Madam Grès has a special place in the couture pantheon. No one has ever made a Grecian gown as did this high priestess of the pin-tuck pleat. Known for the draping and sculpting of fabric into states of pure flow, she could also create great volumes. Her goddess gowns look like they’ve alighted from Mount Olympus, yet they can be strangely biomorphic too. She herself was a powerhouse. When Nazi forces ordered Grès, a Jew, to make utilitarian clothes, she refused. Ditto making evening clothes for their wives. Grès slipped out of Paris and lived in the Pyrenees until the war was over. She then reopened her couture house. This exhibition in Berlin, a collaboration between the city’s Museum of Decorative Arts and School of Culture and Design, is the first on Madame Grès in Germany. It centers on 25 garments that are displayed with accessories, graphics, drawings, photographs, sculptures, textile objects, and multimedia installations (films, projections). Student work inspired by Grès is also in the show. —Laura Jacobs