Madeleine Vionnet

In an age where corsets, boning and padding were wardrobe staples, Madeleine Vionnet was revolutionary, throwing away the structured styles of the time in favour of a natural, figure-hugging silhouette.

Born in Loiret, France, in 1876, Madeleine Vionnet started her career in fashion early, becoming an apprentice seamstress at the tender age of 11. She married at 18 but soon left her husband and made her escape to London, where she was employed as a seamstress in a psychiatric hospital before being taken under the wing of Kate Reilly, a dress maker whose clients included some of the best dressed ladies in London’s society. Before long Madeleine was running the workshop, and when she returned to Paris in 1901 her experience gained her jobs working for fashion houses Callot Soeurs and Jaques Doucet.

With 25 years of experience under her belt, Madeleine decided to branch out on her own in 1912. The beginning of the First World War just two years later meant that the rise of the house was slower than anticipated, but it also ushered in a need for the freedom of movement and comfort that Vionnet championed with her designs. Women were throwing away the constricting corsets and highly decorative pieces in favour of outfits that were more practical with ease of movement. But don’t think that Vionnet’s pieces were utilitarian – her signature looks were figure-hugging gowns and serious glamour.

Madeleine Vionnet was the first designer to champion the bias-cut, cutting fabric diagonally across the grain so that it fell and draped about the body. She took her inspiration from Greek art and modern dancers such as Isadora Duncan to create beautifully tailored pieces that celebrated femininity, always with a nod to the trends of the time, and were hotly in demand throughout the 1920s and 1930s with style mavens and film stars.

(And it was not just her clothes that were pioneering – Vionnet campaigned for copyright laws to protect designers, she was one of the first employers to give maternity leave, paid holidays and free medical care to her staff.)

At the end of the 1930’s Madeleine Vionnet closed her fashion house, donating all the dresses and patterns to the Musee Des Arts Decoratifs in Paris (who are currently exhibiting a retrospective of the designer), and though in recent years the label has been revived it’s Madeleine’s legacy that is remembered. Countless designers over the last seven decades have referenced her style - one look at the red carpet parade and her far-reaching influence is clearly evident.