Michèle Rosier

{{Infobox person

| name = Michèle Rosier

| birth_date = 3 June 1929

| birth_place = Paris, France

| death_date = 2 April 2017

| death_place = Paris

}}

Michèle Rosier{{cite news |date=4 April 2017 |title=Mort de Michèle Rosier, réalisatrice qui avait du style |trans-title=Death of Michèle Rosier, director who had style |url=https://www.lefigaro.fr/cinema/2017/04/04/03002-20170404ARTFIG00248-mort-de-michele-rosier-realisatrice-qui-avait-du-style.php |url-status=live |language=fr |newspaper=Le Figaro |agency=Agence France-Presse |archive-url=https://archive.today/20240122161646/https://www.lefigaro.fr/cinema/2017/04/04/03002-20170404ARTFIG00248-mort-de-michele-rosier-realisatrice-qui-avait-du-style.php |archive-date=22 January 2024 |access-date=22 January 2024}} ({{IPA|fr|miʃɛl lazaʁɛf ʁozje|lang}}; born Michèle Raudnitz, 3 June 1929 – 2 April 2017){{cite book |last=Blandin |first=Claire |year=2023 |title=Hélène Gordon-Lazareff |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X2-rEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1929 |language=fr |location=Paris |publisher=Fayard |page=1929|isbn=978-2-2137-2328-0}}{{cite news |year=2017 |title=Avis décès à Paris (75) |trans-title=Death notice in Paris (75) |url=https://avis-deces.linternaute.com/paris/ville-75056?page=2317 |url-status=live |work=L'Internaute |archive-url=https://archive.today/20240122170452/https://avis-deces.linternaute.com/paris/ville-75056?page=2317 |archive-date=22 January 2024 |access-date=22 January 2024}} was a French fashion journalist and designer who founded the V de V sportswear label. In addition to this, she worked as a film director and screenwriter since 1973.{{cite news |date=4 April 2017 |title=Mort de Michèle Rosier, réalisatrice qui avait du style |trans-title=Death of Michèle Rosier, director who had style |url=https://www.lefigaro.fr/cinema/2017/04/04/03002-20170404ARTFIG00248-mort-de-michele-rosier-realisatrice-qui-avait-du-style.php |url-status=live |language=fr |newspaper=Le Figaro |agency=Agence France-Presse |archive-url=https://archive.today/20240122161646/https://www.lefigaro.fr/cinema/2017/04/04/03002-20170404ARTFIG00248-mort-de-michele-rosier-realisatrice-qui-avait-du-style.php |archive-date=22 January 2024 |access-date=22 January 2024}}

Early life and education

Born Michèle Raudnitz in 1929, her mother was the journalist Hélène Gordon (1909–1988).{{cite news |last=Bloch-Lainé |first=Virginie |date=16 August 2023 |title=Une biographie d'Hélène Gordon-Lazareff: diva de la presse |trans-title=A biography of Hélène Gordon-Lazareff: press diva |url=https://www.liberation.fr/culture/livres/une-biographie-dhelene-gordon-lazareff-diva-de-la-presse-20230816_6H2QFMJILJDUHOPA2P6QPXCJTY/ |url-status=live |language=fr |newspaper=Libération |archive-url=https://archive.today/20231216222932/https://www.liberation.fr/culture/livres/une-biographie-dhelene-gordon-lazareff-diva-de-la-presse-20230816_6H2QFMJILJDUHOPA2P6QPXCJTY/ |archive-date=16 December 2023 |access-date=22 January 2024 |url-access=subscription}} Michèle was the child from Hélène's first marriage to Jean-Paul Raudnitz.

