In 1894 French aesthete, dandy and poet Robert de Montesquiou introduced Marcel Proust to his cousin, Élisabeth, Countess Greffulhe, née Élisabeth de Caraman-Chimay. At the time, Proust was twenty-three and the countess was thirty-four. A year before that presentation, Proust wrote to Montesquiou to tell him he had seen her at the house of Madame de Wagram. He described the Countess with these words: "Her hair was dressed with Polynesian grace, and mauve orchids hung down the nape of her neck, like the floral hats that Monsieur Renan describes (...) The entire mystery of her beauty is in the glow, above all in the enigma of her eyes. I have never seen a woman more beautiful." Proust admired her and eventually borrowed her manners, style and wardrobe to create the Duchess of Guermantes in the novel In Search of Lost Time.
Proust's readers may have just imagined how the Countess looked and dressed, but now they can finally see her wardrobe in all its glory at an exhibition currently on at Paris' Palais Galliera.
Curated by Olivier Saillard, director of the Galliera, "La Robe Retrouvée: Les Robes-Trésors de la Comtesse Greffulhe" (Fashion Regained: The Treasured Dresses of Élisabeth, Countess Greffulhe") features some of the most beautiful gowns and accessories donned by the Countess.
Born in 1860, Élisabeth lived through the Belle Époque and the Roaring Twenties. Leader of Paris Society (le Tout-Paris), she became particularly influential after her marriage to the Belgian banking tycoon Count Henri Greffulhe.
The countess dispensed favours and was a leading patron of the arts, holding a salon in her house in Rue d'Astorg, receiving guests at the Château de Bois-Boudran and at her villa in Dieppe.
Founding president of the Société des Grandes Auditions Musicales, she raised funds and produced and promoted operas and shows, which included Wagner's Tristan and Isolde and Twilight of the Gods, performances by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and Isadora Duncan.
A supporter of Captain Dreyfus, Leon Blum, and the Popular Front, she also sponsored science helping Marie Curie to finance the Institute of Radium, and Edouard Branly to pursue his research into radio-transmission and tele-mechanical systems.
An extremely elegant woman, she was known for her theatrical appearances and her outfits that emphasised her silhouette. On display at the Palais Galliera there are some fifty models - coats, indoor clothes, day dresses, lavishly embroidered evening dresses, and also accessories - bearing the labels of grand couturiers such as Charles Frederick Worth, Fortuny, Callot, Jeanne Lanvin and Nina Ricci. Most of the items featured were donated to the Galliera by the heirs and descendants of Élisabeth, but there are also pieces from further donations.
The event opens in the museum's Salon d'Honneur: visitors can admire here a variety of stunning creations, from a Maison Soinard's day dress (circa 1887) in antique pink silk satin with brown silk velvet appliqués, to a green silk taffeta housecoat (circa 1895) by Maison A. Félix (a couturier the Countess had patronised since her wedding in 1878) and a stunning dark blue cut voided velvet on bright emerald satin silk tea-gown (circa 1897) by Jean-Philippe Worth.
But there's plenty more including an evening coat and a day dress attributed to Vitaldi Babani (specialists in the sale of art objects, silks and kimonos imported from the Far East; later on they also started selling their own designs, quite often inspired by Mariano Fortuny) and a bronze green silk jacket with gold prints by Fortuny, a figure occupying a key place in Proust's work.
There are two absolute gems in this section, the first being the "Russian Cape" (circa 1896). This embroidered maroon silk velvet cape with a rosette pattern was actually a "khalat", from Bukhara (present day Uzbekistan), that is a ceremonial cloak, donated by Tsar Nicolas II to Countess Greffulhe. The Countess had the luxurious gift altered into an evening cape by her couturier, Jean-Philippe Worth.
The second magnificent piece is Worth's "Byzantine dress", a lamé taffeta and silk tulle gown with silk and gold yarn elements that the Countess donned at her daughter Elaine's wedding on 14th November 1904. The dress left many columnists so stunned that most of them forgot to report about the bride, but preferred to linger in their articles on the Countess' dress.
The next room focuses on the Countess' colour of choice from the 19th century to 1914 - black. This section includes a Jeanne Lanvin evening gown with sleeves embroidered in a latticework of taffeta and the "Jupiter" coat with its Surrealist brick-like arrangement of rectangles, plus a two-toned, black-and-ivory evening outfit by Nina Ricci.
