Reconstructing the “Femme-Fleur”: Floral Modernism in the Work of Madeleine Vionnet and Jeanne Lanvin

Abstract

Abstract The seeds of modernism had been planted before the First World War, but it was in the post-war period that there was a true blossoming of self-consciously “modern” aesthetics and the new, “modern” woman. Although modernism is often associated with the masculine, urban, and geometric—indeed, women’s fashion took a more androgynous turn—influential couturières Madeleine Vionnet and Jeanne Lanvin still drew upon traditionally feminine floral and pastoral themes to create their modern fashions. Fashion designers were not alone in this use of the floral in a “modern” context. Writers, visual artists, architects, and garden designers of the period were also renegotiating ideas of the natural world and reinterpreting the pastoral in the context of the devastating effect of the First World War upon the people and the landscape of France. In particular, the legacy of the femme-fleur (“flower-woman”) in art, literature, and performance found new relevance in 1920s fashion, uniting ideas of modernity and renewal. For Vionnet and Lanvin, the use of floral motifs in conjunction with modernist fashions, signalled a desire to draw upon and reinterpret these long-held signals of femininity, allowing for a new understanding of womanhood while evoking the familiar, eternal and procreative elements of flowers.