Hélène's second marriage was to Pierre Lazareff (1907–1972).{{cite news |last1=Gaston-Breton |first1=Tristan |last2=Garnier |first2=Pascal |date=11 July 2014 |title=Hélène et Pierre Lazareff, un couple d'influence |trans-title=Hélène and Pierre Lazareff, an influential couple |url=https://www.lesechos.fr/2014/07/helene-et-pierre-lazareff-un-couple-dinfluence-1102991 |url-status=live |language=fr |newspaper=Les Echos |archive-url=https://archive.today/20240121134636/https://www.lesechos.fr/2014/07/helene-et-pierre-lazareff-un-couple-dinfluence-1102991 |archive-date=21 January 2024 |access-date=22 January 2024}} At age 10, Michèle was the first child to read The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a close friend of the family.{{cite journal |last1=Wakeman |first1=Alan |last2=Blegvad |first2=Erik |title=Seeing with the Heart |journal=Books for Keeps|date=March 1995 |issue=91 |url=http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/issue/91/childrens-books/articles/other-articles/seeing-with-the-heart |access-date=4 June 2014}} She studied at the Nightingale-Bamford School in New York.

Her mother later founded Elle magazine in Paris.{{cite news |date=18 February 1988 |title=La disparition d'Hélène Gordon-Lazareff La 'tsarine' de la presse féminine |trans-title=The disappearance of Hélène Gordon-Lazareff The 'tsarina' of the women's press |url=https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1988/02/18/la-disparition-d-helene-gordon-lazareff-la-tsarine-de-la-presse-feminine_4066822_1819218.html |url-status=live |language=fr |newspaper=Le Monde |archive-url=https://archive.today/20231216230519/https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1988/02/18/la-disparition-d-helene-gordon-lazareff-la-tsarine-de-la-presse-feminine_4066822_1819218.html |archive-date=16 December 2023 |access-date=22 January 2024 |url-access=subscription}}

Journalism

Rosier started out as a journalist for her father's daily paper, France Soir before becoming chief editor of the magazine Le Nouveau Femina{{cite book |last1=Rège |first1=Philippe |title=Encyclopedia of French film directors |date=2010 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |location=Lanham, Md.|isbn=9780810869394 |page=882 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ud2-AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA882}} that took its name from the earlier French woman's magazine Femina launched in 1901 by Pierre Lafitte and discontinued in 1954.

Fashion

In the early 1960s, Rosier founded V de V (which stands for Vêtements de Vacance, or 'Vacation Wear'). She also designed for at least two other lines: dresses for Chloe D'Alby, and a line of affordable furs called Monsieur Z which included pink and blue-dyed rabbit fur coats. However, her V de V designs, including both fashionable sportswear and activewear such as swimwear and ski-wear, were very successful. She was noted as an early adopter of vinyl and stretch fabrics, with one New York reporter commenting in 1965 on the close similarity between her two-colour jersey dresses and Yves Saint Laurent's subsequent Mondrian dresses.{{cite news|title=Parisienne Pioneers Pop Style|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19650914&id=a6UtAAAAIBAJ&pg=3657,2686306 |access-date=4 June 2014|work=The Montreal Gazette |agency=HTNS |date=14 September 1965}} Due to her love of plastics, she was nicknamed the "Vinyl Girl,"{{cite book| last = Steele| first = Valerie| title = Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look To Now | publisher=Yale University Press, New Haven & London| year = 1997| pages =64| isbn = 0-300-07132-9}} and has been credited with introducing vinyl to Paris fashion before André Courrèges,{{cite news|last1=Sheppard|first1=Eugenia|title=They're Stars of Ready-to-Wear |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19650206&id=UJ0tAAAAIBAJ&pg=2646,1407064 |access-date=4 June 2014 |work=The Montreal Gazette|date=6 February 1965}} to whom she was compared by the International Herald Tribune for her "style without nostalgia." She was credited with being the first designer to use outsize industrial zippers deliberately. A contemporary press piece in 1968 ranked Rosier alongside Emmanuelle Khanh and Christiane Bailly as part of a "new race" of innovative and exciting young French designers, described as "stylists who work for ready-to-wear."{{cite news|title=Les couturiers refont fortune|work=L'Express|date=26 February 1968|page=29}}

