JACQUES GRIFFE
1909-1996
Jacques Griffe was born in 1909 in Carcassonne, France. His mother encouraged him to aim for designing couture clothes as she had always wanted to do so. He trained with a tailor for several years in his home town and while still a teenager, went to Toulouse to extend his apprenticeship with a couturier named Mirra. Luckily Mirra followed the Paris collections and frequently bought toiles to make up and sometimes dresses to copy. The young Griffe enjoyed this work. After leaving Mirra, he also worked at the Lyons textile firm Bianchini-Ferier, noted for its fluid materials in brilliant colours.
In 1936, he joined VIONNET in Paris. Here he learned to drape and cut material on small wooden dummies in the Vionnet tradition. He left her in 1939. During the war, Griffe was taken prisoner by the Germans. After World War II, he returned to Paris and worked briefly for MOLYNEUX .
In 1942, he opened his own couture and ready-to-wear business in the rue Gaillon in Paris. In 1946, he moved to rue du Faubourg St. Honore, after receiving financing from the manufacturer of the Scandale corset. Finally in 1950 he moved to rue Royale, to the 18th century mansion which had been Molyneux's salon, as he had retired.
In 1950, Griffe took over the Molyneux establishment at rue Royale. He was backed by Robert Perrier. He started a boutique line known as Jacques Griffe Evolution and a Griffe pret-a-porter.
This 1952 cocktail gown on the right, is of pink and black tulle, and is of mid-calf length known as the "ballet length". It was a younger look for evening gowns of the time.
On the left is a sack dress from 1958.
He was a craftsman at cutting and draping and his clothes were fluid and soft.
He retired in 1974 and after 22 years of retirement, died in 1996 at the age of 87.
Enthousiasme (W)
click below:
Madeleine Vionnet by Lydia Kamitsis and Jacques Griffe
Jacques Griffe spent many years working under Madeleine Vionnet and has written about his life there.
2000