Style

A Rakish History of Men's Wear

This 2007 New York Public Library exhibit is appealing, especially with a subtitle of The Story of Men's Fashion Told Through Its Rebels and Rakes, from tight hose and doublets to codpieces and the wasp-waisted frock coat that preceded the modern suit.

"Included in the exhibition are gorgeous hand-colored etchings by Raphael Jacquemin (1821-1881) and chromolithographs by Auguste Racinet (1825-1893), fashion illustrators and historians who worked during the golden age of 19th-century fashion design publishing. Also included are several simple, yet elegant, colored posters by Edward Penfield (1866-1925), a master illustrator known for his cover art for Harper's. More contemporary men's fashions are demonstrated by advertisements for brands such as Ralph Lauren, Versace, Giorgio Armani, Comme des Garçons, and Vivienne Westwood."

"Sumptuary laws (which restricted certain fashions to men of specific social status), chivalric codes, spiritual and martial values, dandyism, and the growth of a bourgeois middle class radically altered the nature of men's wear. By the 19th century, a male preference for subdued black garments took hold. Later in the century, men's clothing took a back seat to the vagaries of women's fashion. Yet the contemporary taste for street chic in suits and casual clothes shows that men still possess a style-consciousness with deep roots in the past."

"The exhibition's second section explores man's historical penchant for clothes that identified his social rank and occupation. Not surprisingly, popes, emperors, kings, and nobles dressed with a luxuriousness that was unavailable to the common man. The loose silk robes of the Emperor of China, from Edward Hargraves's A Collection of the Dresses of Different Nations, Ancient and Modern, contrasts greatly with the robes worn by Arab nobility; nonetheless both costumes confer great authority on the wearer. Magnificent garments were expected of those in the highest echelons of society, such as those in the papal court, as seen in a curious fold-out book from the 19th century, Corte e milizie pontificie."

"No occupation has influenced men's fashion, both ancient and modern, more than the military. Knights, such as those depicted in A Critical Inquiry into Ancient Armour by Samuel Rush Meyrick (1783-1848), dressed with special attention to their importance in society and were frequently innovators of new fashions. Doublets and trousers went from being specialized military garments to fashionable dress for everyday civilians. Linen armorers, those who fitted soldiers with padded garments to wear under their armor, developed sewing techniques that gave rise to the art of tailoring. In the 20th century, advances in technology accelerated, and innovations in clothing fabrics, fasteners, and metallic components were adopted for civilian wear."

Preposterous Hairstyles

Yale's Library retains online the 2003 exhibit, Preposterous Headdresses and Feathered Ladies: Hair, Wigs, Barbers, and Hairdressers:

"In the second half of the eighteenth century the hair of the fashionable world in England soared to new heights.  From the Lewis Walpole Library’s collection here is a selection of prints focused on hair and wigs, and on the hairdressers and barbers who created and tended them. 

"These images of 'preposterous' hairstyles give evidence of the increased economic prosperity that made possible such extreme fashions as well as the luxury goods necessary to them. At the time of publication, the prints also served to communicate and disseminate the latest styles to a broader public.

"English women borrowed fashionable hairstyles from France, particularly Marie Antoinette’s fanciful headdresses, and English men returning from the Grand Tour brought back fashions as well as objets d’art.  From the beginning there was ambivalence among the English about extravagant fashion, and the extreme style adopted by the young gentlemen back from their European travels, dubbed 'Macaronies,' was usually portrayed as ridiculous and sometimes even as unnatural. In 1764 Horace Walpole mentioned 'The Maccaroni Club (which is composed of all the travelled young men who wear long curls and spying-glasses),' and a writer in the Oxford Magazine had this to say in 1770: 'There is indeed a kind of animal, neither male nor female, a thing of the neuter gender, lately started up amongst us. It is called Macaroni. It talks without meaning, it smiles without pleasantry, it eats without appetite, it rides without exercise, it wenches without passion.' "

"In addition to reflecting an English distrust of Continental (specifically French and Italian) excess in dress and manner, some of the prints also point up the confusion and sense of disorder caused by attempts at upward mobility. Satiric images abound of men and women putting on the clothes, and trying for the manners and hairstyles, of the upper classes."

Here are a couple of examples of the exhibit's text:

The Preposterous Head Dress, or the Featherd Lady: "Both the lady and her maid sport the inverted heart-shaped pyramid all the rage in 1776 and 1777.  The Duchess of Devonshire was said to have begun the fashion for ostrich feathers, seen here decorating the headdress along with fruit and carrots.  Late in her life Lady Louisa Stuart wrote about the opposition to ostrich feathers as part of a headdress: 'This fashion was not attacked as fantastic or unbecoming or inconvenient or expensive, but as seriously wrong or immoral. The unfortunate feathers were insulted mobbed burned almost pelted.' "

Lady All-Top: "Shown here is another magnificent heart-shaped pyramid of hair adorned with ostrich feathers, beads, and flowers, of the sort made fashionable by the Duchess of Devonshire in 1776.  These hairstyles were labor-intensive and required cushions and wool, pomatum and powder, and an array of decorations.  They were uncomfortable, they attracted insects and mice, and they could be fire hazards."