Rosier, herself a keen skier, produced particularly distinctive ski-wear whose streamlined design was in stark contrast to previous models.{{cite book |last1=Lynam |first1=Ruth |title=Couture; an illustrated history of the great Paris designers and their creations |date=1972 |publisher=Doubleday |location=London |isbn=0385069553 |page=245 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WmpAAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Michele+Rosier%22}} In 1966 Eugenia Sheppard proclaimed that Rosier's slimline skiwear had "defeated the old-time bulky teddy-bear look". Other suits were made in quilted nylon velvet and vivid colours with detachable face panels such as the one featured on the front cover of Sports Illustrated magazine for 13 November 1967.{{cite news| url=http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/cover/featured/8050/index.htm |publisher=CNN | title=Most Popular | access-date=27 May 2010|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120718135437/http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/cover/featured/8050/index.htm|archive-date=2012-07-18}} She offered helmets with rotating green-to-clear visors (designed by Monique Dofny){{cite magazine|title=To Make Alps More Scenic|magazine=LIFE|date=18 February 1966|volume=60|issue=7|page=99|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IEwEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA99}} and her "stainless steel" and silver suits in nylon and lurex were described as "pure James Bond," and having "cosmic flair."{{cite book |last1=Lipovetsky |first1=Gilles |last2=Porter |first2=Catherine|title=The empire of fashion: dressing modern democracy |date=2002 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Woodstock |isbn=9780691102627 |edition=third printing. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G73Vt6wSWUEC&pg=PA91|access-date=4 June 2014}}

Rosier also designed for White Stag in the US,{{cite journal|last1=Smith|first1=Fred R.|title=Where To Buy|journal=Sports Illustrated|date=13 November 1967|url=http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1080550/index.htm|archive-url=https://archive.today/20140604163859/http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1080550/index.htm|archive-date=2014-06-04}} and Jaeger in the UK. One of her clear PVC raincoats for Young Jaeger was chosen by Ernestine Carter as part of the Dress of the Year for 1966, along with a Simone Mirman hat and a Young Jaeger black and white dress.{{cite web|last1=Fashion Museum, Bath|title=Dress of the Year: 1963 - 1969|url=http://www.museumofcostume.co.uk/collections/dress_of_the_year/1963_-_1969.aspx|publisher=Fashion Museum, Bath|access-date=4 June 2014|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140416174646/http://www.museumofcostume.co.uk/collections/dress_of_the_year/1963_-_1969.aspx|archivedate=16 April 2014}} She designed parachute jumpsuits for Raquel Welch to wear in the 1967 film Fathom.{{cite book |last1=Reid |first1=John Howard |title=20th Century-Fox : CinemaScope 2|date=2009|publisher=Lulu Press|location=[Morrisville, NC] |isbn=9781411622487 |page=75 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1Y-IrOqtORcC&pg=PA75}} In 1988, V de V was purchased by Sergio Tacchini.{{cite magazine |magazine=L'Espresso |volume=34 |issue=8–12 |title=unknown |page=291 |quote="Sergio Tacchini, ex campione di tennis e imprenditore nel settore dell'abbigliamento, ha acquistato l'80 per cento della società francese V de V."}}

Films

Since 1973, Rosier worked as a film director and screenwriter for French-language cinema. Her first two films George Who?, a biography of George Sand, and Mon coeur est rouge (My Heart is Red), which deals with a female market researcher, have been described as feminist.{{cite book |last1=Tarr |first1=Carrie |last2=Rollet |first2=Brigitte |title=Cinema and the second sex: women's filmmaking in France in the 1980s and 1990s |date=2001 |publisher=Continuum |location=New York |isbn=9780826447425 |pages=45–46 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gABdCSelJSIC&pg=PA45}} She then produced television documentaries before returning to films with Embrasse-moi (Kiss Me) (1989).