believed in progress. This is what makes Courrèges so modern today.”

Following the news of Courrèges's death, French president François Hollande tweeted: "A revolutionary designer, using new materials and geometric shapes, André Courrèges leaves behind a footprint in the world of high fashion."
 
See for photos on his work the website irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion and Style>

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