Renoir at the Theatre: Looking at La Loge

London's Courtauld Gallery is showing La Loge, a painting by Renoir which not only examines painterly techniques, but the style of the women portrayed.

Renoir at the Theatre is a film introducing the exhibition by curator Dr Barnaby Wright: Watch the movie [5:03 min]

Looking in detail at Renoir’s La Loge with Professor John House. Watch the movie [3:10 min]

Caricatures and Fashion Plates is a close look at the exhibition’s displays of nineteenth-century fashion magazines and caricature journals with curator Dr Barnaby Wright. Watch the movie [3:52 min]

From another perspective, the Courtauld draws attention to individual elements in the painting:

Jewelry: Diamond earrings, a pearl necklace and a gold bracelet were luxury accessories completing the composition. The rose on Nini's dress draws our eyes towards a fashionably enticing décolletage, which was afforded by new developments in the manufacture of corsetry.

Dress: For the sitters of La Loge, Renoir chose his brother Edmund and Nini Lopez, a model from Montmartre known as ‘Fish-Face’.

Edmund wears formal attire, consisting of a gilet, white shirt, starched cravat, black trousers and gold cufflinks, and is typical of an evening dress worn for the elite theatres.  The sobriety of male dress eschewed class divisions, celebrating the growing social and political legitimacy of the middle classes.  It also served to draw attention to the exuberant styles of their female companions.

Nini models a fashionable tenue de premiere, which was a dress to be worn for the opening night of a performance. This demi-toilette was known as the polonaise and consisted of an over-gown, which was looped up at the sides and back to create softly draped layers of fabric and is typical of the fashionable revival of eighteenth century styles.

Fashion was vital to the economy and came to form an icon of French national identity. With the aid of Hassmann's revolutionary changes to the urban physique, the number of couturiers rocketed and new inventions such as the sewing machine allowed the mass production of more intricate and elaborate forms of dress. 

Article

Rose Mula, Do You Believe That Outfit?!: At least our clothing today is more democratic. We all have the right to look slutty and cheap, regardless of our social standing. And, of course, the fewer clothes we wear, the easier our laundry. (Wouldn’t you have hated to be Elizabeth I’s personal maid?)

Discarded to Divine

Recently my husband remarked on the number of vintage clothing stores that had sprung up since we last walked the streets of a little town nearby.

Most women have taken note of the vintage clothing phenomenon for the last quarter century and have taken advantage of the beautifully made older clothes that can add to a wardrobe, particularly for dressier events. We chose Victorian beaded pieces for party events and a beaded 20s flapper dress from Sophia's Great Dames in Greenwich, CT served as a wedding dress for one of our daughters.

Discarded to Divine is a further step adding to that appreciation for older clothing. The San Francisco St. Vincent de Paul Society has been inviting aspiring and professional designers as well as dedicated volunteers since 2005 to reuse the clothing donated to the venerably charity. A fashion show and fundraiser highlighting these imaginative and fashionable recyclables is being held for a third year.

2008 creations are available on Flickr, as well as those from previous years. It certainly makes one rethink those clothes you might be thinking of donating if you're handy with a pair of shears and a sewing needle.

The Exploratorium, also in San Francisco, is debuting an exhibit called Second Skin: Imaginative Designs in Digital and Analog Clothing.

A press release explains the offerings: "Don't miss demonstrations of the latest trends in heated clothes, electroluminescent wire, soft circuitry, green innovations and new materials. A selection of artists will be using recycled materials such as soda cans and ping pong balls. You'll see Karen Wilkinson's jackets and hats made of layers of plastic bags and danger tape, or Anna Rochester's Snickers wrappers dress, and dresses made of old-fashioned filmstrips.

"We'll also have a demo about soft circuitry, which includes metal thread that conducts electricity. You'll see how to fashion snaps and zippers into electronic parts. A live demonstration called Cool Neon Crochet will be all about EL wire (electroluminescent wire). In a free workshop called Bling, explore LEDs, conductive thread and simple circuits, and build blinking baubles and bodily adornments of all kinds."

Walk This Way

Boston's Museum of Fine Arts is hosting an exhibit of footwear entitled aptly enough, Walk This Way:

 While shoes serve a practical function by protecting our soles from the elements and hazards underfoot, they have also become highly ornamented objects of obsession. Whatever the materials or the cost, however, shoes always reflect the time and place in which they were made and worn and the culture that produced them. Walk This Way, unlike any footwear exhibition in the past, places shoes — from ancient Egyptian and Nubian sandals to new acquisitions representing the best in contemporary design — throughout the MFA's galleries to illustrate their relationship to other works of art. These provocative juxtapositions provide insights into the history, ornamentation, and cultural importance of footwear. In this treasure hunt of an exhibition, visitors might find a pair of Venetian chopines next to a painting of the city by Canaletto, a woman's shoe from the late 1790s embroidered with neoclassical scrolling grape vines exhibited with an ancient statue of the Greek god Dionysus, or a pair of contemporary wedges with rococo carved heels from MIU MIU's most recent collection alongside eighteenth-century carved and gilt furniture."

