"You ask me to give you my ideas on the new mode and you put me in a very embarrassing situation . . . what if I were to tell you that I hadn't any? . . . either you would not believe me or I should fall forever in your estimation. I must, therefore, try to explain myself. I have no ideas on the mode for this season in particular, any more than I have on that of next spring or last winter. And on the mode in general. I have only the most general ideas, universal, if I may use the term.
I have been called an enemy of the mode and, if the mode is nothing more than a passing caprice which, for varying periods, imposes on women one or another
arbitrary detail of clothing and that with no better reason than the futile and the anti-feminine joy of being all alike, I am. I hate the mode in its deformations which drive it into bad taste and make it ridiculous.
Women, according to their age and their natural conformation may be divided into four or five well-defined categories and it is very rare for the mode of one season to dress decently more than one or two of these types. Every woman ought to have her own manner of dress, her " mode"-- and this is the mode which I should be only too happy to seek for each if she would only follow it. Women ought only to ask of our skill and our experience the ability to bring out their own selves, not to create for them a uniform of which they will rapidly tire, forcing us to constant change.
What has a couturier to work with? A woman and some fabric. And out of these he has to make something harmonious. Until recently people seemed to consider a woman's body a shameful object, the shape of which had to be dissembled as far as possible. As for the fabrics, they were treated as infants-in-arms, incapable of standing by themselves, needing all sorts of tutors such as whalebone, tailor's canvas and cane.
I have done my best to plan for the rehabilitation of these two innocents and show that a fabric which falls freely over the body without armor-plating may yet form a harmonious spectacle. The mode no longer consists for me of anything more than the best manner of draping a given fabric over a given woman, so that each shall show her to the best possible advantage. I have sought the dress which will move in such a way that the lines of the human body are not distorted, but arc yet permitted in infinite harmonious variations, the dress which in repose falls back automatically into its place, as a soldier into his rank.
I have tried to develop this frock out of the intrinsic qualities of the fabric, changing as it is hung on the straight or bias, taking on a different character according to whether its warp or its woof is hung perpendicularly or at an angle of forty-five degrees.
But see! The mode, that of the others, that of America especially is exacting; it must have novelty. No one is content to say of a frock, "it is beautiful" She must also add, "it is new''. So, on a theme which I wish invariable, I strive to compose incessantly new harmonics. The harmony for this season, which I hope will appear new to you, is already to my mind several months old and is embodied in a frock from my last collection. Its cut is almost childishly simple, its fabric barely palpable, its light braiding the least aggressive possible and yet if I had to give a name I would call it "The laws of gravity applied to fabrics and their decoration." Madeleine Vionnet.
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