New York Fashion Networks Stitched Together Through Sketch

March 8, 2016Posted by:

Documenting Fashion goes to NYC Part 3

Eric de Juan fashion sketch embellished with glitter (1967-69). Caption reads: “Oriental silk in multi-hues fashions this gown…its waist and neckline, embroidered in beading that echoes the tones of the dress.” Special Collections at The Fashion Institute of Technology. Image Credit: Giovanna Culora

Elizabeth Hawes’ early career as a copyist was defined by sketching. Between 1925-1928 she would attend Paris fashion shows, acting in disguise as a genuine client, but in fact discreetly memorizing and then sketching the ensembles shown. It was through the power of her pen that she used the sketching medium to convey moods and communicate ideas from high fashion in Paris, and then disseminate these to networks of mass-production fashion counterfeiters. Hawes’ story gives a sense of how international fashion networks operated through this humble artistic medium, and was one that I reflected on when visiting archives on our recent study trip to New York.

Sketch from the Burleigh Subscription Company. Special Collections at The Fashion Institute of Technology. Image Credit: Giovanna Culora

During our time in the city we visited three manuscript and library archives: The Fashion Institute of Technology, Parsons New School of Design and Condé Nast. Visiting these collections bought about the opportunity to see the different types and styles of fashion sketches circulating within New York during the early twentieth century. Seeing the volume of drawings gave me a sense of how this medium held a certain power in parallel to photography, within interconnected fashion design, copying and publicity networks.

Students viewing sketches in the Manuscript Collection at FIT. Image Credit: Giovanna Culora.

On our visit to the Parsons New School archive we viewed sketches by designers Claire McCardell and Mildred Orrick. The bulk of McCardell’s works from the early 1930’s to the late 50’s were produced for clothing manufacturer Townley Frocks, it was her working sketches from this period that particularly fascinated me. The minimal front-facing designs were made up by few lines, on geometric limbless figures, positioned to the left of the page; bar a few quick notes scribbled in the corners, masses of blank space was left on the many sheets. McCardell’s simple colorless designs were completely contrasted with the more commercial sketches we viewed at FIT.

‘Yellow Pants’, Claire McCardell fashion sketch for Townley Frocks, (1951). Image Credit: Parsons New School of Design Archive.

Assisted by April Calahan, whose academic interest is in this area of dress history, we saw examples of other designers’ sketches, including Edward Molyneux’s colorful, detailed fashion plates with risqué titles for Lucile (The Lady Duff Gordon collection, 1915-1925), plus sketches from the Bergdorf Goodman custom salon collection, showing gowns and millinery from Dior and Balenciaga (1930-1969). Both sets of sketches, intended for client and documentary purposes, were emblematic of contemporary fashion moods that populated the fashion press, evident on our visit to Condé Nast’s archive, in which we viewed sketches artists were commissioned to produce for Vogue magazine. Proving the importance of this modest, yet romantic artistic medium for contemporary fashion networks and the creation of elevated lifestyle brands.

Edward Molyneux’s sketch for Lucile (The Lady Duff Gordon collection, 1915-1925). Caption reads: “♯1 ‘Where the Shannon River Flows’ Black Taffeta with grey and green stripe afternoon gown.” Special Collections at The Fashion Institute of Technology. Image Credit: Giovanna Culora.

Though the medium imbued designers, department stores and the magazines with prestige, sketching was also a quick and discreet way to copy and disseminate designs. This was evident in the Cardinal Fashion Studios’ sketches at FIT, the subscription service, founded in 1948, which disseminated sketched copies of fashions shown at couture shows. Reminiscent of contemporary Pop Art, the drawings were coloured with brightly concentrated acidic gouache washes. The quantities of reproduced sketches were a reflection of popular networks of copying and mass production in New York. I was fascinated with how this contemporary artistic theme crossed into the business of fashion sketching. Seeing how these networks of fashion sketching operated in New York was a fascinating experience that I hope will influence my study of dress history at the Courtauld.