View all the images from Walk This Way

One example of men's slippers:

Shoes with upturned toes have been worn in northern Iran and Anatolia since at least the second millennium B.C. Evidence of their early popularity survives in shoe-shaped vessels that were often buried with the dead. The fashion for the upturned toe has survived until the present day. It is especially popular in India, where it was introduced at the fifteenth-century Mughal court of Jahangir — a time of great Persian influence in South Asia. Mojaris, like those shown here, are still worn in northwestern India at special festive occasions like weddings.

Leather uppers embroidered with green and pink silk and yellow metallic yarns; triple gilded leather bands at red leather binding. Upturned pointed toes; copper wire-bound points at vamp throats; green leather piece at quarter points. Two layer leather sole. Red silk insoles embroidered with gilt-copper yarns.

Exoticism

The Fashion Insitute of Technology Museum is hosting an exhibit on Exoticism.

FIT introduces their online exhibit in this fashion:

"Fashion and textile designers often take their inspiration from 'exotic' styles originating in 'foreign' cultures. But for whom is something exotic and foreign? During the centuries of European expansion, exoticism encompassed most of the non-Western world. Historically, this meant that European designers, such as Paul Poiret and Yves Saint Laurent, appropriated design elements from places as diverse as Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. But this exhibition demonstrates that exoticism in fashion has changed profoundly as we have moved from the Eurocentrism of the past to the hybridity of today’s 'global village.' "

"The concept of the exotic has many positive connotations — unlike related words such as 'strange' and 'alien.' Exoticism has typically been suffused with romance, sexuality, and novelty. Just as spices and silk traveled along trade routes, so too have fantasies and stereotypes of the exotic, mysterious “other.' This romantic conception of the exotic crystallized in the 19th century during the heyday of Western colonial expansion."

[The late] "Edward Said famously argued in his book, Orientalism, that exoticism patronizes and misrepresents other cultures. Yet other scholars have suggested that 'the presentation of one culture for consumption by another' can also promote cultural dialogue. As the anthropologist Clifford Geertz notes, 'To see ourselves as others is eye opening.' "

"As a result of globalization and multiculturalism, exoticism is becoming much more relativistic. Japanese designers such as Kenzo launched hybrid East-West styles as early as the 1970s. Today, designers from Brazil, Turkey, and Korea show their collections in Paris and New York. India and China also are becoming major fashion players. Although Western brands still dominate the fashion scene, emerging markets and the Internet are giving rise to a wealth of local fashion centers and there are many young designers with new perspectives on what constitutes exoticism."

Continue with the exhibit at FIT's Museum by clicking the next button at the top of the page.

Contents of Pockets

Again the wonderful V&A provides an online exhibit, this time Contents of Pockets:

"Many pockets held objects essential to personal grooming, such as a mirror, scent bottle, snuffbox and comb.

"In the Female Spectator of 1745, the editor Eliza Haywood advises on the use of snuff and scent:

'The snuffbox and smelling-bottle are pretty trinkets in a lady's pocket, and are frequently necessary to supply a pause in conversation, and on some other occasions. But whatever virtues they are possessed of, they are all lost by a too constant and familiar use. And nothing can be more pernicious to the Brain, or render one more ridiculous in Company, than to have either of them perpetually in one's hand.'

"One of Jack the Ripper's victims, Annie Chapman, was found wearing a pocket that had contained a small-tooth comb and a pocket comb in a paper case (Philip Sugden, The Complete History of Jack the Ripper, 1994).

"James Henry Leigh Hunt wrote a collection of essays in 1812 which included a description of an 'old lady' and the contents of her pockets,

'In one is her handkerchief, and any heavier matter that is not likely to come out with it, such as the change of sixpence. In the other is a miscellaneous assortment, consisting of a pocket-book, a bunch of keys, a needle-case, a spectacle-case, crumbs of biscuit, a nutmeg and grater, a smelling-bottle, and, according to the season, an orange or apple, which after many days she draws out, warm and glossy, to give to some little child that has well behaved itself.'

Buying and Losing Pockets details:

"Many pockets were handmade and they were often given as gifts. Some were made to match a petticoat or waistcoat. Some were made over from old clothes or textiles. Pockets could also be bought 'ready made'. On the tradecard shown, the haberdasher (seller of dress accessories) advertises both pockets and fabrics to make pockets.

