Installing ‘Winter Mode’ at Somerset House

1 - An empty vitrine
An empty vitrine…
2 - Objects and condition reports
Objects and condition reports
3 - Conservator Frances Halahan and co-curator Alexis Romano look over condition reports
Conservator Frances Halahan and co-curator Alexis Romano look over condition reports
4 - Co-curator Alexis Romano arranging the display
Co-curator Alexis Romano arranging the display
5 - Under glass! The final display awaiting wall text…
Under glass! The final display awaiting wall text…

I must admit, rather unprofessionally perhaps, that I was like a child on Christmas day during yesterday morning’s installation of Winter Mode, a display that I am curating with Dr Rebecca Arnold and Alexis Romano for Fashioning Winter at Somerset House. We had decided on our object list, approved labels, wrote condition reports and even devised a ‘dress rehearsal’ (see Alexis’s blog post from 4th November) well in advance of installation, but we had never seen all of these components come together.

We started our day by going over the contents of our to-do list, which we proceeded to tick off one by one. The two book cradles that Kate Edmondson, The Courtauld’s paper conservator, kindly made for us were ready. They were waiting for us at the studio, along with the two books they were designed to hold. We headed back to Rebecca’s office where we very carefully laid out all of the objects, to go over our sequence and arrangement one last time. This gave us the opportunity to make sure that we had the right viewing dynamic, with the different illustrations’ subjects connecting with one another through the direction of their gaze and body language. All of the fashionable ladies featured in the display are engaged in the act of looking, either at themselves, at art objects or at a winter scene, as if illustrators sought to remind their viewers of their own tendencies. We aimed to highlight this and to animate the display through their interaction.

At two o’clock we headed to the East Wing of Somerset House with boxes in tow, to find the empty vitrine waiting to be filled. Once Shonagh Marshall and Susan Thompson (head curator of Fashioning Winter and Somerset House exhibitions organiser, respectively) had arrived, we began by placing the textile panel, bound in a lovely Christopher Farr fabric, in the display case. Conservator Frances Halahan then carefully cleaned the surface so that no dust or microscopic insects would endanger the magazines once under glass. We then proceeded to arrange objects according to our well rehearsed plan and matched them up with their respective condition report so that Frances could verify our details’ accuracy.

Once the object labels arrived we reached the penultimate stage of installation; all that remained to do was meticulously review every arrangement before placing the glass over the display. We commissioned captions to look like vintage price tags in order to emphasise that, for many viewers, looking at these illustrations was like window-shopping. They are labelled according to one of three themes: Fashion, Sport, Battling the Elements. These refer not only to the scenes depicted, but also to the sense that each illustrator tried to convey to viewers: the thrill of ice-skating or the comfort of a warm coat on a frosty winter afternoon, for example.

With everything in position and checked, technicians expertly lifted and placed the glass over the case. As Shonagh pointed out, there is something quite satisfying about this final stage of installation. The glass seals and protects the objects, which will stay in place until the exhibition closes. Visitors are now welcome to move around, lean in close, and inspect the display. We hope you will enjoy Winter Mode!

We would like to thank the staff at Somerset House and at the Courtauld Institute of Art for their generous help on the day and leading up to the exhibition.

Exhibition update: Goodbye summer, hello winter! Planning ‘Winter Mode’

Co-curator-Fruzsina-Befeki-puts-together-a-mock-display
Co-curator Fruzsina Bekefi puts together a mock display

As they design fashion collections, with their clear link to upcoming seasons, designers must continually have the impression of being projected into the future. Fashion’s futurity affects shoppers too, who imagine their bodies in clothing that relates to seasonal elements. Co-curating the display Winter Mode (with Dr Rebecca Arnold and Fruzsina Befeki), one of the exhibitions that constitute Fashioning Winter at Somerset House, has resulted in a similar detachment between present and future for me. Summer and now autumn has been winter focused, as our display explores wintry fashion illustrations from the 1910s and 1920s, and specifically, how illustrators connected the subject to her environment, and represented at once the style, modernity, warmth and comfort of winter dress.

And as a rather warm autumn lingers, installation has already begun! While we, along with head curator Shonagh Marshall and dress historians such as Amy de la Haye, install our individual displays, technicians work to erect the ice skating rink that has inhabited the courtyard of Somerset House for fifteen years each winter. Both rink and exhibition open to the public on 11th November.

Although our installation is only two days away, there is still much to do. Our display showcases the fashion journals Gazette du Bon Ton, Femina and Journal des dames et des modes, and we’ve chosen the individual fashion plates as they relate to our three themes: The Elements, Fashion and Sport. We decided on the content months ago, but we must constantly adapt and adjust the display in view of issues that arise, relating to conservation or to display case constraints for example. And as display objects change so must our overall aesthetic. In the above photograph taken several weeks ago Fruzsina works on one of our mock exhibits! We are especially thankful to Antony Hopkins, Kilfinan Librarian, Head of Book, Witt and Conway Libraries at the Courtauld Institute, and Kate Edmondson, Paper Conservator at the Courtauld Gallery, for their support and guidance during this process.

