Mass Production of the 60's Minimalism in Fashion

In this post, I'll further looking into the two fashion designers, Pierre Cardin and André Courrèges, that I've mentioned in the previous post, how they bring fashion for the people, contributed minimalistic fashion into the mass market at that time.

Pierre Cardin
Pierre Cardin came to Paris during the World War II. He started out his career by making costumes for the film-maker Jean Cocteau. (Schofield, 2011.) Cardin launched his own label in 1950 and his designs were peddled by the likes of Dior and Balenciaga. Cardin was working as a couturier for a few years, but he felt that the future would be in mass production. (Walker, 2011.)

In 1959, Cardin launched the first ever "pret-a-porter" (ready-to-wear) boutique for the mass market. His bold action for introducing the secret arts to Joe Public caused him to be expelled from the prestigious Chambre Syndicale, the governing body of couturiers. (Walker, 2011.) Later, he went into merchandising majorly, with hundreds of outlets all over the world, many of them were not exactly top-of-the-range. (Schofield, 2011.)

Pierre Cardin's ready-to-wear collection, 1959.

[The world of tomorrow] 2011. [image online] Available at:<http://doloresdelargotowers.blogspot.com/2011/11/world-of-tomorrow.html> [Accessed on: 12 July 2014]

"Why should I work only for rich people?"
"I want to work for the people in the street." said Cardin at the time.

His sense of forging ahead socially as well as aesthetically informed many of his collections, from 1964's landmark Cosmos collection, where Cardin introduced unisex tunics and androgynous clothing that has resulted from the concept of anti-figurative forms in Minimalism since the 60s.



André Courrèges
André Courrèges studied engineering before entered the fashion industry. He started out his fashion career first under the illustrious couturier Cristobal Balenciaga from 1950 until 1961. Then he left to launch his own house, with the introduction of the miniskirt along with Mary Quant, which associated youthfulness in disavowing traditional social codes and rules of fashion. (Fashion Bank, n.d.)

In 1964, Courrèges unveiled his Space Age/Couture Future collection. The entire collection was a great success which influenced other designers to make their own versions of futuristic fashion including Pierre Cardin. In the aim of making his couture clothing more accessible, he came up with fifteen different designs in four to five sizes and had them mass produced. This enabled the clothing to be sold at 20% of the usual price. This led to the ready-to-wear manufacturers and made its way to the mass market. (Dudbridge, n.d.)

Couture Future, André Courrèges, 1968.

[Couture Future] 2011. [image online] Available at:<http://www.vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=36591> [Accessed on: 12 July 2014]



References:
Dudbridge, S. (n.d.) Andrè Courrèges. [Online] Available at:<http://www.catwalkyourself.com/fashion-biographies/andre-courreges/> [Accessed: 12 July 2014]

Fashion Bank. (n.d.) André Courrèges. [Online] Available at:<http://www.my-fashionbank.com/articles/article25.html> [Accessed: 11 July 2014]

Schofield, H. (2011) Pierre Cardin on banks and working at 89. [Online] Available at:<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15593861> [Accessed: 12 July 2014]

Walker, H.  (2011) Pierre Cardin: Making his name live forever. [Online] Available at:<http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10727920> [Accessed: 12 July 2014]