Cardinal1 — Black Rose ballgown from the Cardinal Fashion Studios’ sketches. Special Collections at The Fashion Institute of Technology. Image Credit: Giovanna Culora

Cardinal2 — Black hooded dress from the Cardinal Fashion Studios’ sketches. Special Collections at The Fashion Institute of Technology. Image Credit: Giovanna Culora

A visit FIT for a Princess: Documenting Fashion at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)

March 4, 2016Posted by:

msheegaard1

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On Tuesday, February 16, 2016 we kicked off our visit to New York City with two appointments at the Fashion Institute of Technology. April Calahan, Special Collections Associate of the Special Collections and FIT Archives guided our first tour by providing a wealth of historical context, which nicely complimented our current studies of mid-twentieth century European couture (see: Giovanna’s post for info on this!).

Then, after a wonderful lunch at the Eatly market (see: nutella crepes), we began our afternoon visit with the lovely Emma McClendon, Assistant Curator of Costume at FIT and Documenting Fashion alum (MA 2011). Emma kindly showed us various pieces of dress from the institute’s study collection. Having pre-selected pieces within our 1920-1960 timeframe, Emma hung garments at distance for an initial observation then laid them on a table for our closer inspection. In addition to providing detailed catalog entries for each piece, Emma expanded upon the history of each garment. Explaining how it had come to be acquired by the collection, why it was important and pointing out elements of its construction that were of relevance.

Highlights of the collection included muslins of couture pieces constructed by FIT students as part of a class project to preserve more delicate items; plus, original extant items – a gorgeous velvet opera coat; a tweed Chanel skirt suit; Dior and Balenciaga dresses; and finally a Mariano Fortuny gown. Since we’ve already spoken about the Chanel suit in a previous post, I’ll focus on my fascination with the Fortuny (c. 1930s), Dior and Balenciaga (c. 1950s) gowns; two drastically different silhouettes, which each represent a key moment in dress history.

Right: Muslin of original Chanel dress in red silk crepe. Bateau neckline, front bib shaped yoke, mock closure at left with self-covered fabric buttons. T-shaped back shoulder yoke, and decorative topstitching in triple-row design on bodice at dropped waist and knee-length plated skirt. France, c. 1927 (Source: FIT Catalog entry) Left: Evening cloak in black silk velvet with heathered grey chinchilla large shawl collar; straight cut with godet inserted at sides; attached waist length cape with gold procade trim at hem and sleeve edge. American, c. 1923 (Source: FIT Catalog entry) — Right: Muslin of original Chanel dress in red silk crepe. Bateau neckline, front bib shaped yoke, mock closure at left with self-covered fabric buttons. T-shaped back shoulder yoke, and decorative topstitching in triple-row design on bodice at dropped waist and knee-length plated skirt. France, c. 1927 Left: Evening cloak in black silk velvet with heathered grey chinchilla large shawl collar; straight cut with godet inserted at sides; attached waist length cape with gold procade trim at hem and sleeve edge. American, c. 1923 (Source: FIT Catalog entry) Image Credit: Giovanna Culora

In 1907 Mariano Fortuny introduced the Delphos gown, offering women for the first time in the twentieth century, an alternative to structured dressing. The pleated silk-satin Delphos gown could be rolled or twisted to fit into a small box. Once removed, it would stretch out into a full-length classicized dress, with its pleats intact. Fortuny devised and patented a secret method to create permanent pleats, which Emma claims has never been successfully replicated to this day. The more revolutionary advancement, however, was how the dress was designed without using conventional seams in order to mold to the female figure; liberating women from the corset. Designers such as Madeline Vionnet, who pioneered the bias cut in the 1930s would continue to champion this emancipating, form-fitting silhouette for the modern woman.

Fortuny Dress Image Credit: Giovanna Culora

Detail of Fortuny Dress Image Credit: Giovanna Culora

In stark juxtaposition, the Dior and Balenciaga gowns were rigid, constraining and heavy with crinolines and corset-like boning within the bodice, from the waist all the way up to the brassiere. The dresses not only highlight couture’s obsession with leaving nothing to chance by superficially molding the body to perfection, but also illustrate fashion’s complicated relationship to social norms – in this case Dior’s “New Look” represents a certain kind of response to the post war era crisis of masculinity by evoking an ultra “feminine” time period from the past.