"Grandmama's Pockets, written in 1849, is a story about the contents of a little girl's grandmother's pockets,

'Annie had often longed to peep into them, but was afraid. She knew their contents were numerous, and very tempting. Amongst them was a large silver bon-bon box, with a puzzle top to it — and a cup and ball, which she was permitted to play with when she was very good.'

In addition you might want to read Pockets Go Out of Fashion:

In the 1790s women's fashions changed very dramatically.  Wide hoops and full petticoats went out of style. Instead, dresses had a high waistline and skirts that fell close to the body and legs. 

Where would you tie your pockets?  At your waist, or at the waist of the dress?  Wouldn't all those hankies and nutmeg graters and scissors and spectacles and apples in your pocket ruin the line of the dress?

As a solution, women began to use reticules, decorative bags designed be carried over the arm in the manner of our contemporary handbag. However, reticules are very small. There was barely enough room for a hankie and a coin, never mind the mirror, watch, keys, needlecase and oranges that a pocket usually contained.

Theresa Tidy, Eighteen Maxims of Neatness and Order, 1819:

'Never sally forth from your own room in the morning without that old-fashioned article of dress — a pocket. Discard forever that modern invention called a ridicule (properly reticule).'

Finally, the V&A helpfully provides instructions for making one's own pocket:

"But you don't have to buy new material to make a pocket. Many were made up of fabric from old clothes and textiles. So rummage through any fabrics you are about to throw away and use them to make a pocket."

Philadelphia and Kyoto's & Costumes

Finding objects held by the Philadelphia Museum at it's website, is a challenge. We understand that due to 'sensitivity to light and other conservation concerns" items are rotated frequently. But we would have preferred that the Museum make more examples of their large collection available on the website in a logical progression.

Nonetheless, we entered just the words Grace Kelly, and her wedding dress appeared:

"The dress, created to complement the 'fairy princess' beauty of the actress, features a bell-shaped skirt of ivory peau de soie supported by petticoats, and a high-necked bodice of Brussels lace, which was re-embroidered to render the seams invisible and then accented with seed pearls. Continuing the theme of pearl-embellished lace are the bride’s prayer book, shoes, headpiece, and circular silk net veil — designed so that Miss Kelly’s face could be seen — all of which is also on view."

The single word, costume, brings up 97 matches, including a bustier, buckle and a Manchu woman's burial robe, "decorated with the animals of the zodiac representing the twelve terrestrial branches and figures carrying the attributes of the eight Daoist immortals."

On the other hand, Kyoto's Costume Institute Digital Archive organizes its collection by grouping the historic gowns by era.

Download a Couture Dress to Make and Design a Shoe

The Victoria&Albert Museum is presenting an exhibit, The Golden Age of Couture; Paris and London 1947 — 1957.

"Christian Dior's New Look in 1947 marked the beginning of a momentous decade in fashion history, one that Dior himself called the 'golden age'. Celebrating the end of war and the birth of a new era, it set a standard for dressmaking and high fashion that has rarely been surpassed."

Besides the exhibit itself, features include the ability to create a couture dress: download and print at home on A4 paper, or at a printer’s on larger ized paper. You must then assemble the printed sheets to form the pattern. Full instructions on this are given in the Pattern Instructions which are in UK sizes 10, 12 and 14. The dress itself is a Day Dress by Horrockses Fashion

After you've finished making the dress, you can try your hand at designing a shoe and then you can submit your shoe design into a competition judged by rofessor Jimmy Choo OBE.

And, of course, send those couture postcards. Unfortunately, you can't enter the competition unless you live in the UK or Northern Ireland.

Paul Poiret

Although we've mentioned the designer, Paul Poiret, previously in this column, we recently visited New York City and the Met Museum to view his Costume Institute exhibit, King of Fashion.

Even though the forms he chose to clothe his models (and more prominently, his wife) were simple, his use of sumptuous fabrics and exotic draping established his reputation. As the introduction to the exhibit comments, "the exhibition explores Poiret’s modernity in relation to and as an expression of the dominant discourses of the early 20th century, including Cubism, Classicism, Orientalism, Symbolism, and Primitivism." This is in evidence with the textile design created by Raoul Dufy and used in a coat for Poiret's wife, Denise, dubbed "La Perse" and made with ivory and blue-black block-printed cotton velvet trimmed with brown rabbit.

The shoes, "Le Bal," worn by Denise Poiret in 1924, were made of leather with polychrome seed-bead embroidery, and could compete with the elaborate designs of footwear today.

SOFTLab, an animation company, provided two films of Poiret's art of fashion construction. The company's assignment:

" ... to create two animations for their exhibition Poiret: King of Fashion which opened on May 9th. The main interest of the project was to showcase how the structural complexity of Poiret's garments is achieved with great economy of means." Click on the two blue Qs.

A CBS-TV video segment on the exhibit is well worth a look for the clothes themselves and the biographic material covering Poiret and his wife.

