Author Archives: Rebecca Arnold

Saying ‘au revoir’ to Class of 2019

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As another academic year draws to a close, I want to reflect on the wonderful time I have had teaching my Class of 2019 MA Documenting Fashion students…

The autumn term started with a breakfast to greet my new students—and it was clear what an interesting and sparky group they would be.  During the initial thematic classes, we discussed what the terms ‘dress’, ‘fashion,’ ‘costume’, etc. meant and looked at a range of books in our Special Collections—from a 1598 edition of Vecellio’s Habiti antichi, et moderni di tutto il mondo to Paul Iribe’s beautifully illustrated Les robes de Paul Poiret of 1908, to consider the ways fashion has been documented and represented through history.  

Jeordy and Lacey

We talked about our sensory experiences of fashion, fashion’s relationship to memory—personal and historical—and visited archives to develop our ideas. This included a trip to see Beatrice Behlen, Head of Fashion and Decorative Art at the Museum of London, where she showed us several people’s wardrobes; there, the group was entranced by the ways individual style can be recognised and analysed in any era.

Marielle and Daisy

And this was just the opening section of the course and of the students’ entry into the world of Dress History.  It has been so rewarding to see all of you develop from this point—increasing your already considerable skills and finding exciting lines of enquiry as you developed your dissertation topics.  

So, thank you Daisy, Ellen, Fran, Imogene, Jeordy, Lacey, Lily and Marielle—you have all been a complete joy to teach, and I am really looking forward to seeing what you do next. Enjoy the summer—get some well-deserved rest and relish your success at The Courtauld.

 

Live Podcast Recording: What Do We Want From Fashion Writing And Imagery Now?

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Please join us Friday 29 June, 2018 at the Courtauld Institute of Art 10:30am-12:00pm for a live recording of The Conversations with Jason Campbell & Henrietta Gallina podcast, open to all free admission

Speakers include

  • Jason Campbell – journalist, personal stylist and forecaster
  • Henrietta Gallina – creative strategist

Organised by

  • Dr Rebecca Arnold – The Courtauld Institute of Art

Writers and critics represent a shrinking talent pool in the fashion industry, meanwhile fashion imagery has become a staple in our daily social media digest. With that, how we document fashion is shifting in an unprecedented way, so we will discuss how these changes are manifesting and put forward the question of what is needed and wanted today.  Join us for a live recording, with Q&A.

The Conversations With Jason Campbell & Henrietta Gallina is a weekly podcast hosted by two fashion professionals and enthusiasts. For years, Henrietta and Jason found that the conversations they were having about the fashion industry and culture were not ones being had in mainstream arenas, so in the summer of 2017, they decided document their ongoing discussions via their podcast which can be found on iTunes, Podbean and Stitcher.

Jason Campbell is a 25-year veteran of the fashion industry working as a journalist, personal stylist and forecaster. From 2002-2012, Jason published the seminal newsletter JC Report, covering trends, talents and movements from across the globe. In his role as consultant, brands such as the NFL, American Express Centurion, and Limited Brands depend on his fashion wisdom to inform their strategic marketing. Jason has also been a contributing writer to Style.com, New York Times Magazine and Surface Magazine.

Henrietta has over 12 years of experience working with a multitude of fashion, lifestyle and corporate companies across brand, creative and digital strategy and storytelling. Having worked with notable companies as Fred Perry, Topshop, Shinola, COS, Karla Otto, Nike, Parley For The Oceans, Universal Standard and many more, her focus is overall brand and cultural relevancy via bespoke strategic thinking, creative vision, content and special projects.

Book Review: The Hidden History of American Fashion: Rediscovering 20th Century Women Designers, edited by Nancy Deihl. Bloomsbury 2018.

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Nancy Deihl has edited a fascinating compilation of sixteen essays each of which examines an American fashion designer whose work has been all but forgotten. The chosen examples are women who were successful in their day, and their style encompasses everything from custom-made to ready-to-wear, as well as demonstrating interconnections with the entertainment industry and fashion media. As such, it is a book that relies on forensic research of fashion history, and exposes the rich narratives of individuals who helped to build the American industry.