The visit concluded with a tour of Emma’s most recently curated exhibition, Denim: Fashion’s Frontier at the Museum at FIT. This was an amazing opportunity to see first hand how a young curator researches and installs an exhibition. Emma explained her decision-making processes for including certain pieces, how they were acquired and how she included digital components. It will certainly be informing how I approach the next MA assignment, which you’ll surely hear about in the coming weeks – the Virtual Exhibition!

Denim: Fashions Frontier exhibition. Leaflet.

Dress Secrets: Documenting Fashion goes to NYC part 1

March 1, 2016Posted by:

rrrubyredstone

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People keep asking, and I keep failing to share a single favourite thing from our recent trip to New York. Certainly, the group went into collective paroxysms of bliss when a 1923 opera coat of black velvet, gold brocade and grey chinchilla trim was whirled in front of us at Museum at FIT. There were more than a few exclamations of, “But this place has my entire undergrad art history coursework in it’s collection!” from those who had never been to MOMA. And when the Museum of the City of New York turned out to be a veritable Aladdin’s cave of costume and couture from the city’s historic hoi polloi, I will admit to a certain amount of gaping.

Giovanna inadvertently channeling Meret Oppenheim's 1936 'Object' at MOMA (L) & The MA's trying to find the best angle for photographing the light installation at the Museum of the City of New York (R) — Giovanna inadvertently channeling Meret Oppenheim’s 1936 ‘Object’ at MOMA (L) &
The MA’s trying to find the best angle for photographing the light installation at the Museum of the City of New York (R)

Perhaps that’s it. Proximity, presence, reality—the physical experience of objects we’d only previously seen in print. There is inevitably a certain amount of staring at reproduced images in Art History, and Dress History is no exception. The world doesn’t hold an endless supply of Fortuny Delphos gowns to pass around, no more than it has endless Matisse. Neither can Fortuny be replicated more easily than Matisse, his pleating technique, lost to history has never been accurately replicated. So when a peach silk Delphos is uncoiled from its box, and the lightness and fragility of the silk has to be carefully balanced in an archivist’s hand against the incredible comparative weight of the Venetian glass beads at its sides you can’t help but feel like you’re being let in on a secret. In pictures, both on the body and on mannequins, the Delphos gown lends an air of the impenetrable, neoclassical statuesque. Up close in the Museum at FIT archives, it looks so delicate you begin to imagine what it would be like to wear — how it would cling and skim over your body, the hang of the beads and stretch and pull of the intricately pleated fabric.

The Mariano Fortuny 'Delphi's' Dress at FIT — The Mariano Fortuny ‘Delphos’ Dress at FIT

Again at FIT, a Charles James gown on display conjured up romantic visions of an idealised 1950’s silhouette, all curves and flounce and extremes of femininity. Exterior layers of tulle belie a lightness, the impression of which is quickly dispelled when confronted with a muslin archive copy that audibly groans on its hanger from the sheer weight of fabric involved in these creations. James’ wish to be regarded as a sculptor make more sense than ever from this vantage, as the dress is able to stand under its own support, and the addition of a body inside it seems inconsequential to its existence.

The enormous Charles James muslin copy showing in thick folds of padded fabric

I could write paragraphs upon paragraphs of examples—how seeing the serious corsetry under a loose, a-line 1962 Balenciaga, or hearing the sheer volume of noise created by a fully beaded 1920’s flapper dress made me feel like I had been handed closely guarded knowledge about dress history. Seeing these garments, even on hangers, or being gently removed from archival boxes gave a sense of weight and movement and even sound that images will always struggle to convey, and which going forward encourages me to seek the real thing out wherever, and whenever possible.

The heavily boned Balenciaga (L) and the beautifully noisy flapper dress (R)

Why “Formation” is Necessary for a White Audience – A Dress Historian’s Perspective

February 26, 2016Posted by:

Michaela

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In a typical Queen Bey move reminiscent of the unannounced video drops of the album “Beyonce” and the “7/11” EP, Beyonce released a new video entitled “Formation” on February 6th. Naturally, as a huge Beyonce fan all of my social media platforms began disseminating first responses to the new song and I felt compelled to stop everything I was doing and watch the video for myself.

