suit

Andre Courreges, Paris 1923

Summary

Suit in bright yellow wool/acrylic blend with raised, textured weave. Waisted, fitted jacket with rounded turndown collar and revers; centre front fastening with large silvered metal buttons, rounded decorative tabs fasten with buttons at cuffs and centre back hem; diagonal mock pocket flaps; top-stitched seams at shoulder, side front, side back, centre back, back sleeves and all edges; rounded decorative tabs fasten with buttons at cuffs and centre back hem; tiny vent centre back with rounded edge; lined white silk. Woven label inside centre back "Courrèges, Paris". Flared mini skirt with double top-stitched seams centre front, centre back and sides; narrow waistband with 2 stitched down round flaps centre front; centre back zip fastening; lined white silk.

Display Label

This acid yellow woollen two-piece suit encapsulates French designer André Courrèges' youthful and futuristic mid-1960s style. Born in 1923, Courrèges shocked and impressed the fashion world from 1964 with the "space-age", modern clothes he designed for the increasingly forward-thinking avant guarde couture audience. His characteristic sleek lines, bold, flat colours and minimal decoration are typified in this matching jacket and mini skirt. Originally trained as a civil engineer, Courrèges showed a keen awareness of proportion and construction as a fashion designer, and he often revealed the internal structure of his clothes, as in this where top-stitching emphasises the seams and pockets, and would traditionally have remained hidden. The white PVC half boots are also from the middle 1960s, as is the white mini dress with applied fabric discs as decoration. The apple green pinafore dress was a couture garment from 1972, still showing very avant guarde lines. Although innovative, modernist and uncompromising, Courreges' approach was not dissimilar to other provocative continental sixties designers like Pierre Cardin, or Emanuel Ungaro, whose striped dress, featured below, shows the same uncluttered, geometric styling, and uses similar, intensely costly, heavy woven wool.