[5] For the first couple of years of its existence, Courrèges was known for well-tailored suits and dresses with geometric seaming, clean lines,[7] and the standard knee-length hemlines of the time,[8] somewhat like Pierre Cardin of the period.

[15][16] Designers that season showed women's boots of all heights for the first time,[17][18] establishing a norm that would continue in autumn collections for at least the next fifteen years.

[24] They introduced miniskirts to the haute couture, popularized pantsuits, and made flat shoes,[25] white boots, metallic silver, and oversized glasses[26] characteristic elements of 1960s fashion.

[27] They were still strictly haute couture collections, but they conveyed the futuristic Space Age pulse of the time with spare,[28][29] adroitly tailored clothes that simultaneously gave women a sense of freedom and suggested deeper societal changes.

[42][43][44] Their influence would extend through about 1967,[45] touching everyone from top hairdresser Vidal Sassoon[46] to Coco Chanel, who showed her first pantsuits a few months after Courrèges introduced them to the couture in 1964.

[58] Courrèges's short skirts, braless torsos, waistless dresses, flat shoes, and trousers during this period were indeed freeing for women, but the clothes also continued the 1950s tendency to impose an artificial silhouette on the body[59] via strong, 1950s-style tailoring[60] that some described as stiff,[61] rigid,[62] and soldierly.

[63] His spring 1964 collection continued to feature his distinctive boots, popularized pantsuits,[64] and brought above-the-knee skirts to Paris haute couture for the first time.

[73] They were paired with simple, well-tailored, geometric-looking coats, jackets, and tunics featuring prominent buttons, low-set martingales, and the pocket flaps that would become one of Courrèges's signature design details.

[84][85] Trousers dominated the showing, slit over the instep like those he had shown the previous season but with a slightly narrower cut and pronounced creases in front and back.

[107][108][109] He continued with his spare, futuristic autumn 1964 styles into spring of 1965, when he shortened his skirts even more and opened the toes of his signature calf-high white boots.

[131] His new shorter skirts were given the most emphasis this time, still carefully tailored to a geometric trapeze shape in minimal, sleeveless or short-sleeved shift dresses, many with small, rolled, stand-away collars and lapels.

These suspender skirts were often in wide horizontal stripes with matching coats or jackets and worn with sleeveless or minimally sleeved white tops.

[150] Valerie Steele has stated that Courrèges was designing short skirts as early as 1961, although she champions Quant's claim to have created the miniskirt first as being more convincingly supported by evidence.

[150] Alongside short skirts, Courrèges was renowned for his trouser suits, cut-out backs and midriffs, all designed for a new type of athletic, active young woman.

"[148] One of Courrèges's most distinctive looks, a knit bodystocking with a gabardine miniskirt slung around the hips, was widely copied and plagiarised, much to his chagrin, and it would be 1967 before he again held a press showing for his work.

[161][162] Like a number of particularly young designers of the time,[163][164] he began to see haute couture, with its multiple fittings and high cost, as outdated and out of step with modern women's lives and with economic realities.

The same month, he introduced a ready-to-wear line to be sold in a new boutique downstairs from his Paris couture salon,[169] which had moved from Kleber Avenue to François I Street.

Skirts were still mini length – even more so, in fact;[179][180] shoes were still flat;[181][182] and there was still a lot of white[183] and a futuristic look to everything, but lines were now more rounded and curvilinear,[184][185][186][187] there was more color,[188][189][190] and there was less stiffness.

There was now even more of a child-like look than there had been when he showed baby bonnet-looking headgear in 1964, as he presented occasional infant-style rompers[195] and his models painted big freckles on their faces[196][197] and wore their hair in little girl-style ponytails on either side of the head.

[231][232] Courrèges's expressions of this tendency included continued use of stark white; circular and curvilinear geometry;[233][234][235] lots of zippers, tabs,[236][237][238] and snaps;[239][240][241] and prominent use of plastic[242][243] and vinyl,[244][245] though traditional fabrics of more substantial body like wools and cottons still made up the bulk of his textiles.

[248] That year, it was unclear to fashion-watchers whether the mini-favoring modernists would prevail or the midi-pushing nostalgics, and Courrèges, Gernreich, et al were briefly focused on as potential leaders again, as they had been in the mid-sixties.

[264] The trend toward bareness and nudity of the time was also acknowledged by Courrèges in see-through fabrics,[265][266][267] runway toplessness,[268][269][270] and backs so low they revealed the derrière,[271] as well as more traditional devices like plunging surplice and keyhole necklines.

[2] His womenswear from 1972 through '79 conformed to some extent to the trends of the time, but he remained devoted to shorter hems than most[293] and to continued use of plastic, metallic silver, and white during this era of longer skirts,[294][295] natural fibers,[296][297] and earthtones.

[302][303] Courrèges adapted to this new environment by lengthening his shortest daytime skirts to just above the knee (which was considered mini-length by the mid-seventies),[304] including a few knee-covering day lengths (just below the knee in 1974,[305] to the calf in 1977),[306] softening his silhouette via some fuller cuts,[307][308][309][310] reflecting trends in trouser shape by showing flared pants in the early seventies and pegged pants toward the end of the period,[311] employing layering,[312] incorporating some softer colors,[313][314] and accessorizing with soft berets,[315] mufflers, and some boots that had the deep-toned, luggage-quality leather look of the high-fashion boots of the time.

[317][318] Though softening and increased color had also been part of his 1967-71 direction, fashion writers seemed to forget about that and instead compared his 1970s work only to his 1964-65 peak-of-fame collections, writing as though he had abruptly gone from the angular tailoring and geometric shapes of his 1964-65 lines to the fuller, softer garments he was showing in the 1970s.

[323][324] In 1972, he followed Pierre Cardin, Valentino, and some others in placing his logo visibly on many of his garments,[325] most notably sweaters, which quickly became status symbols and profitable mainstays of his output.

[355][356] Courrèges's ballgowns were in both full-skirted shapes[357] and more experimental silhouettes and incorporated a lot of plastic,[358] large stiff ruffles,[359] and even hoops.

[365] In 1978 and '79, signs appeared among the avant-garde[366][367] and then mainstream designers[368][369][370] of a sixties revival, and Courrèges reintroduced some of his most famous styles from the mid-sixties, adding more primary color for interest.

The line consisted of "architecturally-sculpted, double-breasted coats with contrasting trim, well-tailored, sleeveless or short-sleeved minidresses with dropped waistlines and detailed welt seaming, and tunics worn with hipster pants".

President François Hollande went to Twitter to say, "A revolutionary designer, André Courrèges made his mark on haute couture using geometric shapes and new materials.