HERVE LEGER THINGS

In The Pantheon Of Famous Dresses, You'd Have The Lbd, The Wedding Gown, The Wrapdress, And, Residing At The Absolute Sexiest End Of The Hall, The Bandage Dresses. The Figure-Hugging Style Basically Ushered In The Term "Body-Con" And Has Had a Sexiest Who's-Who List Wearing It Since The First Style Was Introduced By Designer Herve L. Leroux In The Early 90s. If You'Re Thinking About Another Designer Named Herve, Hold Please: Leroux And Leger Are One And The Same. The Original Bandage Dress Creator Was Christened Herve Peugnet, But The Name Was Deemed Clunky By Karl Lagerfeld After The Young Designer Went To Work For Him At Fendi. He Adopted Leger At Lagerfeld's Suggestion And Kept It When He Went On To Start His Own Label. When Max Azria Acquired The Brand In The Late '90s, Leger Took Up  Herve Leger Dresses For The New Label  In 2000.

But Back To Pre-Azria Bandage Dresses. A New York Times Runway Review, Published In 1993, Calls Leger's Speciality "Elastic Strips Of Fabric Sewn Together To Make Girdle-Tight Dresses." The Piece Also Reveals That His Brand Received Financing From The Bronfmans, The Powerhouse Family Who Made Their Fortune Via Seagrams And Counts Dj/All-Around Cool Girl Hannah Bronfman As The New Generation.

The Original Runway Pieces From Leger Share Similar Dna With What You See Produced Presently, Though The Bandage Style Was Mixed In With Less Body-Con Pieces, Including The Midi Skirts Worn On The Runway By Karen Mulder, Cindy Crawford, And Eva Herzigova In The Fall Of 1995.

Along With Being One Of The Models Sporting The Design On The Runway, Crawford Also Repped The Bandage Dress For Events Off The Runway. For a Vogue Anniversary Party In 1998, She Did The Lbd Version.

The Fact That The Brand Wasn't Originally Known Exclusively For Bandage Dresses Was Something Understood By Max Azria And Co. When The Company Acquired The Name In 1998. "When Leger Was Designing, He Only Used One Size Of Bandage. When You Look At The Archive, There's a Lot Of Woven, He Did Suiting, He Did Gowns," Lubov Azria, Chief Creative Officer Of Bcbg Max Azria Group, Told Glamour. "Bandage Was Only a Small Part Of It, But It Was What Got The Most Attention So We Realized That's The Essence Of Herve."

The Company Worked With Leger Himself For About a Year Before Looking For New Designers. When No One Quite Right For The Job Was Found, It Moved In-House, Staying Dormant For About Five Years While The Team Worked To Understand What Was Behind The Magical Bandage Look.

Lubov And Max Azria

"I Didn't Want To Launch Until I Truly Understood The Whole Idea. A Bandage Dress Isn't a Woven, It's All Knitted On a Knitting Machine And Is a Completely Different Concept," Azria Explained. "People Assume It's Cut-And-Sew, But There's No Cutting. It's Knitted In a Panel And Then Attached. To Understand The Process And Technical Aside Took a While, And We Wanted To Make Sure It Would Be Unique In The Market."

Those Archives She Mentioned Have Been Somewhat Of a Labor Of Love, With The Company Chief Digging Deep To Stock The Racks; The Back Catalog That Came With The Brand Wasn't The Creme De La Creme, With The Best Items Having Disappeared Beforehand.

"The Pieces That Were Truly Iconic Were Given Away Or Taken By Someone, So I Had To Buy Them Back From Ebay And Private Parties," Lubov Revealed To Us. "We Actually Printed Out Every Runway Show He Did And Matched The Pieces That We Had In Our Vintage Library And Figured Out What Was Missing. We Went On Ebay And Found Some Of Them, They Were Like 400 Euros, And We'd Go To The Collectors, Like Resurrection. Those Were Like $1,400, But Sometimes We'd Bargain Or Do Trades. Then I Found Somebody In Paris Who Was The Muse Of Herve Leger Sale，She Had Tons Of Them And Was Willing To Part With Them—She Was In Her 70s."

HERVE LEGER HISTORY

Herve Leger Launched In 1985, By The Late 1980s, The Bandage Dress Had Arrived, Which Appealed Because Of Its Tightness And Ability To Hold The Figure Positively, In And Up – This Allowed Unrestricted Poses For The Cameras. His First Full Collection In This Style Was Shown In 1991.

The Inception Of “The Bandage Dress Was a Simple One,” He Once Recalled. “One Day In a Factory, I Found Some Bands That Were Headed For The Garbage. As a Hat Maker, They Gave Me The Idea Of Taking Those Bands And Putting Them Next To One Another As One Does Making a Hat, Using The Elastic Properties Of The Material (Rather Than Draping) To Provide Its Form.

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He Also Designed Active Swimwear And Tights, Too. In 1994 Ballet Costumes For Roland Petit’s Company At The Paris Opera.

Following The Loss Of His Label, Leger Kept a Lower Profile Until 2000, When He Founded His Own Independently Financed Fashion House With His Sister Jocelyne: Herve L Leroux. This New Surname Was Again Suggested By His Friend And Mentor Lagerfeld. He Had Chosen Leroux On The Basis That Leger Had Once Had Red Hair “And Everyone Will Know Who You Are.”

