André Courrèges (; 9 March 1923 – 7 January 2016) was a French fashion designer. He was particularly known for his streamlined 1960s designs influenced by modernism and futurism, exploiting modern technology and new fabrics. Courrèges defined the go-go boot and along with Mary Quant, is one of the designers credited with inventing the miniskirt. He founded the Courrèges fashion house alongside his wife Coqueline Courrèges.
Early life Courrèges was born in the city of Pau within the Bearnese region of the Pyrenees. He wanted to pursue design in art school but his father, a butler, disapproved of his passion as he wanted him to be an engineer. Courrèges attended École Nationale des Ponts-et-Chaussées (École des ponts ParisTech). During World War II, he became a pilot for the French Air Force.
Career
Early beginnings In 1945, at 22, after studying to be a civil engineer, Courrèges went to Paris to work at the fashion house Jeanne Lafaurie. A few months later, he went to work for Cristóbal Balenciaga. Courrèges worked for Balenciaga for 10 years mastering the cut and construction of garments.
Courrèges
1961-63 In 1961, Courrèges launched his own fashion house. For the first couple of years of its existence, Courrèges was known for well-tailored suits and dresses with geometric seaming, clean lines, and the standard knee-length hemlines of the time. His superbly cut trousers also attracted notice. His designs' style was shaped by Balenciaga, with garments that were well sculpted for women.Multiple sources:
His clientele were mature and conservative women with high disposable income.
In 1963, he began to be known for extremely simple, geometric, modern designs, knee-baring skirts, trousers for women, and a predilection for white, including the "little white dress." He was considered a master tailor, backing seams with padding to give his garments a lightly upholstered look. His slim fall 1963 trousers extended in a clean line onto the top of the foot. Designers that season showed women's boots of all heights for the first time, establishing a norm that would continue in autumn collections for at least the next fifteen years. Courrèges's clothes for 1963 were often paired with flat, slim-shafted boots to the lower calf, made for him by Delicata. The white versions attracted particular attention and became known as the Courrèges boot, which evolved into the popular go-go boot. Boots of this shape would be a staple of his collections for the next two years.
1964-65 Courrèges would reach a peak of fame and influence with his three 1964 and '65 collections, and it is these collections for which he is most remembered. They introduced miniskirts to the haute couture, popularized pantsuits, and made flat shoes, white boots, metallic silver, and oversized glasses characteristic elements of 1960s fashion. They were still strictly haute couture collections, but they conveyed the futuristic Space Age pulse of the time with spare, adroitly tailored clothes that simultaneously gave women a sense of freedom and suggested deeper societal changes.Multiple sources: With these collections, Courrèges intended to overcome the uncomfortable artifice that had dominated women's fashion during the 1950s.Multiple sources: He promoted a new, more athletic body type that he felt was more in line with modern women's lives.Multiple sources: These collections were so transformative that some fashion writers compared them to Christian Dior's 1947 Corolle collection in importance.Multiple sources: Their influence would extend through about 1967, touching everyone from top hairdresser Vidal Sassoon to Coco Chanel, who showed her first pantsuits a few months after Courrèges introduced them to the couture in 1964. Ultra-modern US designer Rudi Gernreich was moved to shorten his skirts to mini length after seeing Courrèges's 1964 work, and both designers were early advocates of bralessness.Multiple sources: The designer perhaps most obviously influenced was fellow Balenciaga protegé Emanuel Ungaro.Multiple sources: During this period, Courrèges cited architects Le Corbusier and Eero Saarinen and artist Wassily Kandinsky as inspirations.
While revolutionary in the ways described, these collections were a continuation of longstanding trends toward less constricting fit that had begun in the 1950s, as well as reflecting youthful trends emanating from the UK. Courrèges's short skirts, braless torsos, waistless dresses, flat shoes, and trousers during this period were indeed freeing for women, but the clothes also continued the 1950s tendency to impose an artificial silhouette on the body via strong, 1950s-style tailoring that some described as stiff, rigid, and soldierly.
Spring 1964 His spring 1964 collection continued to feature his distinctive boots, popularized pantsuits, and continued to promote the above-the-knee skirts that he had first brought to Paris couture the previous year. White dominated the collection. He presented simple, slightly flaring chemise dresses that hit above the knee, well above the knee when paired with his signature calf-high boots. The previous season, fall 1963, almost all designers had shown boots of various heights, but for spring of '64, Courrèges was the only designer to include boots. Their characteristic narrow cut and perfect proportions continued to win praise from the fashion press. Low-heeled pumps were also shown. His trouser outfits attracted the most attention, launching the pantsuit trend that would change societal norms during the decade.Multiple sources: This season, his pants remained narrow but were set on the hip, creased in front, and slit over the instep to maintain a clean, unbroken line. They were paired with simple, well-tailored, geometric-looking coats, jackets, and tunics featuring prominent buttons, low-set martingales, and the pocket flaps that would become one of Courrèges's signature design details. Coats were seven-eighths length. He showed his day clothes with large, tall, mostly brimless, Space Age-looking hats.Multiple sources: His trouser emphasis extended into evening, when he also incorporated a lot of bare skin with uncovered backs and openwork lace. These clothes were presented in a traditional, dignified salon showing with classical music and floral perfume.
