André Courrèges & The Evasion of Kitsch 




 André Courrèges commands space in the history of fashion as the originator of the  cosmic, space-age fashion trend of the 1960’s. Short knee length dresses that were paired with  daring accessories resembled a chimera of an astronaut and a teenage girl, the look was a  reaction to the new relationship between man and machine, resulting in a new vision of the body  in wearing scientific materials. Carving out this niche as a couturier responding to the fad of 1 space travel amidst the Cold War, Courrèges sci-fi fantasy clothing was empowered by a press  which idolized him more often than not. Popularized and memorialized as a prominent fashion  designer of the 20th century, it is interesting to note that the link between André Courrèges and  the space age is often written as one of aesthetic inspiration, as opposed to aesthetic  participation. In the kitschy, quickly consumed and produced material and popular culture of the  1960’s, André Courrèges fashion seems to fit in within the standards of fashion critics and  historians as a much more refined practice of the stargazing of the decade. His 1964 fashionshow was described as being “rock music and “pants, pants, pants,” by one critic, showing his2 deep fascination with the popular culture of time. Being a major haute couture house, coupled  with its price and quality, it is unmistakable that André Courrèges is to be remembered as one of  the greatest fashion designers of all time. However, one can be great and not be “above” popular  culture, but an active participant. In short, Courrèges is as much high fashion and art as it its  kitsch.   

André Courrèges “evasion” of the label of kitsch, which I define as art or design that  appeals to broad and popular tastes, rather than the high brow, was protected over the period of  his life as a designer by his mere existence in the Parisian haute couture system, despite his open  association with American popular culture of the space age. This paper will look at how the Parisian fashion system was able to protect André Courrèges from being associated with kitsch,  while also looking at formal comparisons to American popular culture in the form of architecture  and design as clear inspirations for Courrèges as a designer, linking him to the culture both  contemporary critics and historians refused to label him as being a key player in. André Courrèges role in the stringent, difficult world of the Paris fashion system, opening  his own couture house in 1961 alongside his wife Coqueline, was the primary vehicle for his  association with the tasteful rather than the tacky. Having been active in the fashion world since  his work as assistant to Cristobal Balenciaga, this association helped create positive  contemporary press on his 1960’s collections, which in turn inspired other Paris-based fashion  designers, contemporaries to André Courrèges, to set their phasers on the space age, creating a  collective space age cosmic girl mode which later in the 1960’s became the norm of Parisian  fashion designers to model their clothes after. 

The story of André Courrèges begins with his work with Cristobal Balenciaga. Beginning  in 1950 until his departure in 1961, Courrèges worked under Balenciaga as a cloth sponger, at  the time the lowest rank in the garment world, paid the equivalent of US 25.00 dollars a month  for his work, but also finding the space a place where he could learn to cut, sew fit and draw,  ultimately using these skills to become a brilliant tailor in his own way. Of course, there were3 clear differences in their approach to fashion: Balenciaga was considered the “authoritative  prophet of haute couture, “ and was a defender of the privileged elite as being the main4 defenders of the fashion system. André Courrèges, in comparison was much more inspired by  youth quake energy. This difference is clearly seen in their choices of who they decided to dress,  namely older and younger women for Balenciaga and Courrèges, respectfully. It would seem that this stark difference, and reliance on the novelty of youth, an aspect Courrèges was noted to be interested in , would fit him into kitsch. However, by looking at their clothing, one can see5 that Courrèges designs were very much in a stylistic and material dialogue with those of  Balenciaga, and this similarity perhaps made the work of Courrèges more palpable to the fashion  press.

Figure 1 - Cristobal Balenciaga
Sack Dress
1950’s
Silk
The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1873.196.1

Figure 2 - André Courrèges
Dress
1962
Wool
The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1974.136.4a.b

In Figures 1 and 2, one can see Balenciaga’s “sack dress” from the mid 1950’s alongside a  pink wool dress by Courrèges from 1962, only a year after starting his couture house and two  years after leaving Balenciaga permanently. Both designer’s clear fascination with the limits and  freedom of geometry can be seen in these garments, with the Sack dress’s dropped waistline and  scrunched up hemline, admittedly more radical than the shape of Courrèges dress by not buying  into the idea of the fitting of clothes to the body, is already a progenitor for the “space age” look,  without needing the visual link to astronauts or new materials André Courrèges would employ in  with his shiny white fabrics and accessories. 