The book accompanying the exhibit (which we purchased), Poiret by François Baudot notes his innovations, in part:

Before the First World War, Poiret replaced black (and white) stockings with flesh-colored ones and developed the suspender belt to hold them up. He also promoted the girdle, which by this time had replaced the corset. Thanks to these three innovations, the curve of the leg was revealed for the first time — by now means an unimportant development. In addition, it was he who put women's breasts into the "soft harness" of the bust bodice, or brassiere. After this, having made the slender silhouette fashionable, he launched the sheath dress, the sack dress, and the culotte skirt, and these simplified shapes inevitably brought with them an economy of design, at any rate in comparison with the extravagance of the Second Empire or the Belle Époque."

Jewelry by Artists

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts is presenting Jewelry by Artists: The Daphne Farago Collection.

"Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, studio jewelry artists — working independently of the commercial jewelry industry — made innovative jewelry that explored contemporary art movements, social issues, and conceptual themes. Using both precious and nontraditional materials, they created one-of-a-kind or limited-edition wearable works of art."

The online exhibit allows an interactive approach making possible a close examination of the 150 pieces.

About fifteen years ago we attended an exhibit of William Harper's jewelry in NYC. The following is a description of one of his pieces here:

"William Harper sees his work as an expression of his emotions, sexuality, and spirituality. He uses enamel to create evocative painterly effects, and by avoiding high-gloss surfaces he allows viewers to see deeply into the translucent material, as if into his inner world. In this brooch, Harper interprets the Hindu deity Kali as a force for both creative energy (represented by the color red) and of all-consuming destruction (the color black), combined with references to both male and female Hindu sexual symbols. " (Number 6)

Another organic approach is on view by John Paul Miller, "who studied and taught at the Cleveland Institute of Art, inspired many jewelry makers represented in this exhibition, including William Harper and Thomas Gentille. Miller admired the sophisticated metalwork of the ancient Etruscans, especially their use of gold granulation (a delicate process in which tiny balls of pure gold are fused to a gold surface). Miller reinvigorated this ancient technique and used it to great textural effect on elegant pendants and brooches that recall mysterious marine creatures. Along with granulation, Miller used enamels to give subtle, mottled coloration to the surface of Polyp Colony." (Number 5)

And Kiff Slemmons' necklace made of wooden rulers and silver is a witty approach to her art:

"In her work, Kiff Slemmons mixes forged and cast components with 'found' objects such as typewriter keys, pencils, and rulers. Her interest in instruments of writing and communication reflect a childhood spent at her father's printing press as well as her belief in jewelry's ability to present narratives. Slemmons writes that my materials, often referred to as 'found,' are above all ideas-ideas proposed and examined through evolving bodies of work ... rather than individual pieces intended as ends in themselves." (Number 11)

Article

Rose Mula, The Curse of the Purse: The clutch is out and the mini-suitcase is de rigueur… bags so huge and heavy, even when empty, they should be on wheels. The irony is that despite the bags’ multiple compartments designed to keep things organized, you can never remember where you put what

Women's fashion in nineteenth-century Paris

Drypoints handcolored with watercolor and consisting of a hundred plates, this New York Public Library digital collection, is a delicate and informing approach to womens' fashion 1801 to 1900. The artist is Henri Boutet.

Ladies' dress shoes of the nineteenth century is another of the digital collections. Illustrations include three bronze shoes, the first worn on stage by the actress Miss Ada Cavendish. There is a single strap shoe in French grey satin, and two blue shoes, all embroidered, as well as a shoe of silver brocade; shoe embroidered in white silk and silver beads, with a single ankle strap; shoe of plain silver kid with enlongated toe, beaded by small silver ornament. There's also a "Brocade shoe; red and white satin shoe; shoe belonging to Rosa Anderson, a fair maid of Perth, whose elopement created a great sensation in bygone days in the town, to whose Council her husband belonged."

Essay

Julia Sneden, The Wedding Dress: My great grandmother Abby dyed her wedding dress black, and proceeded to wear it for the rest of her life. When fashions changed, she remade it to suit the mode, from hoop to bustle to whatever the current style commanded. Despite bearing nine children, she remained tall and slender and able to fit into the dress

Is Green the New Black? A 'wardrobe audit' regarding eco, ethical and sustainable fashion

"This questionnaire has been developed to gauge and audit opinions on consumer habits in relation to eco, ethical and sustainable fashion. You can find out more about Is Green the New Black? at London College of Fashion."

Some of the questions posed:

Are you interested in purchasing and wearing garments you consider to be ethically designed and sustainably produced?

and

Do you have any garments in your wardrobe that you know to have been fairly-traded?

The questionnaire can be viewed at the College site.

Corsets and Crinoline

Again, the V&A has pulled together a informative sociological exhibit to highlight a piece of clothing women will condone, at least for short fashion periods.

By the 1880s the corset had become a very elegant and desirable object in a woman's wardrobe and much attention paid to its design and execution. The rapid growth of the corset manufacturing industries meant that there was greater variety in materials, colour, size and fit.