Fall 1964
His autumn 1964 collection advanced the fashion industry with modern, futuristic designs that were unheard of during the time. Trousers dominated the showing, slit over the instep like those he had shown the previous season but with a slightly narrower cut and pronounced creases in front and back. The collection included tailored coats, jackets, and tunics, which were paired with trousers or his version of the miniskirt. "He paired his shorter skirts with white or colored leather, calf-high boots that added a confident flair to the ensemble. This look became one of the most important fashion developments of the decade and was widely copied." His familiar short, geometric shift dresses were marked with a characteristic small sleeve. Coats were narrow. Jackets were longer and had deeper vents than previously. Some were marked with a hip seam. The clothes held their shape via precise tailoring and fabrics of substantial body, many double-faced, with a great deal of gabardine. He showed no regular shoes for fall '64, only boots. The boots were the same height and shape as those he'd been showing since 1963 but with pleatingor vertical stitching at the top of the shaft. As in his previous collections, the white kid ones were the most popular, but he also offered them in patent finishes, suede, lizard, and vinyl of various colors, as well as evening versions of silver sequins or ribbon-trimmed pink satin, part of an increased emphasis on evening clothes in the collection. His evening dresses were as short as his day dresses, but evening trousers dominated. Evening styles could have accents of Space Age silver, metallic pink, metallic green, and other colors, all combined with and dominated by Courrèges's signature stark white, the sheen provided by ciré finishes, lamé, sequins, geometric paillettes, and vinyl. Bareness continued to be a feature, especially in eveningclothes, where midriffs and backs were often on display. The presentation included a model getting dressed from a state of near nudity. Starting with this collection, models dressing and undressing onstage would be a mainstay of Courrèges shows that would last into the early 1970s. The most talked-about hats from the collection were helmet-like squared-off bonnets that matched the clothes and tied in the middle of the chin with a stiff geometric bow. Smaller, tightlytailored hats set on the crown of the head were also shown. Short, white gloves were included with almost everything. The models used by Courrèges this season were famously slim, muscular, and very tanned, striding out to the beat of drums.Multiple sources:
Spring 1965
He continued with his spare, futuristic autumn 1964 styles into spring of 1965, when he shortened his skirts even more and opened the toes of his signature calf-high white boots. His spring 1965 collection also included flat Mary Jane shoes, a style that would become a mainstay for the designer through the end of the decade. His spring 1965 versions had the same open toes as the boots and featured a bow on the instep strap. Some of the boots also had a wraparound horizontal cutout near the top of the shaft, suggesting an absent ribbon. The open toe on this footwear looked like a horizontal slit or like a straight lopping off of the front of the foot piece or as if the front of the toe piece hadn't been sewn down to the sole but had just been left slightly open, the toes hidden beneath but receiving air from the open end. Other accessories included opaque white glasses with a slightly curved horizontal slit for vision;Multiple sources: short white gloves; low, narrow hip-belts; band-edged, squared-off, cowboy- and mortarboard-looking hats with chin straps;Multiple sources: and striped scarves to match outfits. The collection was still largely white, but included more colors, including pastels, brights, navy blue, and black, as well as some plaids and stripes. Some jackets were lined in large, graphic stripes. He made prominent use of graphic banding for emphasis,Multiple sources: including along the inseams of trousers. His trousers this season sat lower on the hip and were no longer slit over the foot. Pockets were now mere horizontal slits, often outlined in the same color as the banding. He showed a lone pair of jodhpurs in yellow-and-white plaid. His new shorter skirts were given the most emphasis this time, still carefully tailored to a geometric trapeze shape in minimal, sleeveless or short-sleeved shift dresses, many with small, rolled, stand-away collars and lapels.Multiple sources: Necklines could be round or square. Coats were similar but with long sleeves. Many of the jackets were of a simple waist length, establishing a style that would become characteristic of his collections into the 1970s. Most waistlines this season were dropped to hip level and marked with a thin belt. New this season were suspender dresses/suspender skirts, miniskirts with suspender-like extensions over the shoulders. These suspender skirts were often in wide horizontal stripes with matching coats or jackets and worn with sleeveless or minimally sleeved white tops. Suits were double- or single-breasted. Eveningwear was in the same shapes as daywear but with sections made to shimmer with solid coverings of tiny sequins. This season's runway strip scene involved a pink wool suit being removed to reveal Courrèges undergarments consisting of sleeveless top, hip-slung short shorts, and calf-high socks, all in a transparent fabric embroidered with white dots. This spring 1965 collection built on the reputation of the previous two collections to achieve an astounding level of influence.