My sister had devoured “Une femme” by Anne Delbée . When this book came out in the late 80s, we all discovered the story of this talented young woman. We all went to the Rodin Museum to admire her kiss , dream about her waltz and walk around the delicate bust of the little chatelaine . Captivated by so much delicacy and movement, sensing that there was the touch of a gifted woman there. Then there was the film with Isabelle Adjani in the title role. Camille Claudel was in fashion... My sister and I undoubtedly felt a vague proximity to family history, that of our great-grandmother, Germaine Desgranges, a student of Bourdelle and sculpting busts of young girls with a comparable delicacy.
In my eyes, she embodies all the rage of women driven by an indomitable and unbearable creative impulse at a time when only the talent of men counted. Uncompromising, die-hard, devoured by devoured by her artistic fever to the point of paranoia, she is a kind of martyr: locked up and muzzled until her aspirations die out. What a tragic fate and what enormous talent.
Camille Claudel and my great-grandmother inspired the Germaine dress - or Camille, I can't decide -, in black twill, combined with a fine white openwork cotton blouse. A simple, feminine and graphic dress, a little radical and distinct in its combination of black and white, like these women artists trying to exist in a world which still mainly recognized the talent of men...
