Madame Gres

There was only one thing made this trip a bit incomplete. That is,we didn't finish the tour of the Madame Gres's exhibition. I really appreciated the lady who guided us in the exhibition and explained so much to us. However, we didn't have enough time to look through everything she did. I knew her before but didn't really saw her masterpieces. This tour was a great experience for me because we can see her art work and garments closely and take pictures as records for ourselves.

What I really liked about this exhibition was they placed her works in an ancient Greek environment, which has Greek style architecture and Greek inspired sculptures. I remember in my third semester Fashion Past and Present class, we were required to source from ancient Greek as our inspiration and design a sportswear collection. The important thing was taking from that period as inspiration but transfer that into modern style and daily sportswear. This was the reason why I appreciated Madame Gres's works. She took the ancient Greek's style and details but turned it into evening gowns that everyday women can wear and handle.  

The hand sew work was amazing! It really blew my mind. After third semester draping, dealing with soft fabric, I felt fairly hard to handle such delicate and soft fabric. Especially handling such wide fabric and making such complicated details. It was more than garment. It was artistic masterpiece!

Also, she used solid and mild colors as the main color of her garments. Low key color with extraordinary complicated details, in which great combination made her famous in her period. 

As her everyday garments, she also used Greek pleats and soft silhouette as inspiration. She also placed importance on the shape of her coats and suits, which is the key part of outerwear. In New York city, I went to see the Balenciaga exhibition, in Paris, however, we went to see both Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Lauret museums. This exhibition made the deepest impression to me. It was not only an exhibition, but also an awesome artistic tour.  

It is an interesting topic that why most people involved in fashion industry are women, however, most of the most successful designers in the world are guys. Fashion designing is such a painful work, which needs hard work and endless inspirations. Honestly, most men have stronger inside, however, we have such great female designers as Chanel and Madame Gres during that period.