Madeleine Vionnet….one of the great fashion designers from last century and by far the most gifted of couturiers according to Ietse Mey, former curator of the Kostuummuseum in the Netherlands. At one time she explained that the reason why Vionnet has been so important for the world of fashion is that she had a special way of cutting the fabrics.
She became known for clothes that accentuated the natural female form. Influenced by the modern dances of Isadora Duncan, Vionnet created designs that showed off a woman’s natural shape. Like Duncan, Vionnet was inspired by ancient Greek art, in which garments appear to float freely around the body rather than distort or mold its shape. Her style changed relatively little over her career, although it became a little more fitted in the 1930s.[6]
In the 1920s, Vionnet had created a stir by developing garments utilizing the bias cut, a technique for cutting cloth diagonal to the grain of the fabric, enabling it to cling to the body while stretching and moving with the wearer. While Vionnet herself did not invent the method of cutting fabric on the bias, she was the first to utilize bias cuts for the entirety of a garment.
http://www.ftn-books.com has 2 publications on Madeleine Vionnet available. One by Ietse Mey
