Zina de Plagny

biography

Zina de Plagny

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Zenaïde de Plagny  was born in Petrograd (now called Saint-Petersburg) on the 25th March 1914. Her father Alexis de Plagny, a Russian with French origins, died during the 1st World War.

Soon after the Russian revolution, her mother emigrated to Paris with her children. The young Zina was sent to a boarding-school in Châlons-sur -Marne, as her mother was obliged to work.

In 1932 she married a friend of her brother’s and mother’s, a Russian immigrant  called Leon Koudine who was working in a textile design studio. From that moment she was immediately involved in artistic creation and Haute Couture. Wearing the clothes made by Nina Ricci and drawn by her husband for the fashion magazines she had learnt to appreciate the quality of fabrics and cuts. He was also her mentor in textile design.

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When he died prematurely at the age of 39 she was only 25 but the robust training she got from him and her mother’s support -they were always very close- helped her progress further in working as a designer in various design studios and then nursing a personal project that  came to fruition after the war when she founded the ATELIER ZINA DE PLAGNY.

She recruited several talented designers, both men and women, some of whom had already worked for her husband in the extremely creative context of the ’30s. In some of the drawings produced by the studio one can observe the influence of various artists and movements of the time such as Matisse, Dufy or even the Constructivists while others, then most innovative, look surprisingly contemporary today, which lead some of today’s publishers to use certain drawings for their production.

Despite the economic difficulties that followed the war there were then many fabric manufacturers and they appreciated the designs from the Atelier Zina de Plagny. The main customers were the silk weavers in Lyon -Bianchini-Férier, Buchet and Colcombet- but she also had customers in Italy, Switzerland, Great-Britain…

She retired from her professional occupation a few years after marrying Jacques Bédel  de Buzareingues but retained very vivid memories of it all that she shared with her children and grandchildren in colourful tales until she died on the 24th April 2000.

Leon Koudine and Zina de Plagny’s design studios

leon-koudine-bio

LEON KOUDINE (1900-1939)

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Leonid Maximovich Koudine - Leon Koudine - was born on the 28th of May 1900 in Rostov-on-Don (Russia) and developed an interest for graphic arts very early on : as a teenager he published caricatures in the local paper.

After the Russian revolution in 1917 he moved to France and worked at first in the Renault factory, as did many Russian immigrants. He then went into partnership with Eugene Okolov who already owned a textile design studio and after a few years recruited some ten collaborators, one of whom was Paul Mansouroff arrived in France in 1929. Their various but complementary artistic inspirations, floral motifs and research on abstractions through geometric forms, were extremely successful.

From 1936 on, Leon Koudine devoted his work to drawing fashion illustrations for Haute Couture houses such as Maggy Rouff, the Callot Sisters, Marcel Rochas, Molyneux, Worth and more specifically Nina Ricci. Koudine regularly published his drawings in many magazines, including Vogue and Jardin des Modes where he made the cover on several occasions.

Through his work Leon Koudine was able to enliven the Haute Couture models with his vision of modern women. He succeeded in capturing the spirit of Parisian fahion in his drawings and was indeed very much at ease himself in the elegant circles of Paris which at the time included Russian immigrants working in Art, Fashion and Shows.

His drawings combined the elegance of dress lines and beauty of feminine models, often enhanced by floral motifs inspired from the vegetation on the French Riviera.

Just as he was to start working in New-York at Vogue’s request, he died of tuberculosis on the 15th of March 1939 at Sallanches, in the French Alps, where he was being treated.

His wife Zenaide de Plagny (1914-2000), Russian with some French blood, who had arrived in France after the 1917 revolution and was working with him, continued creating textile designs with the help of one of her husband’s close collaborators, Mr Locatelli.

From the moment she married Leon Koudine in 1932 she was immediately involved in artistic creation and Haute Couture. Wearing the clothes made by Nina Ricci and drawn by her husband for the fashion magazines she had learnt to appreciate the quality of fabrics and cuts. He was also her mentor in textile design.

When he died prematurely at the age of 35 she was only 25 but the robust training she got from him and her mother’s support – they were always very close – helped her progress further in working as a designer in various design studios and then nursing a personal project that came to fruition after the war when she founded the ATELIER ZINA DE PLAGNY.

She recruited several talented designers, both men and women, some of whom had already worked for her husband in the extremely creative context of the ‘30s. In some of the drawings produced by the studio one can observe the influence of various artists and movements of the time such as Matisse, Dufy or even the Constructivists while others, then most innovative, look surpringly contemporary today, which lead some of today’s publishers to use certain drawings for their production.

Despite the economic difficulties that followed the war there were then many fabric manufacturers and they appreciated the designs from the Atelier Zina de Plagny. The main customers were the silk weavers in Lyon – Bianchini-Férier, Buchet and Colombet – but she also had customers in Italy, Switzerland, Great Britain…

She retired from her professional occupation a few years after marrying Jacques Bédel de Buzareingues but retained very vivid memories of it all that she shared with her children and grandchildren in colourful tales until she died on the 24th April 2000.