I was thrilled to see Tina Leser included in the list of contents. I have long admired her work, having become fascinated by the beautiful hand-painted blouses and dresses I saw in museum collections when researching my book The American Look: Fashion, Sportswear & The Image of Women in 1930s and 1940s New York.  Written by FIT Special Collections Archivist April Calahan, the chapter reveals new details of Leser’s life and career that illuminate her progress and the significance of her work.

It is so interesting to read about her early married life in Hawaii in the mid-1930s, and how her glamorous, sportswear-inspired style developed when she opened a shop opposite a chic hotel, whose clients quickly became her key customers.  Here, she imported leading designers from the mainland, including Nettie Rosenstein, and gradually built her own signature look, before she switched to the East Coast herself.  She was prompted to move by a series of external events, from a shipping strike that cut off her wholesale supplies, to the bombing of Pearl Harbour in 1941.  Once in New York, she began to work with manufacturer Edwin H. Foreman, and continued to grow her business over the coming decades, to become a significant member of America’s fashion industry.

What Calahan’s essay eloquently shows is the way Leser’s career developed to include international influences in her use of fabrics and design elements, as well as her commitment to outsourcing production to other countries. She was, as such, a pioneer of globalisation, looking, for example, to Indian tailors to make up her designs, and seeking to create mutually-beneficial partnerships with her collaborators. Although not always as successful in execution, her dedication to overseas artisans is admirable, and adds a new layer of understanding to her well-known love of Asian references in her designs.  Dhoti-inspired evening dresses, for example, are the perfect encapsulation of her version of the American Look – simple, fluid jersey forms given emphasis through their Indian silhouette.

Calahan’s chapter demonstrates the book’s strength as a whole – it celebrates female creativity and business knowledge – and will surely, as Deihl states in her introduction to the compilation, inspire further work on America’s myriad fashion talents.

Florence’s Nightdress Case & Embroidered History

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Where do you keep your nightwear? Squashed under your pillow? Or neatly folded in a beautifully embroidered case that you made yourself?

In the first decades of the 20th century, the latter was the more likely answer. Magazines contained examples to make and customise. Placed on the bed below your pillows, a nightdress case reflected the value of garments in an era before readymade fashions meant clothing was less precious.  Importantly, they also signalled feminine accomplishment and style. Monograms, elaborate designs and artificial flowers could all be used to personalise the case.

 

Women’s magazines advised that these cases should resemble ‘boudoir cushions’ – pretty and delicate – a foretaste of the nightdress itself.  They were part of a large repertoire of handmade items that populated the domestic sphere – demonstrating women’s skills and care for themselves and their home.

I am lucky to have an example made by my maternal grandmother in the early 1900s.  She embroidered her case with a curling ‘F’ for her name – Florence – and embellished her whitework stitches with the flowers that mimicked those she loved to arrange in vases and draw.  She decorated the edges with scallops and daisy-shaped eyelet embroidery. She also left us other tokens of her craft skills – crocheted bags, and a little baby blanket trimmed with pink ribbon.

Such items connect generations of my family, recall my grandmother’s life over one hundred years ago and speak of the way young women were brought up to create things for themselves and their families.  Nightdress cases may have fallen out of fashion, but they are still treasures of our past.

Dressing for the Metropolis – Simmel in the City

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How does your environment affect the way you dress? Of course, there’s the weather to be taken into consideration.  But what about the type of place that you live? For example, are we shaped – literally and figuratively – by urban dwelling?  Does the city impact not just the type of clothes we choose, but also how we feel when we wear them? Living amongst huge numbers of people, coping with the speed of street-life, the fleeting encounters with our fellow citizens … surely this impacts our psychology, our way of being, and therefore our way of dressing?