Since its release and Beyonce’s surprise performance of the new song at Super Bowl 50 in a costume alluding to Michael Jackson and surrounded by dancers clothed in costumes reminiscent of the Black Panthers, “Formation” has been the subject of numerous articles deconstructing and analyzing its various scenes, lyrics, and messages. Of these, Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff’s Dazed article entitled Beyonce’s ‘Formation’ is a Defiant Reclamation of Blackness seemed particularly potent in its explanation of the past, current, hopefully future identities Beyonce’s video attempts to reclaim for African Americans.

What seemed important for me to highlight in the context of this blog, my academic research, and of course within the parameters of this MA course on the history of dress, is how Beyonce performs identity for a specific audience. Naturally her allusion to her “Givenchy dress” appropriates certain forms of elite white culture, evoking both the history of the eponymous label and its resurgence as a major arbiter of taste under Tisci’s direction. So much has already been written on how she performs identity – from hairstyles to ensembles to the backdrops – but I think that her intended audience is of particular importance.

Givenchy Dress in Beyoncé's formation video. Source: Video screenshot. — Givenchy Dress in Beyoncé’s formation video. Source: Video screenshot.

In many ways, I view that intended audience to be twofold. Most importantly, the video’s glorification of a variety of black bodies as beautiful, its rejection of “whiten-ing” beauty standards, and overall positive body image demonstrates to a black audience that the black body in all of its manifestations is just as worthy of characterization as beautiful as its white counterpart and therefore is inherently valuable. In other words, BLACK LIVES MATTER.

Blue Ivy, Beyoncé's daughter, with natural hair. — Blue Ivy, Beyoncé’s daughter, with natural hair.

Secondly, the video clearly seems to be a defiant reclamation of black identity geared at disrupting white constructions of blackness and instead offering to a white audience a series of identities created and portrayed by “real” black women. I think this is absolutely necessary in the contemporary moment for white audiences to be confronted through the very mainstream media that propagates, perpetuates, and promotes white standards of beauty and identity, with the fact that racism not only still exists but is actually prevalent and institutionalized. The limited diversity we usually see on these platforms is often tokenized, distorted, and manipulated to produce sensationalized stories.

Beyoncé in the Camino wearing a fur coat typically associated with African American rappers. Source: Video Screenshot.

Beyonce’s push towards the reclamation of blackness, visual appropriation of elements of black history (in particular southern identity through allusions via scenery and dress to the history of southern slavery), and even her re-employment of “Negro,” all disrupt the normative narrative of blackness in ways necessary for a white audience. Blackness is successful, popular, and enviable. Blackness should not be defined by white preconceived notions.

In the 21st century, my hope is that movements like Black Lives Matter, the Smith’s boycotting of the Oscars, and even Beyonce’s “Formation” help to create a world where a young black girl “just might be a black Bill Gates in the making!” Instead of inhibiting the progress of our country by systematically oppressing a part of our citizenry through police violence, a lack of access to quality education, and narratives of history, identity, and progress derived from the monolithic ideology of the white establishment, it is time for the privileged to support our African American sisters and brothers and assist them in the creation of a equitable society.

Problems Regarding Evolution & French Fashion Exhibitions

February 23, 2016Posted by:

Alexis

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A 1951 article in French Elle by journalist (and first Minister of Women’s Affairs in 1974) Françoise Giroud on the state of French haute couture exposed wider narratives of the country’s postwar reconstruction, cultural heritage and notions of femininity. The subject of the article was the apparent collapse of the industry, illustrated by the closure of fourteen houses since 1947. After discussing the cause of this decline, due in part to price increases and competition from foreign industries, Giroud asked whether the country should even attempt to save haute couture production, which she claimed had become increasingly irrelevant “psychologically” in relation to women’s lives. She reasoned that postwar consumers spent less on clothing and more on home appliances, automobiles and travel. Such “distractions and comforts,” Giroud wrote, began to “outweigh pure vanity.” This shift also indicated a “general evolution of women,” defined by the “disappearance of the doll-woman [who is] uniquely preoccupied by her hats and dresses.” Giroud’s description of women’s growing diversity and agency, unsurprising in the years following their 1944 suffrage, echoed wider fashion industry discourses, as I’ve learned through my doctoral studies at the Courtauld on readymade clothing and women’s lives in France from the 1940s to the 1960s. Yet the evolution that Giroud noted was not simple and linear; rather, femininity during the country’s postwar reconstruction was characterised by contradiction, drawing on older ideals alongside aims of autonomy.

