In yesterday's post we looked at a new staging of Verdi's "Attila", set in the '40s. Let's remain in the same decade for another day and look at two dresses with rather interesting details from 1947.
The first image relates to a rather flamboyant design, a Jean Patou black dress with appliqued velvet and fringe details. This trick could be used even nowadays to revamp an old dress or to enrich a simple piece, by sewing on the garment fringed elements of the kind you may find in an upholstery shop.
The second design looks simpler, but it is actually more complicated: it featured a black velvet element decorating the asymmetrical neckline, an asymmetrical fastening on the front and a series of asymmetrical darts and seams around the hips that opened up into ample and sculpted pleats forming a full skirt. This design was by French couturier Jacques Griffe.
Born Théodore, Antoine, Emile Griffe in 1909, he worked in Paris from 1935 to 1939, alongside Madeleine Vionnet, whose creations with famous draperies fascinated him since childhood.
In 1941 he opened his own fashion atelier, but then served during the Second World War and was also taken prisoner. He therefore opened his own fashion house only in 1947. He was also a costume designer for the theatre and cinema. Griffe retired in the early '70s and died in 1996. He was considered as a master of drapery and sober colours such as grey, brown or black (that he often employed together with more unusual ones like pink, mauve and apricot), and had a passion for fabrics that made them more vibrant such as moiré or lamé. Sadly, Griffe was largely forgotten after he retired, but it would be definitely worth rediscovering him.
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