Figure 3 - Cristobal Balenciaga
Hat
1948
Leather and Silk
The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2000.300.2379.

Figure 4 - André Courrèges
Hat
1965
Plastic
The Metropolitan Museum of Art CI. 168. 162

Similarly, looking at their hats in Figures 3 and 4 provides another visual cue of André  Courrèges relationship to Balenciaga. Both designers are linking to historical hats: Balenciaga to  the Spanish toreador hat of bull fighters, while Courrèges to the American cowboy, this hat part  of his iconic 1964 collection which put him on the “map” as a designer. These hats are usually  spoken of in their streamlined look, with the look often described as “designs that focused on  simple, untrimmed geometric forms such as the circle, square, and triangle gave millinery a  futuristic look, poising the hat in perfect orbit around the head.” Regardless of their inspiration6, they are still remarkably similar, with their thin chin straps and up-folded brims. These hats  which “look to the past” are in direct reference to André Courrèges admittance that he was still  deeply influenced by Balenciaga’s tutelage at the beginning of his career. It can be inferred7, then, that the fashion press would have already been accustomed to these types of “radical”  shapes Courrèges was known for from his predecessor, which would make the his work much  more digestible to a press which was always in flux depending on both the mood and la mode. The press, then, was willing to defend André Courrèges from any disparaging of his work  as part of the kitsch space age dialogue with glowing reviews, despite various contemporary  designers going against what publications had to say. Both written accounts, as well as the  “image” of Courrèges as a brand, were carefully separated from their association with space,  focusing to highlight other aspects of his work such as their youthful nature and construction.

Figure 5 - Vogue Paris March 1965 Cover

An example is in Figure 5, Vogue Paris March 1965 issue. Courrèges clothes on the model make it  front cover, but with no associations to the materials used, which would have been its shock  factor. Instead the model wears his 1965 Spring collection of “futuristic sexy cowboy” mini8 dresses and hat, shot as a profile against a blank background. The length of the dress, as well as  the meticulous welt seamed pockets and construction of the garment, are not in total view. In  relation to this very limited view of his dress and hat, the cover simply reads “Paris Spring  Collection 65.” This image both exemplifies and restricts Courrèges impact of the time: his  space-age inspiration seems cute from the narrative of how the garment is photographed, yet the  same magazine makes his work the face of the entire Spring collection season. Vogue’s  international issues having readership now far beyond France, especially with the influence of  the Telstar broadcast making the consumption of news, particularly fashion news, now easier to  receive and more desirable to arrive quickly to newsstands, was heavily influenced by the  designers they spoke about, who now had much more influence on what was said about their  work at the time.

Figure 6 - McCall’s Pattern Fashions & Home Decorating,
Fall-Winter 1965-66

In McCall’s Pattern Fashions & Home Decorating issue for Fall-Winter9 1965-66 as seen in Figure 6, for example, the space age influence of his clothes is rather  minimized for the editorial. Of course, the iconic short white and flat boot, as well as the short  skirt remain, but the pattern book magazine remarks on Courrèges “Precision,” “Proportion” and  “Perfection” as the “look” to obtain, rather than any specific “space age” look in particular. The  designer, notorious for having been ripped off various times throughout his career, is  remembered in this publication as a man of precision much like his master, Balenciaga, not as  part of the “youth culture”. Of course, different publications choose to remember his genius  differently: Harper’s Bazaar mentions in their April 1965 issue that he was “designing for today and tomorrow, with his longest leg, shortest skirt in moonstruck white” and even having his10 “rivalry” with Coco Chanel commented on by noted philosopher and popular culture critic,  Roland Barthes, who uses Courrèges collections to remark on, quite difficult to digest for the  average fashion magazine reader, the philosophy of semiotics and the consumption of images11. By even having an intellectual elite pontificate on his clothing, Courrèges is placed within a  category as a designer that seems to go above the historical connotations of fashion as part of a  feminine, superficial consumerism. 