A different type of “evolution” was explored in an exhibition held at Paris’ Palais Galliera in late 2014, and in 2015 at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao exhibition, The 50s: Fashion in France 1947-1957. According to the museums’ websites, the exhibition sought to “retrace the evolution of the female form” throughout this period. It presented and grouped garments in sections on silhouettes and clothing categories (i.e. cocktail and evening dresses), displayed monotonously in rows of identical mannequins, and sub-grouped by couturier, such as Jacques Heim and Cristóbal Balenciaga. Predictably, the star of the show was Christian Dior, evidenced firstly in the exhibition dates, 1947-1957, which demarcated the launch of his house and his death. Despite the exhibition’s focus on silhouette and dress, its content, mode of display and text centred around producers and their fashioned bodies, eliminating all reference to wearers’ subjectivity and various narratives, and denying them agency.

The curators’ chosen narrative, namely the fall and rise of postwar Paris couture, held similarities to that of Giroud in 1951. Conversely, the terms of their conversation were reductive and positivist, and sought to demonstrate the dominance of French fashion in the 1950s, as well as forge a link to notions of French cultural authority today. The website outlined these terms, claiming, “In the 1950s, Paris was reborn as the international capital of fashion,” as well as attributed the cause of couture’s success to couturiers, who “contributed to the enduring legacy of French fashion, synonym of luxury, elegance and creativity, and to the success of ready-to-wear fashion.” Likewise, the simplistic exhibition abstained from contextualising the garments or health of the industry in political, economic or social frameworks. Further, despite the website’s mention of ready-to-wear, the exhibition did not present this production other than in a marginal section on anonymous beachwear.

As my research has shown, readymade (confection, robe de série, or prêt-à-porter) brands were an important feature of the 1950s French fashion industry, as well as a perceived threat to haute couture. Giroud alluded to this as she noted both couture’s irrelevance and its uniqueness, with its irreplaceable and time-honoured handwork and its originality, in “the century of the machine and industrial production.” She characterised couture as an art and a tradition worth saving especially as it underscored the health and dominance of the nation, being “one of the most vibrant, glorious expressions of our national genius, at the same level of painting or music.” However, in addition to her fear of change and loss, her text illustrated a willingness to move forward, an incongruity that can be applied to shifting national and feminine identities in the 1950s. She thus proposed that couture “transform [and] adapt to new times,” by refashioning itself after ready-made production, which “corresponds more and more to the lifestyle of women of our time.” Although her above phrase hides a wealth of complexity regarding the various experiences of women, it is a point of departure for understanding them via their experience of dress. The Palais Galliera, under the relatively new direction of Olivier Saillard, failed to draw out wider themes in its exploration of fashion and “female form”, which ended at the dressed mannequins on display, symbols of limitation, preventing potential narratives of wearers and avenues of research. Although the catalogue offered an assortment of analytical articles, the exhibition propagated accepted narratives and, dangerously, confused scholarship with connoisseurship.

Sources:

Françoise Giroud, “Où en est la Haute-Couture française,” Elle, 23 November 1951, 22-23, 39.

http://www.palaisgalliera.paris.fr/en/exhibitions/50s

https://www.museobilbao.com/in/exposiciones/the-50s-fashion-in-france-1947-1957-231

A Quick Preview of our Study Trip in New York

February 19, 2016Posted by:

msheegaard1

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This week the MAs have been running around NYC. From the Fashion Institute of Technology to the to the Museum of the City of New York we’ve had the privilege to access some of the world’s best History of Dress archives. Below is a little preview of what we’ll be sharing in the coming weeks!

A Chanel jacket with quilted lining (sewed in that a way so that the open weave tweed wouldn't lose its shape). — A Chanel Suit c. 1950s. The jacket was constructed with quilted lining which was sewed in such a way so that the open weave tweed wouldn’t lose its shape. Photograph taken at FIT.

A Chanel bag c. 1950s with the iconic interlocked Cs. Although not as prominent as today’s handbags as the Cs are in the inner lining, Chanel was still conscious of building her brand after having launched her perfume line in 1921. Photograph taken at FIT.

