Jacques Griffe (1909-1996) was a French couturier and fashion designer.

Biography

Griffe was born in

Carcassonne Carcassonne (, also , , ; ; la, Carcaso) is a French fortified city in the department of Aude, in the region of Occitanie. It is the prefecture of the department. Inhabited since the Neolithic, Carcassonne is located in the plain of the Au ...

, France. He died in 1996.

Fashion career

Griffe served an apprenticeship for a tailor in Carcassonne, before relocating to Toulouse where he worked for Mirra, a dressmaker there who followed the Paris collections. From 1936 to 1939 he worked with

Madeleine Vionnet Madeleine Vionnet (; June 22, 1876, Loiret, France – March 2, 1975) was a French fashion designer. Vionnet trained in London before returning to France to establish her first fashion house in Paris in 1912. Although it was forced to close in 1 ...

as a cutter, before launching his own couture house in 1942. Initially based on the rue Gaillon, he later relocated to the

rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré The Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré () is a street located in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Relatively narrow and nondescript, especially in comparison to the nearby Avenue des Champs-Élysées, it is cited as being one of the most lux ...

, and eventually took over

Edward Molyneux Edward Henry Molyneux () (5 September 1891 – 23 March 1974) was a leading British fashion designer whose salon in Paris was in operation from 1919 until 1950. He was characterised as a modernist designer who played with the refinements of co ...

's salon on the

rue Royale Rue Royale (French for "Royal Street") may refer to several streets: *Rue Royale, Brussels, Belgium *Rue Royale, Lyon, France * Rue Royale, Paris, France See also * Royal Street, New Orleans, United States *Royal Road (disambiguation) The Royal ...

. Griffe is particularly known for his mastery of draping, which he developed while at Vionnet, and for his strong technical skills, using complicated shirring, pleating and tucking techniques to shape his garments and form subtle patterns and textures. He paid tribute to his mentor not only through his cutting and draping, but by featuring his own fingerprint on his dress labels as Vionnet herself did. Vionnet also gave him a miniature mannequin to use for developing his designs, and the colleagues eventually became friends in 1948. His designs are in the collections of many museums, including the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, the RISD Museum, the

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

, and the

Palais Galliera The Palais Galliera, also formally known as the Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris (City of Paris Fashion Museum), and formerly known as Musée Galliera, is a museum of fashion and fashion history located at 10, avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie, ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Griffe, Jacques 1909 births 1996 deaths French fashion designers People from Carcassonne