Courrèges own service to the press, though, should also be analyzed as a place where his  goals of being seen as an artist where strengthened. In an interview with Sportswear International  in 1971, Courrèges comments on a decade of his clothing, which he at least deemed to be  sportswear due to his own personal connection and inspiration from tennis, insisting that his  fashion was a “second skin that fits the contours of the body exactly,” which places far more12 focus on the “organic” nature of his clothing rather than the space-age materiality of it, which  given the era’s optimism, would have been acceptable to speak on. Sean Topham understands  Courrèges as a designer who used the successes in outer space to legitimize and propel  experimentation in clothing on Earth. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Art Bulletin series13 interviewed Courrèges in 1967, alongside artists and costume designers such as Louise Nevelson  and Irene Sharaff to ask the poignant question: “Is fashion art”? His answer, of course, demanded his presence be known as a man who loved the arts, exclaiming that “"If the function of art is to  bring joy through harmony, color, and form, perhaps we can, after all, by dressing a woman to  feel younger and to participate fully in life, bring her joy comparable to that she experiences in  contemplating a painting.” In one broad stroke, Courrèges was both able to bring his work into14 the realm of art, while also advertise the lifestyle of the Courrèges woman as one that is keenly  artistic because of its essence of youth.

Figure 7 - André Courrèges Sketches
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin
November 1967
Interestingly, the article uses photographs of the other  designers and artists clothing in their profiles, but not for Courrèges, instead opting for bizarre  drawings of his clothing, as seen in Figure 7, where the fashion drawings resemble contorted,  bizarre women, like Matisse’s Dance (I) painting. The same article has an interview with  American designer Normal Norell, who was interviewed in an issue of Women’s Wear Daily in15 March 1965 as having thought of his work in this way: “Courrèges reminds me of that old  joke…about a guy who paints himself in the corner…If I were he I would get out of that corner. I  go along with Chanel, and what she said about the future-it’s for right now, not for the future…  And I don’t think Courrèges is right now.” It is interesting, then that The Met puts both of these  designers in the same caliber as “artists” within the same article, despite the animosity. The Met’s  interest in André Courrèges is not one of popular culture studies, but as an abstractionist, brining  clothes to some intellectual and simplified nexus. This interest in outer space as a point of inspiration was also explored by other Parisian  designers who were contemporaries of André Courrèges. The successes and failures of the space age were exemplified in the fashion of the decade, and designers such as Rudi Gernreich, Paco  Rabbanem Pierre Cardin Emilio Pucci, and Emmanuel Ungaro, were abducted and transported to  the same space-age fashion planet that had them all produce similar clothing. The type of  “sexless” uniforms that inspired other designers was arguably more pronounced in a way that16 was more difficult to copy than André Courrèges own designs. André Courrèges was a big fan of  Paco Rabanne, for example, and often used Rabanne’s accessories on his own models.

Figure 8 - Paco Rabanne
Dress
1966
synthetic, metal, leather 2017.680.12

Figure 9 - André Courrèges Dress
1968
Cotton
2009.300.7861

In17 Figures 8 and 9, we can see two examples of Rabanne and Courrèges, created around the same  time period. The materials and delicate nature of Rabanne’s disc dresses would have been far  more difficult to copy than Courrèges pink pinafore dress. In fact, the real lasting impact of  André Courrèges work would be found in the ready to wear producers who were able to copy his  designs in very cheap materials. A highly plagiarized designer, André Courrèges refused to18 show work for certain seasons, because the rip-offs of his work could not exemplify his tailoring  techniques, reducing the André Courrèges “look” for women to lumpy shoulders and similarities  in colors. The ideal and popularization of the space-age in the Parisian fashion world was still  not seen as novelty, as André Courrèges personally recommended Emmanuel Ungaro, who was  often touted as the “next” André Courrèges, to be the pupil of his former teacher Balenciaga. An  outer space version of “keeping it in the family,” so to speak, it is difficult to imagine a world  where couture could have been lumped with space age kitsch from association because it was the  main look of the time in the first place. Knowing that André Courrèges role in the system of Parisian fashion would have been  enough for him not to be criticized as simply playing a part in a whole era we now wax nostalgia  for as “kitsch,” it is still important to recognize his deep visual involvement with American  design and culture as a way for one to explore that André Courrèges work blurred the lines  between high and low constantly.

