Style and Fashion
Net Curtaining, Upholstery Fabric and Parachute Silk During WWII: Wedding Dresses 1775-2014
The V&A’s exhibition traces the development of the fashionable white wedding dress and its interpretation by leading couturiers and designers over the last two centuries. The exhibition features some of the earliest examples of wedding fashion including a silk satin court dress (1775) and a 'polonaise' style brocade gown with straw bergère hat (1780. The preference for white in the 19th century will be demonstrated by a white muslin wedding dress decorated with flowers, leaves and berries (1807) recently acquired by the museum. more »
I Haven't a Thing To Wear
Rose Madeline Mula writes: Three mysteries will always taunt me: Einstein's Theory of Relativity, how to buy low and sell high, and how it's possible to have three huge closets crammed with clothes and still never have a thing to wear-at least nothing appropriate for the occasion at hand. Everything I own is either too formal or too casual for anything to which I'm ever invited. I seem to have an uncanny knack for either buying all the wrong clothes or not getting asked to any of the right affairs. more »
The Metropolitan Vanities Hold A Variety of Beautifying Paraphernalia
In the late 17th C., European high society began commissioning luxurious specialized furniture from craftsmen and furniture makers. The poudreuse in France, and the low boy, Beau Brummel, and shaving table in England served as models for the dressing table. During the 19th C., dressing tables were made in many revivalist styles including the Gothic, Elizabethan, Rococo, Renaissance, and Colonial revivals. more »
Future Beauty at the PEM: Avant-Garde Japanese Fashion
The fundamentals of haute couture in Europe and America — highly sexualized fitted forms, balance, finish, invisible tailoring and complementary color and pattern — are noticeably absent from contemporary Japanese fashion. Instead, imperfection, transience, austerity, asymmetry, roughness, simplicity and subtlety are valued. As designer Yohji Yamamoto affirmed, "I think perfection is ugly. Perfection is a kind of order ... things someone forces onto a thing. A free human being does not desire such things." more »