Women in Fashion

Women have long played a significant role in fashion. In the 1920s and 1930s, female designers, such as Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (shown here), Elsa Schiaparelli, Madeleine Vionnet, and Jeanne Lanvin dominated the world of fashion. After 1945, male designers, such as Christian Dior, became more important, but women, like Claire McCardell and Diana Vreeland, continued to work throughout the fashion industry. 

Louise Boulanger (1878-1950) was one of the many talented women designers who dominated Paris fashion in the period "between Poiret's harem and Dior's New Look." Approximately four years before establishing her own label, the American designer Muriel King purchased this dress while working in Paris as a fashion illustrator.  As a guidebook of the 1920s observed, "Women who dare to wear clothes that are strikingly individual and about three seasons ahead of the style naturally gravitate to Louiseboulanger." Among her clients were Mrs. Reginald (Daisy) Fellowes and la duchesse de Gramont.

Jeanne Lanvin (1867-1946) was a truly great couturière, although she is less famous today than her contemporary, Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel. This dress was donated by the fashion historian, Caroline Rennolds Milbank. The journalist Janet Flanner, writing for Ladies’ Home Journal in April 1929, observed that although Lanvin had a strong proclivity for historical styles, her fashions were nonetheless modern. Flanner concluded that Jeanne Lanvin had successfully “pulled the past forward.”

Among connoisseurs, Madeleine Vionnet (1876-1975) is regarded as having been the greatest fashion designer of the 20th century. She is known especially for her use of the bias cut to create body-worshipping gowns. She studied the way the fabric draped – with, against, or across the weave – and then she would make a life-size dress to fit a living, moving woman, such as the Duchess de Gramont. "Ah, she was a real model," Vionnet recalled. "Tall and lovely. When I was designing a dress, I had only to ask her to come and try it on … and I knew exactly where it was wrong." 

Chitose Abe (b. 1965), the designer behind the brand Sacai, is known for her clever bricolage of disparate elements. With this ensemble, she has taken the horizontal “Breton” stripes of the French Navy and combined them with lace, a juxtaposition that both highlights and challenges the masculine and feminine qualities of each material.

Flowers were a consistent theme in Christian Dior’s work. The embroidered flowers on this dress appear to be growing around the wearer’s body: in full bloom at the top of the bodice and trailing off as vines near the hem. Dior’s expression of the overtly feminine silhouette was embraced by magazines like Vogue, whose Paris fashion editor, Despina Messinesi (1911-2003), owned this dress.

This seamless dress is made from Cardine, a form of Dynel fabric developed by Pierre Cardin, who was known for his bold experimentations with "Space Age" fabrics and silhouettes. Molded and heat-pressed into a sharp, angular shapes, the stiff fabric enhances Cardin's predilection for geometric silhouettes. Lauren Bacall (1924-2014) endorsed these qualities, proclaiming, "Today's well dressed woman can travel with her dress in a paper bag if it's made of Cardine."

Isabel Eberstadt (1933-2007) epitomized the “society fashion celebrity” of the 1960s. She modeled for major fashion magazines, and appeared in Andy Warhol’s 1964 film, The Thirteen Most Beautiful Women. Eberstadt, the daughter of poet Ogden Nash, was also a writer and a patron of the arts. She was one of the first to pick up on new fashion trends, and her daring choices were lauded on “Best Dressed” lists. Eberstadt purchased this suit from Courrèges’ first collection.