Figure 10 - André Courrèges, photographed in his studio, Paris.
Photographer unknown. http://www.codenoir-style.com/
2016/01/good-night-monsieur-courreges/

In this photo from his studio in Figure 10, we see a bumper  sticker for a car placed on his shelf for a Buffalo Bill themed event in Scottsdale, Arizona, so far  removed from even the fashion centers of the United States. This curios blip in his timeline, his  interest in American culture, often gets mentioned from time to time. Obituaries spark  conversation of his interest in road tripping across America with his wife and family in a  caravan. This would seem deeply fitting for a space-age designer: encountering new frontiers, as if he were a space explorer himself. Firstly, he did have a demonstrated interest in the American woman. A press conference  from an incognito visit to America had him sourced as saying “Before I can love American  woman, she must love me. American women like my work. I love her courage. I like the way she  is built physically. I try to understand the American woman and I try to understand the market.”19 This interest in the American woman stems from an interest in American culture, particularly in  space-age and mid century designer and architect Eero Saarinen, would have been an20 extremely crucial part in how he developed his signature style and look.  A great example to compare André Courrèges work to would be to the roadside  architecture and signage that was littering the American topography in the sixties as formal  sources of inspiration.

Figure 11 - Pink Motel
Los Angeles
Photographer Unknown

Figure 12 - André Courrèges
Dress
1968
cellulose acetate/styrene-butadiene copolymer, rayon, silk,
cotton, metal
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
2012.168

In Figures 11 and 12, a Courrèges dress is paired alongside a neon sign.  The dress’s color shifting discs, cut out into the flowers, are iridescent, moving between blues  and pinks, a very popular color scheme seen on American roadside signage. Courrèges seems to  clearly be adopting the idea of the cut out shape motif, standing alone, from the sign. The  “starburst” from the top of the left hand corner of the sign, standing as if it has no support, can be  seen practiced in Courrèges dress in the flowers cut in the mid-riff section of the dress.  

Figure 13 - Fox’s Home Center Sign
Alsip, Illinois
Photograph by Debra Jane Seltzer

Figure 14 - André Courrèges
Dress
1965
wool, silk
The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1974.136.3

In another example, as seen in Figures 13 and 14, we can see how Courrèges dress takes  even more formally from roadside signage. The dresses, from his pinnacle 1964 collection, were  meant to resemble a certain type of “Cowgirl” look. The thick lines of navy highlighting the  buttons, highlighting the structure of the garment, take a cue from the giant blue line which  seems to hold the various “signs” on the roadside sign in place. Similarly, the color choice André  Courrèges uses is also similar to roadside signs, with his sharp and saturated colors always  bouncing off a clean, moon-like white background. 



Figure 15 - Ad by Herbert Matter for Eero Saarinen’s “Tulip 
Chair”, 1967

This same dress can be compared to Eero Saarinen’s Tulip Chair, as seen in Figure 15.  the This ad, produced by Herbert Matter, positions American design as part of the future, with  clothes on the model like her silvery fishnet top and the visor going across her face making her  look more linked to technology than to being human. The bright white plastic of the chair must  have been a major inspiration for Courrèges, similar to the bright white of the dress in Figure  14.The chair, created of one “shell” of polyurethane, was a pioneering object within material culture of fifties and sixties in popularizing alternative, synthetic materials in design, which Courrèges heavily participated in. André Courrèges clear signs of being part of popular culture at the same time as high  fashion culture have heavily helped him be lauded as a visionary, albeit practicing and displaying  the same type of conspicuous consumption habits of others of his era. Blending the worlds of  luxury tailoring with the spirit of the youthful teen girl, André Courrèges single handedly  developed within fashion the same kind of intellectual stimulation that looking at pop culture  through a new lens, similar to someone like Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein, who grabbed  from headlines and comics in order to create their paintings. By analyzing André Courrèges in a  world that celebrated his involvement with popular culture and “kitschiness,” we can find new  ways to see how even designs we deem as elegant today are inspired by not so elegant sources.  Instead of taking him down a notch by saying André Courrèges is as much a part of pop culture  than he is high culture, it is best to understand him as a designer and human who could weave  both of these worlds together, and be a large stronghold in any venue he chose himself to  participate in. 