Each journal on display will be identified by a caption that recalls an antique price tag, which we hope will carry viewers to a figurative shopping space, embellished by layers of history. And although they won’t be able to handle the journals on display, we’ve created a booklet for them to touch and peruse, with the help of the exhibition designer Amy Preston. It is our abstract interpretation of a historic fashion journal, and includes a fashion plate, editor’s letter, and other surprises. Will this intimate interaction heighten readers’ bodily sense of setting, and plunge them into winter? And those who attend some of the exhibitions’ associated events, such as our December workshop, will obtain their very own copy!

The Power of the Cult Model

lanvin

For the casting of the SS15 show, and the 125th anniversary of the House of Lanvin, Alber Elbaz looked back through the model archive. The designer explained: “I did not want it to feel like a coming-back-type-of-thing, but almost like a parade of women of different ages; it’s not just about cool and trendy but about timelessness”. During this celebratory season, the Lanvin women on the catwalk were strong and powerful models from the Eighties and Nineties, embodied by iconic names such as Amber Valletta, Kirsten Owen, Violetta Sanchez and Natasa Vojnovic. Tim Blanks, Editor-at-Large Style.com, noted that ‘apparently the best maquillage’ was indeed experience. Midway through the show, the forty-three-year-old Canadian model Kirsten Owen made an almost ghostlike appearance, wearing a long white flowing Empire-line dress. In the Nineties, she was a crucial component of Helmut Lang’s shows, in which Lang had always sought to evoke a sense of diversity and reality. He had experimented by bringing men and women of different age groups and ethnicities together, and by asking not only professional models but also his close friends to model his creations. Owen’s natural yet unconventional beauty challenged the dominant images in contemporary commercial fashion and magazines, and today at Lanvin her appearance, again, was able to add to the intensely personal mood of the show. Contrary to what comments in the press might suggest, Elbaz’s cast of women of various ages was neither new nor experimental. Nonetheless, Elbaz’s preference to work with “retired” models showed he was well aware that these faces, with their maturity and individual character, were no blank canvases upon which he needed to impose a new vision. In fact, quite the opposite was true: the Lanvin story was no longer only about the garments but, by simply being there, these cult models reminded the audience of the brand’s long and established history, and contributed to the cultural capital of the House.

An interview with Edie Campbell

Edie, photographed by Jessica Draper for Blow Up, her Art GCSE project (2006) 2
Edie, photographed by Jessica Draper for Blow Up, her Art GCSE project (2006)
Edie, photographed by Jessica Draper for Blow Up, her Art GCSE project
Edie, photographed by Jessica Draper for Blow Up, her Art GCSE project (2006)

I met Edie when we were both about 11 years old on our first day of school. While most girls looked as though they had been dressed by their mothers, Edie wore a black t-shirt with the playboy bunny logo in pink glitter on the front. I think even then, I knew she was a bit different. I recently rediscovered a series of photographs I took of Edie for a GCSE Art project in 2006. I had just learned about the British photographer David Bailey and decided to take pictures of her dressed like Jean Shrimpton in mini dresses jumping around on a sofa. Little did we know that she would soon be sitting for the actual David Bailey!

We both took Rebecca Arnold’s course Dress and Identity in Twentieth Century Britain in our second year at the Courtauld Institute of Art, and I wanted to reflect with Edie here on how she recollects her time there and how the course may have impacted her current approach to writing and dressing.

Among other things, we took Rebecca’s course together in second year and, as you know, I enjoyed it so much I decided to take her MA (Documenting Fashion: Modernity, Films and Image in America and Europe, 1920-1945)! Do you think studying the history of dress has affected the way you think or write about fashion?

I think that academia, and the way that we study things in university, can be such a constructed system that it is impossible to continue to think about things in that same way once you leave university. I suppose that the academic way of looking and thinking gets tempered by ‘real life’. So those two modes exist at the same time in my head. Which is nice – it has given me the ability to look at things very objectively, as the products of a designer’s creative process, and as a continuation of the fashion ‘line’. But then equally, I really appreciate clothes simply as sensual objects, to be touched and worn and experienced on a purely intuitive, completely decontextualised level. Simply as clothes that make you feel good. I guess the course gave me a framework through which to think about fashion.

Your articles, like ‘Hidden Depths’ for Harper’s Bazaar (10 September 2013), and your recent work as senior contributing editor for Love Magazine, are a pleasure to read, where do you find your inspiration?

I never can! Which is probably why I don’t write more. I am really bad at thinking about what to write – nothing ever seems interesting enough. I think I am too cynical about what people might find interesting.

