The Female Lover

Emilie Louise Floge was a successful fashion designer and businesswoman who rose to prominence during the Vienne Secession. Born in 1874, she first worked at her elder sister, Pauline's dressmaking school. After winning a fashion competition, they together with sister Helene, opened up a fashion salon under the name of Schwestern Floge (Floge Sisters) specialising in haute couture. The salon was designed by renowned Secessionist architect Josef Hoffmann and interior designer Koloman Moser. Due to Helene's marriage to Ernst Klimt, she developed a relationship with Gustav Klimt and became his life companion and muse. Floge was noted for reformed dressing - a stern departure from that era's historicst style of corsets and cumbersome full skirts. Coupled with their association with Vienna Werkstatte, Floge's radical aesthetic of loose-fitting, flowing dresses made her a celebrated figure in the Viennese feminist groups.

Floge favoured folk-inspired costume
Japanese textiles

Floge introduced loose-fitting, flowing dresses

Her eccentric style rejected the historicist
fashion norm of that time

Floge's dresses in bold prints and patterns

Pictured here with Gustav Klimt

Her eclectic and bohemian style celebrated
freedom, self expression and ethnic tolerance

Schwestern Floge's label

Floge Salon - designed by Josef Hoffmann

Floge Salon - interiors by Koloman Moser

All images sourced from Google Images