Fashion Designer Andrew Couregges essays

Fashion Designer Andrew Couregges essays The 1960s brought jet travel, The Beatles and the first moon landing. This new futuristic, youth-like mentality did away with the constraint of the 50s housewife. A sudden shift took place in the 60s towards being youth oriented. This sudden up raw started in London and is also known as the youth quake. The days of tightly boned silhouettes and high stiletto heels were banished by the innovative designs of Andre Courreges. Courreges designs proved to be his response to the coming way of life and sexual revolution. Born March 9th, 1923 in Pau, Pyrenees Atlantiques, and Courreges studied engineering at Ecole des Pont et Chaussees in Paris. Later on he worked as a chief cutter for Cristobal Balenciaga from 1950 to 1961. After working 10 years at the house of Balenciaga Courreges left with his wife as well as ex-Balenciaga employee, Coqeline to start his own business. Courreges believed that the fashion being made for women wasnt really practical. Courreges saw the male wardrobe as more logical and practical than a womans because of its unadorned and reductionist nature, resulting from its being pared down to the barest essentials over the passage of time. Courreges designs were a reflection of his engineering past as well has the skills he learned and perfected at Balenciaga. As a result he reinvented a new look of feminity, ironically quit the opposite that of Balenciaga. 1 Unlike the fashion of Balenciaga, Courreges used his cutting skills to free rather tan contain the body. He emphasized his theory by creating short trapeze skirts that showed extra movement and pairing the outfits with a flat shoe. A flat shoe makes women walk in a particular way, from the thigh and hip rather than the leg, moving the whole of the lower limb like a dancer.2 Courreges envisioned the movement of a womans body differently than any other...