Detail of the Chanel Jacket. The chain - now used by Karl Lagerfeld as a decorative homage - was used by Coco Chanel as a way to weigh the hem of the garment so that it would stay in place no matter the weather! — Detail of the Chanel Jacket c. 1950s. The chain – now used by Karl Lagerfeld as a decorative homage – was used by Coco Chanel as a way to weigh the hem of the garment so that it would stay in place no matter the weather! Photograph taken at FIT.

Architecture & Fashion: a look at two images from 1964 – 1965

February 16, 2016Posted by:

Alexis

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Fig 1 — Jardin des Modes (February 1964)

In the past as for today, the fashion press often served as a space for the meeting of architecture, bodies and dress, each element casting the other in a certain light for readers to absorb. The multitude of architectural projects that marked post-Second World War Paris, ranging from corporate skyscrapers to housing estates, provided ample spatial prospects for magazines. The Maison de la Radio, constructed between 1952 and 1963, with its striking modernist features, was an ideal setting for their presentation of both haute couture and prêt-à-porter, and the dramatic, functional values they espoused. The building housed France’s main television station, the government-controlled Radiodiffusion-télévision française (RTF), whose new reports propagated the structure’s centrality and modernity. In 1963, for example, one described the new construction as ‘a victory against dispersion, disorder, discomfort and the dust of old buildings’. Its concrete, aluminium and glass structure consisted of a tall tower block and round wing enveloped by a circular building. It was so recognisable that an editorial in the February 1964 issue of Jardin des Modes, which depicted models in ready-made garments inside and beside the structure, didn’t identify it. In one image, a model in a wool blazer and pleated skirt designed by Christiane Bailly for the newly created brand Déjac stood on its outer circular edge with a view of the city in the background. Her statuesque, aerial stance paralleled the shape and position of the tower, and illustrated how the aesthetic of buildings affected poses, gazes onto bodies, and fashion’s role in reinforcing this behaviour for a wide public.

Stills from ‘La Maison de la Radio’, Edition spéciale, ORTF (5 September 1963)

Moving imagery also captured the parallel between bodies and buildings, as television sets increasingly featured in French homes in the 1960s, adding a visual element to news broadcasts. In one 1963 RTF televised report, the camera panned the structure from several angles, emphasising its round, corporeal structure, as though eying a body. This panoramic scrutiny was necessary, given the building’s complexity, which made it appear differently from every angle, and difficult to photograph entirely and clearly. In another RTF report from December 1963, its architect Henry Bernard compared the circular structure to a human body or face in that ‘everything grew from the inside.’ The building thus paralleled the centralisation of the city, whose arrondissements radiated from its midpoint, and the nation, with its political and cultural centre in Paris, as well as the way current events were dispersed from the Maison de la Radio to French citizens through television.

Fig 3 — Stills from ‘La Maison de la Radio’, Edition spéciale, ORTF (5 September 1963)

Left to right: still from ‘La Maison de la Radio’ (5 September 1963) and Elle (2 September 1965)

An editorial in a September 1965 issue of Elle made the connection between space, the moving image and the experience of fashion. Its text explained how pictured models in their couture garments were ‘filmed’ in the Maison de la Radio, ‘the most important monument of modern architecture in Paris’. Accompanying photographs by Terence Donovan dramatised and likened the garments and structure, through lighting, and a focus on angular shapes and the texture or shine of materials. Likewise, the text described clothing and dressmaking in architectural and pictorial terms: ‘Modern art coats. Couturiers sculpt fabric, contrast materials, play with colour masses, cut graphically… and they construct a coat or a suit that the eye perceives in one shot in a perfectly balanced image’. In one, a model in a sculptural coat and skirt ensemble by Roberto Capucci was cloaked in shadow, an illuminated figure against dark, imposing asymmetrical shapes. Shot from the same viewpoint as a still from the above-mentioned news report, the structure loomed over and enveloped her. Authoritative, panoptic space served to contain its subject, and this was heightened for viewers through narrative, cinematic imagery. As opposed to the earlier Jardin des Modes photograph in which the model’s dressed body was a site of modernity and centrality, here garment and architecture were highlighted, while bodies faded into the background. The image presaged how, increasingly into the 1960s, the dream of modernist progress and social idealism attached to these spaces would fade, as they began to stand for the state’s authority, as Henri Lefebvre described: ‘The arrogant verticality of skyscrapers, and especially of public and state buildings, introduces a phallic or more precisely a phallocentric element into the visual realm; the purpose of this display, of this need to impress, is to convey an impression of authority to each spectator’. The fashion press dispersed this message, while shaping ways of seeing, and how individuals envisioned themselves in space.

