Editor’s Note: The fourth installment of WWD’s weeklong exploration of the Fairchild Fashion Archive includes this Feb. 15, 1977, interview in Paris with the legendary Madame Gres, in addition to a Dec. 31, 1975, interview in London with Zandra Rhodes.

PARIS — You need to be prepared for Mme. Gres. She is claimed to be chronically frail, timid, “living in one other world” and even bald.

Contained in the Gres offices on the Rue de la Paix, Madame’s aides offer counsel on how you can conduct an interview with the last grande puriste of the French couture. There are questions to not be asked, photographs which must not be taken, comparisons to not be made, not an excessive amount of time to be taken. The close-to-70-year-old couturier who has been draping famous female bodies for over 40 years is seemingly as tightly lipped as she is turbaned.

One approaches zero hour with some trepidation. A big white door opens slowly into the cream-colored essential salon and in walks a really short, firm-looking woman who’s all hands, eyes and lips. She movers quickly in an oatmeal-colored Shetland sweater and a straight gray skirt. She looks about as shy and retiring as Diana Vreeland.

There shouldn’t be much doubt that this curious, dignified designer is identical Alix Barton who opened her own design business in Paris in 1934; who married a Russian artist who preferred to live apart in Tahiti; who refused to cater to German clients in the course of the occupation and hence had her workrooms closed down, and who reopened in Paris after the occupation under the name of Gres. Watching Mme. Gres cross a room explains why she named one in every of the Gres perfumes Cabochard – which implies strongly stubborn (literally pigheaded) in French.

She arranges herself on a white leather chaise and laughs about her “aversion” to interviews. She is willing to speak. In regards to the couture, after all.

“People say there may be a recent energy within the couture nowadays, but I actually don’t know. I feel that the energy has all the time been there. Young people today are focused on and appreciate quality. I see it in my young clients. People realize that couture is truth – couture is inspirational. The couture goes beyond the
 frontiers of the home that it’s designed in. The couture influences every little thing. The couture,” she adds quietly, “is my life.”

The topic of able to wear is raised hesitantly: Mme. Gres is the one Parisian couturier who doesn’t design a group of pret-a-porter. “Pret-a-porter? The importance of pret-a-porter? Ooh la la,” she sighs. “The couture all the time gives the ideas to pret-a-porter. The pret-a-porter designers are all the time influenced by the couturiers. I feel that pret-a-porter has indeed given the girl on the street a greater, neater appearance, but couture is the creative key. It’s a grand work – it’s truth – couture brings something into the world.”

There isn’t a point in bringing up Kenzo. Mme. Gres sits back contentedly and smooths the paisley silk scarf at her throat.

“One should have courage to be a couturier,” she says. “Unhappily, a maison of couture is a business. It is vitally, very difficult. Each season, a couture collection is judged on the strength of the designs you present. It’s like you might be nude for the entire world to see.”

Business, across the board, shouldn’t be a cherished topic for Mme. Gres. She contends, “It is solely impossible ever” to design anything with a profit in mind.

“Ooh la la,” she says vehemently. “I cannot take into consideration business or cost after I am designing a dress. I don’t take a look at the value of any of the fabrics I exploit. I don’t care.”

Her customers don’t either. Mme. Gres’ loyal list of Ladies – including Jacqueline de Ribes, Jackie O, Babe Paley, the Brandolinis, the Rothschilds, Sao Schlumberger, Mica Ertegun, Chessie Rayner and Nan Kempner – have been buying chez Gres for years. She shouldn’t be much copied because her designs rely
on intricate draping and cut-outs which require hours of fitting time and the costliest fabrics on the planet.

“I like to intensify the wonder, the personality and the person gestures of the ladies I dress,” she says. “A couture dress is a second skin. Each woman has her own unique comportment and figure. I’m clothing personalities. I see my clients transformed during a fitting. It’s a miracle to see this.”

An almost sacred silence settles over the salon. “Let me offer you an example of the facility of the couture,” she says. “I used to be in Russia in 1969 – or was it in 1968? – for a three-day tour with my couture collection. In the future I showed the gathering to government officials, but the opposite two days I showed to the people – in large public auditoriums. The people got here from far-off – they were poor but they paid a number of rubles or somesuch to see the show. I actually have never seen a response like this. They may not imagine that clothes equivalent to I showed even existed. They couldn’t recover from it. They cried. It was a really emotional event for me. One which I’ll always remember.”

She seems unconscious of the tears which are increase in her regular eyes. She recovers easily.

“The couture is a real ideal,” she says suddenly. “I actually have been asked in regards to the problems of couture, but at the home of Gres we’ve got no difficulties. The employees are pleased. People gladly give time beyond regulation for collections. Yes, there are less craftsmen than in years past, but we’ve got in Paris the best handwork available. It does exist. Quality is enduring.”

The query of the competition, the opposite couturiers who live and work in Paris, leaves Mme. Gres somewhat cold. “The others? I’m not focused on what anybody else does. I actually have never in my profession attended a showing of one other designer. You need to all the time find your ideas in yourself – not the direction of others. I don’t imagine in studying what other couturiers do. The couture is an individualistic manner of cut and dealing with fabric. It has nothing to do with outside influences. It shouldn’t be well worth the pain to work when you don’t do something unique and coming from you alone. I actually have even refused designers who wanted to come back and see my collections. The couture needs to be individual.”

And so, says the eternall, turbaned designer, should private clients be unique. “My clients are very special women,” she says smiling. “I admit that sometimes they do encourage my work. A lot of the women are French but we’ve got many from America, Brazil and Greece.

“The Americans are wonderful to work with,” says the designer who has used over 50 yards of material in a single single dress.”
“American women appear to like different ideas, different shapes. They’ve an appreciation for sculpture. They’re modern they usually appreciate simplicity. And on top of that,” she adds gleefully, “American women have such good rib cages and backs. And such long legs.”

Mme. Gres scoots as much as the sting of her chair and toys with the great luck charms that dangle from several long gold chains. It’s time for her to get back to the ateliers.

There isn’t a discussion of herb 36-year-old daughter, her Thirties-styled home near the Bois de Boulogne, her Chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur status, her trip to India in 1958, her friendship with Cocteau, her nonexistent vacations, her day-to-day private life.

“I’m outside of life,” she explains.

Mme. has spoken.