An exhibit of their groundbreaking work together opens Thursday at Fondation Maeght.An exhibit of their groundbreaking work together opens Thursday at Fondation Maeght.
Revisiting one of fashion’s most radical visual moments more than half a century later might seem like an exercise in nostalgia, but photographer Peter Knapp is bringing his images of André Courrèges’ collection into the present with a tightly curated exhibition at the Fondation Maeght.
The show focuses on the now-iconic series of images shot on a Hasselblad camera in January 1965 for French Elle magazine and features a selection of his works alongside archival materials and garments from the collection.
Speaking to WWD, Knapp recounted that the issue of Elle had already been sent to the printers when the journalists went to see Courrèges’ spring collection. It was a bit of an afterthought on the last day of shows, but it immediately sent editors into a state of frenzy.
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“’It’s a revolution,’ they said. ‘You have to change everything,’” he recalled. Ten pages needed to be pulled from the issue and replaced immediately. Knapp had 12 dresses to shoot, and just a few hours.
“I had to shoot all his clothes in one night, and it couldn’t be in color, because the photography would take too long,” Knapp said, referring to the darkroom development process.
Working in a blacked-out studio, he improvised. He built a two-meter-high stand topped with a bicycle seat and perched his models on it.
It was 1965 and the U.S.-Soviet race to the moon was very much on everyone’s minds — so Knapp suspended his models in the atmosphere.
“I made the girl so she was like swimming in space,” he said of the images. “It’s an idea of being in space — coming or going to the moon.”
Courtesy of Peter Knapp
Through cutting and assembling images by hand to make a photomontage, he created a series of women floating against a dark void, weightless and futuristic. The result was a revolution in fashion.
At the time, the reaction to Courrèges’ work was immediate, and the collection was later dubbed the “bombe Courrèges.” It marked a break with the post-War New Look and the more traditional codes of couture.
But Knapp said the Space Age designer’s perspective and the shift it represented was often misunderstood.
“I think the revolution was because he put function first,” he said. “He didn’t think so much to be really fashionable. He tried to be comfortable.”
Where designers like Christian Dior and Coco Chanel had changed the female silhouette before, it was within the framework of tiny waists and slim proportions. Courrèges approached clothing from another angle, less interested in how women looked than in how they moved.
Knapp recalled Courrèges describing a trip to Los Angeles. “’What I have seen on the beach is the women running beside the men, and I haven’t seen much difference [between them]. And so I started to think that the women are not absolutely treated the way they should be,’” Knapp said.
Peter Knapp/ Courtesy of Courreges
Courrèges created the entire look to allow ease of movement for women. Shorter skirts, flat shoes instead of heels, tights replacing stockings and garments stripped of unnecessary constraints. “‘If I do not make a skirt short, she cannot walk the same way as a man,’” Courrèges said, according to Knapp. “’The body should be free.’”
Other details also shifted perspective. There were no belts cinching the waist, and no need for structured or restrictive undergarments. Courrèges was aware that if he cut the dress well, the woman would not need a bra.
Materials were chosen for modern ease and could be thrown into the washing machine.
In contrast to contemporaries like Mary Quant, whose miniskirts signaled youth and rebellion, Courrèges’ approach was rooted in utility. “For her, it was fashion,” Knapp said. “For him, it was function.”
The models themselves reflected this shift. “All of Courrèges’ models were girls running the marathon, very sporty. They had muscles. They were not just fit models anymore,” he said. They were women on the move.
Knapp had been brought on as art director at Elle by editor in chief Hélène Gordon-Lazareff, who saw the need for a more modern approach to images emerging.
“She said the clotheshave to move,” he said. “It is better with wind or coming out of a car rather than standing in front of the photographer.” Previously fashion images had been dominated by static poses or sketches which presented the “clothes as information.” These were clothes as art.
Peter Knapp/ Courtesy of Courreges
Knapp’s own background shaped that perspective. Trained in the Bauhaus tradition in Zurich, he approached photography with a designer’s eye, influenced by figures like Le Corbusier and Piet Mondrian. His training extended to his approach to Courrèges’ clothes, with the images reflecting his pared-down, graphic and architectural eye.
“People were surprised,” Knapp said of how the images were perceived at the time. “But probably more of the clothes from Courrèges than of my photography,” he said. Still, his shots were influential, and bridged the gap between photography and images.
“I do not ‘take’ a photograph,” he said. “I ‘make’ photography.”
Knapp and Courrèges worked together through the 1970s and their friendship continued until the designer’s passing in 2016, though Courrèges had by then turned to sculpture.
For Knapp, the process of revisiting those early images has been revealing. “When I saw the [selection], I said it still looks very modern,” he said.
Over time, Knapp noted, the distinction between fashion photography and fine art has blurred. “After a certain time, it is not about ‘fashion’ photography anymore,” he said. “It is just good photography.”
He compared it to the work of Bugatti, who made furniture as well as cars, which are now exhibited in museums.
The 95-year-old remains active taking pictures daily — but now, it’s on his iPhone. “It was a shock when we got the iPhone because we bought such expensive cameras,” he joked.
While having a camera in your pocket was a more recent revolution, Knapp reflected on his lifelong friendship with Courrèges, whom he met the night of the shoot.
Peter Knapp/ Courtesy of Courreges
“Most people think Courrèges was changing fashion, and I understood it is more than this,” he said. “It was a new way to see women, much more sporty [with the] body understood in a different way, and also being simple — without gloves, without hats, without high heels, without stockings.
“It changed how women moved and behaved,” he said.
The exhibition opens Thursday and runs through Nov. 30.
