Emilie Louise Flöge

Emilie Louise Flöge (30 August 1874 – 26 May 1952) was an Austrian fashion designer and businesswoman. She was the life companion of the painter Gustav Klimt.

Biography

Flöge was the fourth child of the master turner and manufacturer of Meerschaum pipes, Hermann Flöge (1837–1897). Emilie had two sisters, Pauline and Helene, and a brother, Hermann. Her first job was as a seamstress, but she later became a couturière. In 1894, Pauline, her elder sister, opened a dressmaking school and Emilie worked there. In 1899, the two sisters won a dressmaking competition and were commissioned to make a batiste dress for an exhibition. The same year, Flöge handmade the wedding dress for the mother of Gustav Klimt's heiress Maria Altmann.

In partnership with her sister Helene, after 1904 Flöge established herself as a successful businesswoman and the owner of the haute couture fashion salon Schwestern Flöge (Flöge Sisters) on a major Viennese thoroughfare, the Mariahilfer Strasse. In this salon, which had been designed in the Jugendstil by the architect Josef Hoffmann, she presented designer clothing in the style of the Wiener Werkstätte. Flöge designed bespoke garments, especially loose, patterned dresses in the reform style (a movement also called Victorian dress reform). This style was promoted by the feminist movement in Vienna and was characterized by high bodices, a loose silhouette, and billowing sleeves. After 1938, she worked from the top floor of her home at 39 Ungargasse.

Emilie Flöge was a member of the Viennese bohemian and fin de siècle circles. She was the life companion of the painter Gustav Klimt. In 1891, Helene, one of Emilie's two older sisters, married Ernst Klimt, the brother of Gustav Klimt. When Ernst died in December 1892, Gustav was made Helene's guardian. At that time, Emilie was eighteen years old, and Gustav became a frequent guest at the home of her parents, spending the summers with the Flöge family at Lake Attersee.

After 1891, Klimt portrayed her in many of his works. It is debated if The Kiss (1907–08) depicts Klimt and Flöge as lovers.

Klimt may have drawn some garments for the Flöge salon in the reform dress style, but this is frequently discounted in favor of the idea that the Flöge sisters designed the dresses themselves. The clientele for what was at that time a revolutionary fashion was too small to provide a living, however, and she earned money accordingly through conventional styles. Klimt was painting many women from the upper echelons of Viennese society and thus was able to introduce Emilie Flöge to a prosperous client base. Klimt died from a stroke on 11 January 1918. His last words reportedly were, "Emilie must come." She inherited half of Klimt's estate, the other half going to the painter's family.

Flöge died at the age of 77 in Vienna on 26 May 1952 and was buried in the Flöge-Donner family grave at the Protestant Cemetery in Simmering on 30 May 1952. The cemetery authorities designated it as a celebrity grave and restored the tombstone for the 150th Anniversary Year of Gustav Klimt. The grave is now included on their website.

Legacy Flöge's style has been commented to have influenced the portrait First Lady Michelle Obama, by Amy Sherald in 2018.

In 2024, a contemporary sculpture, created and designed by children and the artist Stephan Goldrajch, was inaugurated in Brussels to recall the Flöge's textile work. It is located opposite the Stoclet Palace, whose dining room mosaic friezes were designed by Klimt.

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References and sources