Among other styles would appear the little white trapeze dress, like a stick of dynamite in the bourgeois wardrobe. It took the opposite approach to traditional silhouettes of the previous decade. But what made it special? A structured trapeze cut that freed the hips and revealed the legs above the knee. The dress’s flat, geometric shape gave a futuristic look to the modern woman. An immaculate white accentuated the impression given off by the out-of-this-galaxy look. It marked a renewal of 60s fashion, the precursor to the 70s that would become even freer and bolder. With his engineering background, his creations are extremely constructed and architecturalized. The use of new materials is one implicit manifestation of this. Looking towards the future all while staying in touch with his era, he provoked a revolution in the realms of design, art, and industry. The trapeze dress formed the cornerstone of Courrèges’s style, an absolute reference in French fashion.
It accompanied the women’s liberation movement, dressing bodies in movement that would soon invade the labor market. Teenagers would also find a form of expression of liberty and affirmation of the feminine identity within it. At the height of her career, Twiggy wore the minimalist dress in a “Classic with a twist” or “mod dress” style, giving rise to the term “mod” itself which designates an unconventional brand of modernism. Every icon of chic would adopt it: Catherine Deneuve, Brigitte Bardot, Romy Schneider, and Françoise Hardy among them. A genius designer, André Courrèges would definitively leave his mark on fashion. Yves Saint-Laurent saluted the innovative talent by asserting that fashion would never again be the same after “l’explosion Courrèges”.
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