These are not new questions, German sociologist Georg Simmel published an essay in 1903 and updated in 1950 entitled, ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life,’ which tackled just such concerns.  At the core he argues, is the constant tension between individuality, and being part of society.  What is at stake is the ways we adapt (or don’t) to these twin desires/pressures.  Of course, Simmel was writing at the start of the 20th century, but many of his ideas remain relevant, and suggest the subconscious issues brought to bear on our daily outfit choices.

Or as Simmel puts it in relation to the ‘psychology of metropolitan individuality’ – which is founded upon: ‘the intensification of emotional life due to the swift and continuous shift of external and internal stimuli.’ Even crossing the road means experiencing multiple sights, sounds, and encounters with people and machines.

And this must be considered in relation to our brief interactions with other humans in much of daily city life, as well as the money economy that distances consumer from producer.  This means that the counter impulses to be hyper-individual and to assert your sense of self, versus the desire for a protective shield of conformity and anonymity are likely to influence how we dress.  It makes you think again about the ubiquitous male suit – is it in part saving city workers from the ‘violent stimuli’ Simmel identifies as part of urban life? Does it reinforce his argument that city dwellers must react rationally, rather than emotionally – creating a protective sartorial barrier between themselves and the city?

What is produced, he says, is a blasé attitude that tempers the dissonance that surrounds us.  Simmel sees this as a rich site for mental development, despite its problems.  And clearly, the Metropolis is equally rich for the development of multiple fashions as well.  Just as the suit-clad banker assimilates, so designers and wearers can experiment and create in response to the city’s speed and excess of stimulation.

By Rebecca Arnold

You can read Simmel’s essay in full here

 

 

Addressing Images Talk Friday, February 9th

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Every term we have a meeting of the Addressing Images Discussion Group.  Actually, that makes it sound far too official and formal, what really happens is that anyone who feels like spending their lunch hour talking about fashion can drop in and join my students and me. This session opens up discussion of dress’ significance within imagery – whether paintings, prints, photographs, advertisements, film stills or drawings. It brings together dress and art historians, as well as those interested in exploring issues and meanings within representation.

Guided by PhD student Leah Gouget-Levy, a single image will be shown, giving participants the opportunity to re-examine familiar, and confront new representations of fashion and dress. We will rethink images through the lens of dress history, and consider what is shown from the perspective of participants’ own research. The aim is to provide a forum to debate, share reactions to images, and to consider ideas about fashion, dress and representation in an informal environment. This reflects our desire to share and build upon the innovative work being undertaken in this field at the Institute with the wider community, and beyond.

Taking place this Friday over the lunch hour, these sessions are open to all.

Friday 9 February 2018

12:30 pm – 1:30 pm

Research Forum Seminar Room, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London, WC2R 0RN

‘A Document of Modern Living’: How to become a Fashion Illustrator

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How do you advise a budding artist? Encourage and suggest the correct path to fashion success? Well, it seems Harper’s Bazaar (HB) solved this problem in 1933, in ‘The Road To Fashion Art,’ its response to a reader’s letter.

Firstly, HB notes that becoming a fashion illustrator requires quite different skills from becoming a fashion creator, since:  ‘To design clothes you need about as much technique as is required for the drawing of daisies or mustaches on a telephone pad – just enough to get your idea across.’

However, a fashion illustrator needs have far more refined abilities in this regard and must ‘draw superlatively well.’  This assertion is perhaps the key to HB’s excellent advice – that fashion illustration is a branch of that ancient technique of drawing, and as such must be learnt and nurtured.  One need only look at some of the most well-known illustrators, Eric, or Rene Gruau to see evidence of this.  Or for more contemporary inspiration scan Richard Haines’ Instagram feed and examine the way emotion and movement are captured in every line.  His work encapsulates what HB describes as every art director’s wish – not to be shown every buttonhole and seam, but to receive an illustration that is ‘a document of modern living.’  Haines’ images of men striding the city streets are proof of this – at once showing the newest styles, and capturing life as it is lived.

Richard Haines

To achieve this, you must, HB says, ‘Draw and keep drawing.’  To start: life drawing, to gain complete understanding of the body.  Next develop an understanding of colour, keep building from this, to examine gesture of every kind, for example ‘the gloved hand picking up the reins.’