Sources:

Jardin des Modes, February 1964.

Elle, 2 September 1965, 11.

Henry Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991 [1974]), 98.

“La Maison de la Radio’, Edition spéciale, ORTF, 5 September 1963, accessed from: https://www.ina.fr/video/CAF93073298.

‘Visite de la maison de la RTF’, RTF, 14 December 1963, accessed from: https://www.ina.fr/notice/voir/CAF96032435.

Reflection on Judith Clark’s Dress Talk – Researching and Exhibiting “The Vulgar”

February 12, 2016Posted by:

Michaela

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by Aric Reviere

On Monday, February 8th, the MA Course had the pleasure of attending a talk given by the curator, dress historian and Professor of Fashion & Museology, London College of Fashion, Judith Clark, about the exhibition she is planning entitled “Vulgar.” To be curated with psychoanalyst Adam Phillips and shown at the Barbican later in 2016, the exhibition traces, visually, various occurrences of vulgarity present in haute couture level fashion from a myriad of time periods. From Clark’s perspective, the exhibition lends itself to a deeper exploration of the very definition (or even definitions) of the word “vulgar” and the nuances, in meaning, associated with those societal constructs. From Clark’s explanation of the evolution of the exhibition concept and the subsequent open discussion, several themes related to the construct of the “vulgar” emerged, namely, the term’s violent connotational undercurrents and its implication of the inferiority of the common. But most of all, I was struck by Clark’s curatorial process as a mix between the academic traditionalism of the discipline and a refreshingly contemporary emphasis on the design of the exhibition as a work of art itself.

Installation photograph of Clark’s exhibition, A Concise Dictionary of Dress, illustrating Clark’s unique approach to exhibiting dress and keen curatorial eye.

From my perspective, “vulgar” derives its plethora of meanings based upon its symbiotic relationship with a certain society or culture’s hegemonic ideal. In other words, the term “vulgar” (from my perspective) highlights discursive, subversive, or simply non-normative behavior, identity performance, and obviously dress that encroaches upon and in so doing highlights the fragility of a hegemonic ideal. For example, the New Negro aesthetic championed by Alain Locke in his 1925 manifesto of the same title sought to elevate the status of African Americans by promoting African American literature, arts, etc. As an extenuation of that cultural agenda, elite African American dress popular during the late Harlem Renaissance appropriated the white middle class aesthetic and, in what was considered a vulgar display of new found wealth, often exaggerated its elements in an almost “Dandy” fashion. James Van Der Zee’s almost ethnographic photographs of the period demonstrates these types of fashions and identities performed by citizens of Harlem as they actively claimed agency in a shifting racial power structure. But a contemporary audience can imagine how vulgar those images must have appeared to white audiences of the period used to popular images equating blackness with the tradition of American minstrelsy. Therefore, my main take away from the talk and the subsequent notion is summarized by the word agency. In what ways can the vulgar, and actively performing the vulgar, award a wearer agency within a given socio-political context?

New definitions of the Vulgar, Adam Phillips. "The vulgar reminds us of the tyranny of the real thing." — New definitions of the Vulgar, Adam Phillips. “The vulgar reminds us of the tyranny of the real thing.”

About Dress Talks: As a part of the Courtauld’s Sackler Research Forum, this series of lunchtime events brings together a roster of invited speakers to talk about their current research, and encourage discussion about dress history now. Each term academics, curators and dress and fashion industry professionals will share their insight and analysis of an aspect of dress and fashion history to provide a platform for new ideas and approaches to the subject. Look out for future events here.

Modes Pratiques

February 9, 2016Posted by:

L England

Fashion Now No Comments

Mode pratique: a magazine published in France at around the turn of the twentieth century.

Modes pratiques: a new history of dress journal first published in November 2015.

