Madame Gres: Sphinx of Fashion

While the classically inspired "Grecian" gown designed by Madame Alix Gres is widely recognized and admired, little else of the brilliant couturier's life or work has received close attention. This book, by far the most detailed study yet published on this influential fashion designer, carefully analyzes Madame Gres's innovative construction techniques and connects her designs to the art styles and movements that inspired and informed her aesthetic.
Illustrated with images of clothes designed by Madame Gres, the book focuses on her long career (from the early 1930s to the late 1980s) and refutes the previous understanding that her work was static and unchanging. Rather, her designs consistently changed and evolved, even as a thread of continuity connected them. The volume discusses how sculpture and the construction of non-western clothing inspired Gres's fashion and examines numerous couture versions of her saris, ponchos, serapes, caftans, three-dimensional sculptural pieces, and Grecian gowns. In addition, the book constructs a timeline of her career and discusses her secretive private life, including the circumstances of her death, inexplicably concealed for over a year.

Patricia Mears is deputy director, The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She is coauthor of Ralph Rucci: The Art of Weightlessness (Yale).