As your eye becomes attuned to these telling nuances, HB advises that the budding fashion artist is ready to begin looking for ‘the quality called chic.’  With sketch book in hand, an illustrator must observe all closely – visiting fashionable locations and venues, ‘look at ankle bones, hair waves, the hang of expensive tweeds.’  Everything is a potential source, from films to restaurant customers. Of course, HB states ‘Go to Paris if you possibly can.’

Richard Haines

Only there can fashion be seen in its purest form, alongside the best in dining, socializing, art and culture.  And HB is practical too – as well as this emersion in French couture style, you must, ‘Talk to printers, engravers; learn all you can about colour reproduction, first hand.’

Richard Haines

What this master class provides is a careful guide in how to shape your talent, how to focus on drawing as a means to evoke life, to show how fashion is an expression of culture and emotion, and how to work constantly at producing the most observant images that will trigger a corresponding feeling in viewers.

By Rebecca Arnold

All images courtesy of Richard Haines

 

‘The Road To Fashion Art,’ Harper’s Bazaar, December 1933

Follow Richard Haines on Instagram: @richard_haines

Various Reasons why I love Fashion Magazines Christmas Present Lists

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Well, I may as well admit it, I love fashion magazine gift lists.  There is just something so optimistic in the boundless consumerism and bright colours that collide on page after page of present ‘ideas.’  These spreads speak to both the magazine’s notion of its own taste and identity – and that of its readers – as well as its editors’ ability to search and edit what’s on offer into a comprehensive and easily scanned digest.

Here are some of my favourite aspects of these yearly lists, with examples from vintage December editions of American Harper’s Bazaar to liven up the holiday period:

  1. Scale & Layout – on these pages there is an Alice in Wonderland feeling to the tumbling images of individual gifts, which no longer adhere to real life scale. Suddenly perfume bottles are huge, sweaters tiny, nothing relates to normal expectations.  In 2008, a bracelet, a coffee table book, a set of dominos and a ring were suddenly all the same size. While in 1933 things were even less rational – with gold sandals, earrings and a dachshund dog all somehow fitting in the same little frames.  It is a baffling, yet exciting free for all to create a dynamic layout to entice your eye … and hopefully prompt purchases …
  2. Typologies – these range from mundane to bizarre in the ways various potential recipients are categorised by a made up title, and group of possible presents. I like 1922’s offerings including feathered fans and vanity box ‘to please the Debutante,’ a whole page of ‘gift suggestions for the fastidious woman of all ages,’ and potential gifts for that difficult group of women ‘of many minds and tastes.’
  3. Excess – nothing is too grand to be part of the gift list, this is after all the realm of fashion and fantasy. Indeed, amongst the yearly jewels, furs and golden gewgaws, in 1979 the magazine suggested that what American women really wanted for Christmas was an eligible bachelor. And it listed 10 possible candidates, ranging from Monaco’s Prince Albert to film producer Robert Evans.
  4. Contemporary Mores – the lists also reveal what is deemed most desirable, contemporary and fabulous in any given year. This insight means that we learn how alluring silver asparagus tongs were in 1904, the loveliness of a rubberised satin, jewel-buttoned raincoat from Bonwit Teller in 1941, and the high tech charm of a speaker phone with auto dial in 1986.

 

Happy Holidays, and may you receive everything on your own personal wish list…

Addressing Images

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Every term we have a meeting of the Addressing Images Discussion Group.  Actually, that makes it sound far too official and formal, what really happens is that anyone who feels like spending their lunch hour talking about fashion can drop in and join my students and me.  It started as a way to share ideas and has become a regular venue to think about what fashion representation means.  Past sessions have included looking at Bill Cunningham’s entrancing photographs of Editta Sherman dressed in vintage, out and about in 1970s New York, amateur film footage of a late 1930s family holiday to Europe, and Paul Iribe’s images for Les Robes de Paul Poiret – this last one was extra special, as we had the original 1908 book on display from our collections.