Modes pratiques. Revue d’histoire du vêtement et de la mode is the product of collaboration between the Duperré School of design, fashion and creation, and the Institut de Recherches Historiques du Septentrion at Lille 3 University. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the subject of the history of dress, the journal was conceived, according to the editors Manuel Charpy and Patrice Verdière, with the aim of filling a gap in the often overlooked discipline of the history of dress in France.

‘Norms and Transgressions’ is the theme of the first issue, certainly a very current topic, although perhaps not ground-breaking in itself. However, the journal and its contributors deal with its subject in thought provoking, and often unexpected, ways. Articles (all written in French) include discussions about the relationship between teenagers and fashion, transvestitism and vogueing; but also about the significance of the colour white in female monastic dress and the norms of the nineteenth century worker’s shirt. More standard-format academic articles are joined by interviews, for example concerning the uniforms of people working in the airline business, extracts from nineteenth century magazines and a detailed glossary of terms, rather humorously titled un glossaire partial mais chic, related to the journal’s key themes.

Perhaps partly because of the art school influence, the creativity of Modes pratiques extends to its visual format. In fact, the editors had initially envisaged printing the journal on degradable paper that would have disappeared, along with its contents, within six months. It is probably a good thing that this wasn’t put into practice, though, as it is certainly something one would want to hang on to. Flicking through, nearly every double page spread bears at least one image. All in black and white, these include photographs, copies of archival documents and specially commissioned illustrations inspired by the text.

I am looking forward dedicating some serious reading time to the journal and with a second issue already promised, it will be interesting to follow its development.

For further information:

http://www.lalibrairie.com/tous-les-livres/modes-pratiques–revue-d-histoire-du-vetement-et-de-la-mode-normes-et-transgressions-9791095518006.html.

Comme des Garçons Homme Plus

February 5, 2016Posted by:

Rebecca Arnold

Fashion Now No Comments

Comme des Garçons Homme Plus’ recent show explored masculinities – through fabric, cut and adornment. The collection played with recurrent elements in Kawakubo’s work – ways to reconfigure familiar garments – trench coat, tailored suit, motorbike jacket – and by so doing make us look again at what we thought we knew, what has become invisible because of its continual presence. Textiles are equally mutable for Comme des Garçons – shirt fabrics and lining materials crept onto the exterior of the body, forming jackets that, while traditionally tailored, broke boundaries between inside and out. Waistcoats fused to the outside of jackets, and, most notably, garments were articulated like armour – asserting the two sides of the collection’s heart – soft and hard, war and peace – masculinity queered and remade.

1 Comme des Garcone Homme Plus, A:W 2016, photograph Yannis Vlamos — Comme des Garcone Homme Plus, A:W 2016, photograph Yannis Vlamos

At first this was done quietly – a tiny sprig of bright flowers on the first jacket – a hint of colourful nature on inky black. Quickly this spread and grew – elaborate headdresses blossomed and caressed the models’ heads, framing their faces, seemingly entangled with their hair. Some outfits were all black – armoured with eyelets and buckles that split bodies into parts like machines. These divisions were echoed in more traditional suiting fabrics that incorporated flowered fabrics – a nod to 18th century elite dress and masculine ideals, which revelled in lush embroideries and colours and praised sentiment and emotion.

Comme des Garçons brought together multiple images of men with flowers – Oscar Wilde’s green carnation, Vietnam soldiers with blooms tucked into their helmets, hippies’ floral crowns, Morrisey’s gladioli. Art historical references also abound – perhaps most notably Caravaggio’s Bacchus of 1595, with his decadent vine leaf headdress. In each case foliage and flowers disrupt stable masculine ideals and suggest complexity – slippage between masculine and feminine, sexual ambiguity.

2 Caravaggio, Bacchus, 1595 : Comme des Garcones Homme Plus, A:W 2016, photograph Yannis Vlamos — Caravaggio, Bacchus, 1595 / Comme des Garcones Homme Plus, A/

The show’s finale saw models carrying huge bouquets of vibrant flowers, dressed in their black warrior suits – but these were melancholy heroes – trapped in a small space, continually trying to avoid crashing into each other. Clothes, accessories, styling and performance were all carefully calibrated to unsettle. The designs were beautiful, as were Julien D’ys’s hair and headdress combinations, but they were made to question not to appease.

3 Oscar Wilde : Morrissey — Oscar Wilde : Morrissey