num_pages: 184
description: While the classically inspired Grecian gown designed by Madame Alix Grs is widely recognized and admired little else of the brilliant couturiers life or work has received close attention. This book by far the most detailed study yet published on this influential fashion designer carefully analyzes Madame Grs innovative construction techniques and connects her designs to the art styles and movements that inspired and informed her aesthetic. Gorgeously illustrated with images of fabulous clothes designed by Madame Grs the book focuses on her long career (spanning the early 1930s to the late 1980s) and refutes the previous understanding that her work was static and unchanging. Rather her designs consistently changed and evolved even as a thread of continuity connected them. The volume discusses how sculpture and the construction of non-western clothing inspired Grss fashion and examines numerous couture versions of her saris ponchos serapes caftans three-dimensional sculptural pieces and Grecian gowns. In addition the book constructs a timeline of her career and discusses her secretive private life including the circumstances of her death inexplicably concealed by her daughter for over a year.
language: English
title: Madame Grès: Sphinx of Fashion
publisher: Yale University Press