Citations:

1Jane Pavitt, Fear and Fashion in the Cold War. (London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 2008): 8.  
2Jo B. Paoletti, "Feminism and Femininity." In Sex and Unisex: Fashion, Feminism, and the Sexual Revolution ( Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015): 40.
3Kathryn Ann Dwyer, "Courrèges: the last couturier?”(M.A. thesis, Fashion Institute of Technology, 1988): 6
4Kathryn Ann Dwyer, "Courrèges: the last couturier?”(M.A. thesis, Fashion Institute of Technology, 1988): 2.
5Valerie Guillaume, Courreges. (New York: Assouline, 2004): 10.
6Dilys E. Blum, Ahead of Fashion: Hats of the 20th Century. (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1993): 40.
7Kathryn Ann Dwyer, "Courrèges: the last couturier?”(M.A. thesis, Fashion Institute of Technology, 1988): 9.
8Kathryn Ann Dwyer, "Courrèges: the last couturier?”(M.A. thesis, Fashion Institute of Technology, 1988): 12.
9Emma McClendon, “First Paris Fashions out of the Sky”: The 1962 Telstar Satellite’s Impact on the Transatlantic Fashion System,” in Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress 18. no. 3 (2014):  309.
10Ibid, 309.
11Michael Sheringham, "Fashion, Theory, and the Everyday: Barthes, Baudrillard, Lipovetsy, Maffesoli,”in Dalhousie French Studies 53 (2000): 148. 12Valerie Guillaume, Courreges. (New York: Assouline, 2004): 11. 
13Sean Topham, Where is My Space Age? The Rise and Fall of Futuristic Design. (Munich: Prestel, 2003): 78.
14Norman Morell, Louise Nevelson, Irene Sharaff, Alwin Nikolais, and André Courrèges. "Is Fashion An Art?” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Nov.,  1967): 140.
15Kathryn Ann Dwyer, "Courrèges: the last couturier?”(M.A. thesis, Fashion Institute of  Technology, 1988): 14.
16Kathryn Ann Dwyer, "Courrèges: the last couturier?”(M.A. thesis, Fashion Institute of Technology, 1988): 29.
17Sean Topham, Where is My Space Age? The Rise and Fall of Futuristic Design. (Munich: Prestel, 2003): 60.
18Kathryn Ann Dwyer, "Courrèges: the last couturier?”(M.A. thesis, Fashion Institute of Technology, 1988): 28.
19Kathryn Ann Dwyer, "Courrèges: the last couturier?”(M.A. thesis, Fashion Institute of  Technology, 1988): 20.
20Jane Pavitt, Fear and Fashion in the Cold War. (London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 2008): 54. 

Bibliography:

Blum, Dilys E. Ahead of Fashion: Hats of the 20th Century. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1993.

Dwyer, Kathryn Ann. "Courrèges: the last couturier?” M.A. thesis, Fashion Institute of   Technology, 1988.

Guillaume, Valerie. Courreges. New York: Assouline, 2004.

McClendon, Emma. “First Paris Fashions out of the Sky”: The 1962 Telstar   Satellite’s Impact on the Transatlantic Fashion System. Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress 18, no.3 (2014): 297-315.

Norell, Norman, Louise Nevelson, Irene Sharaff, Alwin Nikolais, and André Courrèges. "Is Fashion An Art?” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series, Vol. 26, No. 3  (Nov., 1967), pp. 129-140. 

Pavitt, Jane. Fear and Fashion in the Cold War. London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 2008.

Paoletti, Jo B. "Feminism and Femininity." In Sex and Unisex: Fashion, Feminism, and  the Sexual Revolution, 35-58. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015. 

Sheringham, Michael. "Fashion, Theory, and the Everyday: Barthes, Baudrillard, Lipovetsy, Maffesoli." Dalhousie French Studies 53 (2000): 144-54. 

Topham, Sean. 2003. Where is My Space Age? The Rise and Fall of Futuristic Design. Munich: Prestel, 2003