A Turn Toward the Bust: Early 20th Century

By 1910, corsets were cut so long that they reached well over the thighs. They also tended to be shaped very low around the bust line so women would need more support on top - if at least to preserve decency with the low-cut evening dresses of the time.

All Tied-Up: The Corset in Contemporary Fashion

The disappearance and reappearance of the corset in 20th century fashion seem to be linked to the cyclical changing of female shapes, especially to the waist being enhanced or concealed.

V&A's Fashion in Motion & the Sixties

The Victoria and Albert Museum has been holding fashion shows for quite a while. And, although the English are not generally recognized as leaders of the style field, they've been exploring new and innovative talents.

We've particularly like their Africa collection. Quite startling was the appearance of one of Tata's models, clearly an older women in a number of the runway shots. The 'lightbox' index shows the entire collection as viewed at the Museum. Here's an excerpt from their biography at the site:

Russian twins Tamara and Natasha Surguladze have christened their dress label Tata-Naka, in memory of their collective childhood nickname. Recent graduates of Central St Martins, this sisters were born in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, formerly part of the Soviet Union. The newly independent nation of Georgia shares a border with Turkey and ethnic influences are evident in the long skirts and boots predominant in the Autumn 2002/Winter 2003 collection.

Naka specialises in dramatically cut skirts and dresses whose simple and elegant shapes recall the constructivist design of the revolutionary period. Garments are tied and wrapped around the body to move with the wearer and belts slung low across the hips. Tata looks back to Soviet propaganda textile prints of the early 1920s for striking motifs like the hammer and sickle as well as smaller scale patterns in bright primaries. Fabrics are rich, lustrous velvets contrasted with georgette or chunky knitwear. Echoes of the past highlight this range of unmistakably contemporary pieces intended as smart urban classics.

Swarovski: Runway Rocks, in association with Istituto Marangoni, displays the immensely popular cut crystal maker's wares.

Before the latest US foreign affairs concerns, the V&A had an exhibit of "works of contemporary Iranian fashion designers Massoud Ansari, Shirin Guild, Maryam Mahdavi, Shadi Parand and Laya Torkaman, from both inside and outside Iran ... ". Shirin Guild has been a particular favorite of ours for easy-to-wear, flattering clothes for the older woman.

The Sixties Fashion exhibit carries an interview with Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin, on the launching of their clothing:

Marion: We thought it was very daring but it was just so comfortable wearing trousers. There weren't many trousers for women that you could buy at the time. And there was this whole problem with mini skirts and what you put on your legs. Stockings in those days were flesh coloured, fine denier and worn with suspender belts. Well, we wanted fun colours, and thicker as well. We found these wonderful Swedish stockings, which we sold in our shop. And I think the trouser suit revolution was just a feeling in the air, that had to happen.

Sally: And, maybe, men looking more feminine and women looking more masculine as well. There was John Stephen suddenly in Carnaby Street making fluffy things for men with bows and frills and things.

There are 11 pages of 1960 dress held in the archives of the V&A's collections to explore including:

From the late 1960s [Zandra] Rhodes made screen printed felt coats with immense flared and circular panels. This coat combines 'Knitted Circle' fabric used for the yoke with a pattern called 'Diamonds and Roses' for the skirt. It was part of the costume of actress Irene Worth in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of the play Tiny Alice staged at the Aldwych Theatre, London, in 1970.

Pattern Language; Clothing as Communicator

Tufts University Art Galley organized an exhibit investigating "clothing as expression and fulfillment of human needs, here and now — needs of the mind, body and soul."

"It highlights works in which artists go beyond the everyday utility of clothing, and instead use clothing, fabric and the body to invent new forms of communication and interaction between wearers, between wearers and their clothes, and between the makers of clothing and the fashion system. The artists here have used the format of garments to critique standard notions about clothing, fashion and society. In many of these works, artists use the familiar nature of clothing to help us imagine the impossible. The works in the exhibition are in most instances either unique or editioned pieces. The exhibition includes historical work, contemporary work and new proposals, as well as interactive and wearable editions, some commissioned specifically for this project."

"The universality and versatility of clothing make it an apt form for artists to use in their investigations of the icon of The Everyman. This category includes Joseph Beuys’s Felt Suit (1970), which references his simple approach to life and the poetic resonance materials can hold for people. In Girl/Boy (1998) the British/ Nigerian artist, Yinka Shonibare, uses the complex history of fabrics to map the relationships created by colonial and gender systems in Africa and Europe. The works in Multi-Tasking put clothing to uses beyond their normal function, pushing them to serve multiple and disassociated activities. In the work SUITS: The Clothes Make the Man (1998), for example, The Art Guys (with designer Todd Oldham), subverted the high price of designer logos by charging corporations to advertise on the suits they wore to public events for one year."

