Emilie Flöge - more than a muse

August 1874 - 26 May 1952, Vienna, Austria.

I am a massive fan of Klimt and when I was browsing the interwebs the other day looking into his life story I came across Emilie, and soon forgot Klimt.

You might recognise her as the woman wearing a gold flecked patterned dresses in Klimt’s paintings and she is often known as the “Women in Gold.’’ The dresses in the paintings are real dresses, dresses she designed.

Emilie Louise Flöge and Gustav Klimt

 A painting of Emilie Flöge by Klimt and a photograph of Emilie in 1902

Emilie set up her first boutique ten years before Coco Chanel who is often heralded as the first fashion designer to have liberated women from corsets.

Emilie’s ‘’Reform Dress’’ was part of the feminist dress reform movement in the early 1900s which was lobbying for practical clothes for women, clothes which weren’t painful and impractical. At the time Emilie also created more traditional clothing to ensure income for the three sister’s business, Schwestern Flöge as the reform dress was seen as avant garde amongst the Vienna haute society. Emilie’s reform dress was smock-like with large sleeves and waistline enabling women to feel freedom and move freely contrasting against the constraining bodices of the age. Flöge introduced a bohemian and relaxed air.

A dress designed by Emilie Louise Flöge