Other highights include Beauchez's midnight blue and brown silk velvet transformable evening gown with two bodices, and a grand and fluid ivory silk evening gown by Jenny, not to mention the hint at exoticism in the evening coats inspired by the Orient or in an evening gown with geometrical patterns directly inspired by the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922.
The Petite Galerie Est reminds visitors that the Countess was very keen on accessories as well and that she considered indispensable while travelling several pieces including a large hat and several summer veils (to be rolled - she wrote - and not folded!). Yet the Countess also loved fans, hats and gloves, and fancy shoes like the ones in a shocking pink shade and a black velvet ribbon.
Photography fans will particularly enjoy the West Gallery that features pictures by Paul Nadar (who also taught the Countess photography), and Otto Wegener, a Swedish photographer who lived in Paris and was a favourite for society portraits. Photography helped the Countess turning into a charismatic woman, while highlighting her elegance and power of seduction as proved by Wegener's portrait in which she is pictured wearing an evening gown and coat lined with Mongolian lamb (circa 1886-1887).
The exhibit ends with a famous black velvet evening gown designed by Worth and decorated with appliques in the form of lilies and a Bertha collar that could be folded into bat wings (the former was reference to a poem by Montesquiou; the latter hinted at his tutelary creature, the bat). Greffulhe sported the same dress in a picture by Nadar (a photograph coveted by Proust...) in which she is portrayed gazing at herself in a mirror.
Films, photographs and music tracks plus papers describing her trousseau, identification card and even her will (in which Greffulhe explained she wanted to be buried in a black velvet gown with Venice lace collar) complement the event.
Quite a few visitors will leave the exhibition pondering about a few interesting aspects linked with the event, but not directly tackled by it. First of all, the Countess' empowering garments prompted writers to almost turn into fashion reporters, something that doesn't happen in our times (paparazzi take pictures of celebrities, but writers do not produce essays that poetically examine the look of famous people...). Indeed, invited to a party in May 1894 where he saw the Countess, Proust wrote "Madame la Comtesse Greffulhe was deliciously attired in a pink lilac silk dress printed all over with orchids and covered in silk chiffon of the same colour; her hat a mass of orchids surrounded by lilac coloured gauze."
Besides, there is another hidden message in the halls of the Galliera: the displays and fashion pieces featured may be hinting at very different times from the ones we are currently living in, but, rather than following fashion, the Countess cleverly "made fashion".
As Montesquiou wrote: "She would go to the top couturiers and have them show her all their latest fashions. Then, when she was sure they had shown off everything they could come up with, she would stand up and take her leave. The creators, who were confident of having enlightened her and managed the proceedings with skill, were addressed with this disconcerting instruction: 'Make me whatever you think fit – as long as it is not that!'"
The Countess seemed to have the power to transform the creations she chose: talking about a gown she once donned, novelist and journalist Albert Flament referred to "(...) a dress which cannot be described, since the way she wears it makes it impossible to know what the dress itself is like." In a nutshell, Greffulhe created her wardrobe to shape her identity in the public eye, while nowadays we shape our identity through wardrobes that in some cases (think about celebrities who are given certain pieces for free...) we do not even chose for ourselves.
So there's a lesson to learn at Palais Galliera that goes well beyond the yards of tulle and chiffon and the cascades of feathers that the Countess loved so much: garments and accessories can offer great opportunities to all of us, especially when we refuse to behave like slavish followers of fashion, but try to shape our own identities through what we want to wear and feel like wearing.
"La Robe Retrouvée: Les Robes-Trésors de la Comtesse Greffulhe" (Fashion Regained: The Treasured Dresses of Élisabeth, Countess Greffulhe), Palais Galliera, Paris, until 20th March 2016. The exhibition is be presented at the Museum at FIT in New York in the Fall of 2016 under the title "Proust’s Muse".
Image credits for this post
1. Photograph by Otto, Countess Greffulhe in a ballgown, circa 1887
© Otto / Galliera / Roger-Viollet
2. Photograph by Paul Nadar, Countess Greffulhe wearing the "Robe aux lys" by Worth, 1896
© Nadar / Galliera / Roger-Viollet
3. Maison Worth, tea gown, circa 1897
© Stéphane Piera / Galliera / Roger-Viollet
4. Maison Worth, robe byzantine donned by Countess Greffulhe at the wedding gown of her daughter, 1904
© L. Degrâces et Ph. Joffre / Galliera / Roger-Viollet
5. Beauchez, evening gown, circa 1900
© Julien Vidal / Galliera / Roger-Viollet
6, 7, 8, 9. Illustrations by Aurore de la Morinerie
© Aurore de la Morinerie
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