Take the Interactive tour of the exhibit at Tufts. Currently, the exhibit is on tour and can be viewed at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis until January 7, 2007

FIT's Exhibits

The Museum at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology has displayed two exhibits with image galleries, something they've done little of in the past. Below is a part of the introduction:

Love and War: The Weaponized Woman takes a look at the influence of armor and other military styles on fashion. "But it's not all chain mail and camouflage. As designers seek to express sensuality, as well as power, they also reference lingerie."

"If lingerie is like soft skin, armor is a hard exoskeleton,” said Dr. Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of The Museum at FIT. “Lingerie symbolizes nakedness, intimacy and seduction, while armor is associated with authority, protection and discipline. Of course, different designers take different approaches to this dialogue between silk and steel. The British design team Boudicca create styles that evoke transgressive warrior women, while Jean Paul Gaultier does camouflage couture, Issey Miyake makes references to samurai armor, and Narciso Rodriquez blends silk with chain mail.”

The FIT has also installed a permanent exhibit of changing selections from the Museum's permanent collections. The exhibit begins with the year 1750 (click on quadrant sections to reveal the eras covered) and ends with 1950 to the present:

"The objects span 250 years of fashion and textiles, and provide a context for the changing thematic exhibitions in the museum’s lower-level gallery. The gallery opens in a room with an introduction to the museum’s collections and facilities, such as the work of the conservation laboratory. For example, a display showing objects before and after restoration depicts the intricacies of conserving fragile garments. The following three rooms provide a chronological survey of fashion and textile history. Drawing on the museum’s extensive collections, a cocktail dress from 1957 by the great couturier Cristobal Balenciaga, for example, can be compared with a contemporary ensemble designed by Nicolas Ghesquière for the house of Balenciaga. Visitors can immediately get a sense of how much the world has changed over the past 50 years."

When Philip Met Isabella

Philip is the celebrated Irish hat designer and Isabella is that special person designated as muse.

Their collaboration is the subject of an exhibition, When Philip Met Isabella, at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

"Since their first meeting on a fashion shoot in 1989 when Treacy was a student at the Royal College of Art, Blow has been his staunchest supporter and a constant source of inspiration. After leaving the RCA, he lived and worked from the basement of her London house for three years. Many of his most surreal and sculptural hats have been made for her. “Issy never says: ‘You’ve gone too far,’” says Treacy. “She always says: ‘You haven’t gone far enough.’”

"When Philip Met Isabella will explore their collaboration through thirty of the hats he has made for her. Exhibits will include the Ship, an astonishingly realistic replica of an 18th century French ship with full rigging made from miniature buttons, and the rose pink damask Pope modelled on the papal hat.

Also featured will be the Castle inspired by Blow’s ancestral home at Doddington, Cheshire and Ludwig of Bavaria’s magnificent palace. Gilbert and George is a fantastical concoction of pink and green lacquered ostrich feathers. Horns is a black satin replica of the horns of Blow’s flock of ancient Soays sheep. The show will include photographs by Steven Meisel, David LaChapelle, Juergen Teller and Mario Testino of Isabella Blow wearing Treacy’s hats."

A 2002 Guardian Observer article by Tamsin Blanchard on Ms. Blow, Blow by Blow, explains the relationships she has with designers in detail:

"She is a startling-looking woman, not least because she is usually topped off by one of her many famous hats. But even in this most basic of numbers - the hat she would wear to do the housework if that was something she ever felt the urge to do — she is as striking as the portrait she is standing in front of. It's a stylised image of Wallis Simpson by one of Blow's art dealer husband's young artists, Simon Periton. And Blow has similar haughty, handsome, horsey looks. She follows in a line of strong, impenetrable women; she would make a great Mrs Danvers. There is something mesmerising about her strong, well-defined features and, at the same time, quite terrifying."

Bonnie Cashin

The UCLA Charles Young Library Special Collection of Bonnie Cashin (1908 - 2000) includes pictures of her fashion collections as well as some revealing tidbits about the woman herself:

Cashin believed that everyone should have a boutique in their own home with "colors erupting in a barely controlled riot." Never owning a dresser, she preferred to display the foldable garments in her wardrobe as a wall-sized work of art consisting of an ever-changing collage of materials and artifacts. For her hanging garments, she wanted a glass closet but settled for painting the interior of each in her favorite shades of pink, orange, or green.

Passionately concerned about not "torturing" materials, Cashin devised ways to frame and flatter the body with simple geometry and luxury materials, hence her fondness for ponchos, mantles, capes and togas. She featured these garments in her 1949 return collection, titled We Live as We Please.

Emphasizing her objective of dressing "on-the-go" women like herself, she advocated rejection of clothing with "pointless" trimmings, and insistence on "uncluttered, mobile and unselfconscious" wardrobes that would satisfy the urge for adornment as well as relate in a practical way to the day's living patterns. Using her status as a Hollywood insider, Cashin introduced many of her maverick ideas through a filter of film-star glamour. She encouraged new thought about utilitarian clothing concepts via wildly unconventional, and press-friendly, combinations, including ostrich feather aprons and mink ponchos, that were made in a range of materials for the ready-to-wear market.