Deciding what to discuss is always fun.  We need to choose something that will spark discussion, and interest the wide and wonderful range of people who attend – everyone from fellow Courtauld academics and administrative staff to textile designers, photographers, Instagram friends, vintage collectors – anyone who likes to talk about dress.  Ideas are just as diverse as the backgrounds of the people and that’s the point – sharing what we do at The Courtauld with others, and in turn being inspired by the people that attend.

  Detail of illustration of Elsa Schiaparelli design by Marcel Vertes, 1938
Detail of illustration of Elsa Schiaparelli design by Eric, 1938

Out most recent session focused on Christian Berard’s illustrations for Elsa Schiaparelli’s famed 1938 Circus Collection.  With the original double page spread as our focus we considered the way Berard’s technique drew viewers in to a tumbling series of glimpsed images of couture-clad women, clowns, acrobats and animals.  We compared his illustrations to Eric’s more earthbound, but no less seductive style, and to Marcel Vertes’ fantastical dreamlike drawings.  Discussion ranged from brushstroke to colour, from character to iconography and from fashion to funfair.

It was, as always, a wonderful, enlightening way to spend an hour … so do put the date for next term’s Addressing Images on 9 February in your diaries.

Andrew Grima: Art Jewellery Uncut

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Display of Andrew Grima jewellery at Bonham’s in London

There is something immediate about jeweller Andrew Grima’s work. His designs frequently used raw, uncut semi-precious stones, scattered with tiny diamonds and fronds of gold that frame the irregular surface of an opal or tourmaline. I first saw his work at a Bonham’s fine jewellery sale earlier this year, and was fascinated by the impact of his designs, which dominated the cases in which they were displayed. Last week I had the pleasure of viewing a private collection of fifty five pieces of Grima jewellery, again at Bonham’s, and saw the scope of his design ideas from the 1960s-1990s.

Andrew Grima necklace, 1966

Trained as an engineer, Grima was intrigued by gemstones as intricate structures. In many examples he retains the original stone’s integrity to create organic forms supported and celebrated by innovative settings. His most famous designs comprise gold wires, expertly articulated to move with the body and studded with diamonds, and the sale included an incredible necklace demonstrating this technique.

Andrew Grima pendant, 1973

One of the most dramatic pieces was a 1973 pendant of spiky green dioptase that sparkled as light hit its contours. Grima framed this with tiny squares of gold, carefully graduated in size, and angled to fit this irregular form perfectly. A few square diamonds added to this already theatrical necklace, to create a piece of art that is typical of his quest to reinvigorate post-war British jewellery design.

Andrew Grima rings

Alongside this, were vibrantly coloured rings, pendants and brooches that glimmered like sea anemones, edged with clusters of diamonds, all carefully chosen according to their original shape to fit the requisite area of the body. Rings with huge tourmalines unapologetically proclaimed the allure of gems and minerals mined in Australia and Brazil – their relatively low cost allowing Grima to experiment with bold architectural settings.

His fascination with the stones themselves is graphically demonstrated in his collaboration with Omega watches, each of which use a gemstone, rather than glass, as the watch face, with time slowly ticking by underneath a shell pink or duck egg blue tourmaline – his witty reminder of the stones’ longevity, and a little memento mori for the wearer.

 

I was intrigued by Grima’s work – which needs to be viewed in relation to London’s art, craft and fashion evolution in the 60s and 70s. And perhaps my favourite discovery, aside from the glorious jewels themselves, was the incredible photographs of his Jermyn Street boutique. Designed by his brothers with sculptors Geoffrey Clarke and Brian Kneale, its frontage was decorated with slabs of slate – their dull, textured surfaces framing the gleaming jewels within.

 

Thank you so much to Emily Barber, Head of Fine Jewellery at Bonham’s, for introducing me to Andrew Grima’s work and so generously sharing her amazing knowledge of jewellery with me.

 

Watch this 1966 clip of Grima’s boutique and jewellery:

https://www.britishpathe.com/video/jewellery-boutique