Acclaimed mistress of the bias cut, Madeleine Vionnet won huge praise for her innovative and daring fashion designs in the '20s and '30s. Her remarkable dresses, perfectly geometrical yet apparently limp and shapeless until worn, were first noticed in Paris by the artist Lanthelme, who helped her to establish her own house. Vionnet reached the pinnacle of her enormous success in the early 1930s, with an international clientele and a workforce of 1200 women.