In developing accessories functionally appropriate for her philosophy of contemporary dress, Cashin revolutionized the handbag industry. Her designs were akin to modern sculpture, dyed to match her favorite candy colors of pink, orange, yellow and green, and lined with exquisite Belgian linens, Mexican cottons, or tweeds designed by her friend and mentor, textile designer Dorothy Liebes. After years of rigid black and brown accessories, clients - and the craftsmen in the Coach factory - raved about the variety of shapes, colors and textures available in the new "Cashin-Carry" designs, all with convenient wide openings or exterior coin purses and pockets.

The text above is quoted directly from the exhibition's text. Enjoy Chic is Where you Find It and the very special designer who said that at age 64, "she was just beginning."

Fashion in Colors

The Cooper-Hewitt "explores color as a design element through 300 years of Western fashion."

Designer profiles at the Fashion in Colors exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt include those of Cristobal Balenciaga, who introduced a style familiar to those of us who remember the '50s: the sack, described as a loose chemise. Others featured here are Kawakubo, Dolce & Gabbana, Fortuny, Galliano, Viktor & Rolf, Vionnet and Piguet as well as others.

But it is the text regarding colors that is both instructive and well illustrated by the examples. Do take care to click on the illustrations at the bottom of the page to take you to additional pages:

The illustration for a robe à la française of silk taffeta cites yellow once thought of as the color of heretics in early Christian culture and the source for the dye as weld.

A section picturing a corset, petticoat and bustle in a blood red color makes note that "dyestuffs obtained from animals were thught to contain unhygeioenic inpurities, and expensive mineral dyes were rarely used for underwear" but after the 1850s synthetic dyes were used in undergarments, allowing such startling colors as red, purple and black to appear.

A dress chosen to highlight the color mauve is thougt to be from France, ca 1974: Before the discovery of aniline dyes, purpole colors were so expensive to product that they wre traditionally reserved for the extremely wealthy. With the advent of inexpensive articifical dyes, all-over mauve fabric become accessible to the general public."

Think of that the next time you put on the royal color, purple.

As many as 60 of these costumes were supplied by the Kyoto Costume Institite which is the " only institution in Japan that specializes in the study of Western fashion."

The Institute's collection online begins with the 1700s and continues through the 1940s.

There's a beautiful Elsa Schiaparelli black velvet evening cape from 1938 embroidered with gold thread, sequins and beads and a 1922 Zimmerman dress from Paris of silk crepe with rose print; panels of black crepe de Chine and black rayon fringe at the hem.

A Paul Poiret woman’s party costume dates from 1913: " Black silk gauze hooped over-dress with gold floral embroidery; belt with gold embroidery; gold fringe; gold lamé silk harem pants with ball ornament at side-hems."

An 1892 Charles Frederick Worth
reception dress is composed of off-white silk satin with woven chrysanthemum pattern with velvet gigot sleeves.

And an c. 1770 English dress of white Spitalfields silk floral damask with double-flounced pagoda sleeves and a compère front would be worthy of a wearing by a Jane Austen heroine.

The Kyoto Institute is a marvelous discovery and one not to be missed on a trip to that city known more famously for its temples.

Costumes from the Index of American Design

Washington, DC's National Gallery of Art has produced a brief survey of American fashions from 1740 to 1895. "Most of the costumes represented are formal or 'fine' garments of the kind that were preserved and handed down in families from one generation to the next. As fashion is influenced by social and political circumstances and by changes in technology, these costumes provide some insight into the character and quality of American life from colonial times into the period of the industrial revolution.

Room by online room houses waistcoats, shoes, vests, dresses, corsets, a comb, a bonnet, a parasol and a fan, among others. Henry De Wolfe, Nancy Crimi, Julie Brush were some of the illustrators who worked on the costume index.

A gymnasium suit from 1895 is described thusly:

During the 1890s, women participated in sports to a greater extent than earlier in the century. Bicycling had gained in popularity and helped make pants or "bloomers" acceptable for women's costumes. The word "bloomers" is taken from the name of Mrs. Amelia Bloomer of New York, who was an early advocate of women's rights.

This "gymnasium suit," dated 1895, is made of black cashmere wool trimmed with bands of scarlet cashmere and black soutache — a flat, narrow ornamental braid seen here at the borders of the scarlet trim. Plain, full bloomers, worn under the skirt, have elastic bands at the bottom. The costume includes a red and black plaid double cape.

Sports costumes symbolized a new freedom and sense of change that was in the air at the end of the nineteenth century.

It certainly doesn't resemble that green bloomer I wore back in the 1950s.

Don't overlook the other tours from the Index: dolls, folk arts of the American Southwest, metalwork, furniture, Pennsylvania German folk art, pottery, Shaker crafts, toys, textiles and woodcarving.

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