‘Current fashion should conform to the “sporting” mentality: it should respond to the requirements of our active life,’ wrote designer Lucien Lelong in ‘Fashion Directives for 1925’, an advertisement for his couture house that appeared in Vogue Paris that same year. Today largely forgotten, Lelong was one of the leading couturiers of his day, a designer whose house employed 1,200 at its height, as well as the man who, as head of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture Parisienne, negotiated with the Nazi occupiers to stop the Parisian couture industry being moved to Berlin and Vienna.

He was also an advertising innovator. At the time, says Olivier Saillard, fashion historian and director of the Musée Galliera in Paris, ‘fashion houses wanted to sell a spirit; they didn’t promote the couturier’s style’. So their advertisements all had the same goal. ‘They promoted the house and the address where customers could come and have their fittings, and watch a private presentation of the collections,’ explains Saillard. ‘The ads in the magazines weren’t written to seduce but to confirm – they weren’t about selling product.’ As can be seen in the following pages, Lucien Lelong wasn’t afraid to try to seduce with words. The texts he wrote for his advertisements, often in the first person, went beyond simple statements of fact and became proclamations of belief. They were like brief fashion manifestos laying out his vision each season, sometimes art-directed2 using the latest typographic styles and mise-en-page. They aimed to educate and influence customers and give them an ethos as much as the address where they could buy into it. They were about leading fashion, directing it by promising garments that would help women live better. As Lelong wrote in one, fashion ‘should respond to the requirements of our active life’.

‘In a strikingly contemporary way, Lelong was more than just a simple designer, he was a true artistic director,’ says Saillard. ‘He didn’t think that he should only be designing dresses, so he employed assistant couturiers.’ Among whom were Pierre Balmain and Christian Dior. ‘If Dior became the artistic director he did,’ says Saillard, ‘then one reason was Lelong – and Dior acknowledged as much.’ And one way that Dior continued Lelong’s legacy was his use of text: he would write the press releases for his collections, sometimes with the help of French novelist Colette. ‘Dior not only uses the first person to explain each dress, but also each collection’s overall concept,’ says Saillard. ‘What is charming with him is that the language is not “fashion” but atelier language. It is all about the craft.’
Saillard says that text in fashion advertising had almost completely disappeared by the end of the 1950s, firstly replaced by illustrations of products, then by photographs, for which improved technology had reduced printing costs. Despite the obvious reasons why images have come to rule the contemporary fashion landscape, Saillard regrets the abandonment of language as a fashion tool. ‘Your relationship with what you’re doing changes when you have to pick up a pen to explain it,’ he believes. ‘For people interested in fashion, from customers to historians, it is fascinating to read how the work is thought out. Those texts gave fashion philosophy’.

TRANSLATIONS

All the images in this portfolio originally appeared
in the pages of Vogue Paris.

Page 211

Fashion instructions for 1925?
Current fashion should conform to the ‘sporting’ mentality. It should respond to the requirements of our active life. This is why I have studied practical dresses.
Fashion should be ‘simple’. I have created a sleek, precise outline highlighting the carefree modern stride.
Fashion should be ‘young’. Sharpened by a sporting life, today’s woman doesn’t age. I have made for her a collection based on these three instructions that summarize my conception of fashion in 1925.

Page 213

In the Axis of Fashion
All manifestations of fashion are subjected to a code of good taste – unformulated but real.
And yet with every new season designs are created in Paris
whose aesthetic, in disharmony with current trends, is un­-
balanced.
I believe that modern couture, like the art of our day, must find its inspiration in rhythm and movement.
The Kinetic line realizes this principle of the animated dress. A faithful reflection of its era, it always evolves in the axis of fashion.

Page 214

Because it’s Biarritz!
The opening of a branch where dresses for sport and for the casino, and the accessories that complement them are presented in the setting for which they were created.

Page 216

Lelong
And I believe that this study of the line of movement that I call cinematic creation, comparing it to the development of a film in slow-motion, is the only one that allows for the logical realization of a dress that lends itself to the gestures of modern life.
I applied these principles to my new collection and, above all, I have endeavoured to give my designs this dynamism that is so characteristic of our era.

Lucien Lelong
opens a House in Biarritz
Rue Gardères
where his clients will find:
sporting attire, evening gowns,
and the accessories to complement them
Shown on August first.

Page 217

At the Exhibition, Les Arts Décoratifs…
In an Exhibition like Les Art Décoratifs, we are obliged by circumstances to show the Creations on static mannequins.
But doesn’t the true beauty of a dress reside in its harmonious obedience to the rhythm of movement?
I personally endeavour to create a design that grants this mobility through the set of lines that accentuates the character of the piece.

Page 218

Lucien Lelong is currently showing in Biarritz a collection of dresses for sport and for the casino and their complementary accessories created especially for the Basque Coast.

Page 220

The Era of Movement
Breaking with the old-fashioned formula of the dress being seen ‘at rest’, I have created the line in movement adapted to modern life.
The universal success of my ‘kinetic’ silhouette is proof of this absolute logic.
My summer collection will achieve a new evolution in the principle of the animated line, which imposed itself because it is the essential basis of our contemporary life.

Page 221

The Era of Movement
The ‘Kinetic’ Silhouette created by Lucien Lelong has affirmed itself as the dominant line of today’s fashion. Its role is so important that it has gone beyond being in vogue for just one season. The ‘Kinetic’ line marks a turning point in fashion: it determines a new era, that of movement. In his summer collection, Lucien Lelong presents a new development of Kineticism. These recent versions of the line in movement are based on the evolution of this principle; an evolution whose novelty breaks from the last vestiges of traditionalism in couture.

Page 222

My current efforts tend to orientate fashion towards a reasoned aesthetic, corresponding to the one driving contemporary art.
In the realization of my designs I exclude all details that clash with the unity of my conception.
Envisaging the decorative element as a simple accessory, I place all my attention on the technique of the cut.
I have rigorously removed from my collection, all formulas that are not justified by a strict logic.
I should add that the line of my dresses is based on the principle of movement which, in my opinion, is the only one that responds to the needs of our era.

Page 224

The modern woman should be able to find at every step of her society life the elegance of Parisian life. That is why I am opening a branch in the Monte Carlo Hôtel Saint-James Building (Hôtel de Paris annexe) where a collection of women’s designs and accessories created especially for the Riviera will be shown.