The Fledgling Business Struggled Financially, However, Although Leger Persisted, Making Couture And Swimwear For Private Clients. Between 2004 And 2006, He Worked As Creative Director At Guy Laroche, Dressing Hilary Swank In a Memorable Backless Midnight-Blue Jersey Gown, For The 2005 Oscars Where She Won Best Actress. He Also Worked For The High-End Austrian Manufacturer Wolford.

In 2007, Azria Launched His Version Of Leger’s Bandage Dresses, Worn By The Likes Of Kim Kardashian, Which Paradoxically Raised Leroux’s Profile. He Subsequently Started Getting New Clients From All Spheres Of The Celebrity World, Including Cate Blanchett, Kylie Minogue, Jemima Khan, Naomi Watts, Taylor Swift And Kim Kardashian.

His Passion Was Still In Garments That Clung To a Female Form But He Had Begun To Use Different Techniques To Mould The Body, Replacing Strip And Panel Structures With Draped Cloth, Working In Soft Viscose And Silk Jerseys – An Elegant Departure From The Skin-Tight Silhouette Of The Bandage Dress. Dita Von Teese Noted Leroux Was In The Same Classical Class As The Great Parisian Couturiere Madame Gres, Both Having Been Inspired By The Materials Depicted In Greek Sculpture.

Herve Leger Was Loved For Always Managing To Accentuate His Clients’ Positives And Eliminate Their Negatives. He Liked To See Women Confident, Even Happy, And Lamented The Cult Of Starvation Among Modern-Day Models, Declaring, “His Draperies Were Meaningless On Coat Hangers.”

In 2013, Leroux’s Comeback Was Complete When The Federation De La Haute Couture Asked Him To Return To The Paris Collections As a Guest, Recognising His Deserved Place As An Original. Perhaps Somewhat Ironically, Bcbg Filed For Bankruptcy. Leger Died Of a Ruptured Aneurysm, And Is Survived By His Sister.

HERVE LEGER STORY

Herve Leger Was The French Couturier Who Created The Bandage Dress – Hailed As One Of The Iconic Dresses Of All Time, It Made Its Way From Catwalks To The High Street.

Made For Women With “With a Bosom, a Waist And Curves”, The Dress Became a Hit With The “Body Conscious” Hollywood Jet Set Of The 1990s And Noughties And Brought a New Sexiness To The Catwalk, Personified By Cindy Crawford, Plus a Plethora Of Actresses.

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With Success, Leger Needed To Expand His Business Into Ready-To-Wear In Order To Compete In The 1990s. Financial Backing Came From The Canadian Drinks Conglomerate Seagram. Initially, All Seemed Well With Leger Producing 8,000 Pieces a Season, As Against 160 Two Years Earlier. However, With More And More Investment Forthcoming, Leger’s Holding Diminished Until Seagram Owned 95 Per Cent Of The Business.

To His Consternation, It Then Sold The Company To La-Based Max Azria’s Bcbg. Within a Year He And Azria Had Fallen Out. Leger Found Himself Fired From His Own Label And Lost The Rights To The Leger Name.

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Born In 1957, In The Small Town Of Bapaume, 20 Miles South Of Arras, Northern France, Herve Peugnet Left Home At 18 And Headed To Paris To Study Sculpture And Art History At The Ecole Nationale Superieure Des Beaux-Arts. After Just a Year, However, He Dropped Out, Later Recalling, “It Was The Seventies, And Everyone Was On Strike”.

Wanting a Job That Made Use Of His Hands And His Curiosity About The Properties All Types Of Fibres, He Embarked Upon a Hairdressing Apprenticeship – Effectively Training With a Difficult Fibre. Soon He Was Working Backstage At Fashion Shows For Houses Such As Chloe And Ysl. He Was Taught Himself To Make Hats And Dresses, And Secured Contract Work For Lanvin, Swarovski And Costume Designer Tan Giudicelli.

It Was a Meeting At a Chloe Dinner Party In 1980, With German Couturier Karl Lagerfeld, However, Which Was To Change His Direction And His Life. “The Kaiser” Wanted a New Assistant And Asked To See Peugnet’s Sketches. Although Less Than Impressed, Lagerfeld Took Him On. The Pair Work Together At Fendi In Rome And Then Back At Chanel In Paris.

Four Years Later, Peugnet Was Ready To Set Up His Own Business. On The Advice Of Lagerfeld, Claiming It Was Too Difficult For Anglophones To Pronounce, Peugnet Changed His Name To Leger, Taken From The French Word “Legerete” – Lightness.

The Label Herve Leger Gown Launched In 1985 And, By The Late 1980s, The Bandage Dress Had Arrived, Which Appealed Because Of Its Tightness And Ability To Hold The Figure Positively, In And Up – This Allowed Unrestricted Poses For The Cameras. His First Full Collection In This Style Was Shown In 1991.

The Inception Of “The Bandage Dress Was a Simple One,” He Once Recalled. “One Day In a Factory, I Found Some Bands That Were Headed For The Garbage. As a Hat Maker, They Gave Me The Idea Of Taking Those Bands And Putting Them Next To One Another As One Does Making a Hat, Using The Elastic Properties Of The Material (Rather Than Draping) To Provide Its Form.