(1923–2016). In the 1960s French designer André Courrèges became a leader of the fashion world with his bold, futuristic, youth-oriented styles. His design innovations included “paper doll” coats, vinyl trim, hip-hugger pants, midcalf boots, and the trademark use of white fabrics.
Courrèges was born on March 9, 1923, in Pau, France. Although he wanted to be an artist, he began a career in engineering to please his father, a butler in a wealthy English home. In 1948 Courrèges left engineering to work in a small Parisian fashion house. Eight months later he became a presser for the designer Cristóbal Balenciaga. After several years with Balenciaga’s firm, Courrèges advanced to the position of Balenciaga’s first assistant.
In 1961 Courrèges opened his own fashion design house. Although his first collections were strongly influenced by Balenciaga, by 1964 he was being hailed as one of the most original designers in Paris. His collection that year featured well-cut pants, clothes with smooth “trapeze,” or trapezoidal, lines, and short skirts, with white midcalf boots and large dark glasses as accessories. The collection was dubbed the “Space Age look” because of the futuristic, geometric shapes of the clothes, which were made almost entirely in white.
Courrèges’s simple designs were widely copied and distorted, which prompted him to take strict control of the manufacture of clothing that he designed. At the 1967 fashion shows he presented both high-fashion creations and ready-to-wear clothes for his boutique, Couture Future. Distribution of his ready-to-wear was controlled by selling only through licensed outlets.
Through the late 1960s Courrèges’s designs remained dramatically simple, with complete lack of nostalgia. His models wore such innovations as hip-hugger pants with halter tops, transparent tops, sequined jumpsuits, and vinyl-trimmed suits and coats. Controversy arose at the time over his extensive use of see-through fabrics and revealing cut-out designs.
Although Courrèges’s fashions went out of style in the 1970s, by the ’90s he was able to reinvent his futuristic look into clean-lined retro styles that would dominate into the early 21st century. Courrèges retired in 1995 and sold his fashion company in 2011. He died on January 7, 2016, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.