Do you miss The Courtauld?

Yes, I miss learning about things, and exercising my brain as if it was a muscle. I feel like my brain has become old and flabby. I miss hearing someone speak about the subject that they have devoted their entire career to.

When we were studying, we took trips to places like the Museum of London to reflect on subcultures. What do you think about the term ‘subcultural’?

I just don’t know if there are any subcultures any more. I’m not sure that anything gets enough time to properly incubate these days. Or maybe subcultures are just made in retrospect, and in 15 years time everyone will be going ‘ohhhhh, the cult of the hipster, what a great time that must have been’, and we’ll be looking on in horror and slight nausea.

You’re looking brilliant in the McQueen campaign at the moment and it made me think of the chapters we read about Britishness in fashion, do you think designers still trade on ideas of being British?

Oh yeah for sure! My entire career is built on plugging being British. In an increasingly globalised world, when designers are really thinking about how they are going to flog their product in Malaysia, something that is recognisable and locatable, and comes with the weight of history to validate its worth is incredibly saleable. I mean, designers are literally trading on it. So are models. The fact that the Victoria’s Secret Show is being held in London this year says a HUGE amount about the saleability of Britishness – VS is not a brand that would take a chance financially.

I remember your presentation in our Dress and Identity course about David Bowie’s album cover, I think it was Ziggy Stardust, and you recently saw a Kate Bush concert – why do you think fashion is so important to musicians?

Because if the music sucks at least they look good! Clothes are an extension of their self-expression, of the ideas and world that they are trying to push. Just look at how important the ‘makeover’ part of the X Factor process is. Especially when music is an increasingly visual medium, via YouTube and the greater importance of live shows (whereas previously perhaps one might have bought a record).

Do you enjoy dressing up?

I do. Some of the time. I spend my life dressing up at work so at home I really can’t be bothered. I might take to wearing silk pyjamas and dressing gowns everywhere. I do like fancy dress though. I like coming up with costumes more and more.

A Biography of Objects: Second Floor: The Private Apartment of Coco Chanel by Sam Taylor-Johnson

Chanel1
Second Floor: Lion with Pearls
Chanel2
Second Floor: No. 5 Chandelier I
Chanel3
Second Floor: Sofa

Chanel4
Second Floor: Staircase II
[All photographs by Sam Taylor-Johnson, Courtesy of Chanel]
“Little events, ordinary things…imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story”– Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

Haunting, evocative and profoundly intimate, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s series of photographs of the private apartment of Coco Chanel, exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery, is a visual biography of emotion conveyed through the poignant rendering of objects, and the moments and memories of a life preserved in talismanic form. Although it is closed to the public, the Paris apartment, located above the Chanel boutique at 31 Rue Cambon, has long been the fabric of legend. Forming the ornate backdrop to iconic photographic portraits by Man Ray and Horst, it also regularly played host to gatherings of Chanel’s illustrious social circle and provided her with rare moments of solitude away from her atelier. Today, the apartment, which has stood untouched since Chanel’s death in 1971, is only frequented by a privileged few, such as Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld, who frequently draws inspiration from its famous Coromandel screens and décor saturated with symbolism. A mysterious, closely guarded shrine to its former inhabitant, the exotic opulence of the apartment’s interior stands as a living, breathing contradiction to the streamlined simplicity of the couturiere’s clothing designs. Yet look for the signs and they are there: the symbols and the spirit which form the beating heart of both Chanel the brand and Chanel the woman.

Familiar and recurring Chanel design emblems appear in the form of gilded lions (Chanel’s astrological sign), a chandelier of tumbling glass ‘5’ and interlocking double ‘C’ motifs and beige suede cushions which bear the same quilted effect of the iconic ‘2.55’ handbag. More personal and emotionally metaphoric objects, such as Buddhas, tarot cards, a smoky crystal ball and sheaves of wheat, sit alongside, hinting at a deep inner life characterized by intense spirituality, superstition and profound loss. A particularly poignant close-up image of a miniature jewelled cage containing two tiny pearl lovebirds serves not only as a tangible reminder of Chanel’s great love of precious materials but as, in the words of Harper’s Bazaar editor Justine Picardie, a ‘treasured amulet of a coupledom that was to elude Chanel’.

This photographic series was inspired by a conversation between Taylor-Johnson and Picardie, who wrote part of her acclaimed Chanel biography in the apartment and who, like the artist, has come to develop a very personal connection with the designer. For both photographer and writer, what appears to be the most striking and profound element of being immersed in the Chanel interior is its undeniably ethereal overtones, and its overwhelming and almost uncomfortable sensation of coming too close. Chanel herself described the interior of a home as ‘the natural projection of the soul’ and, indeed, it is within this intimate setting that her spirit still lingers, her loves, passions and even heartbreaks crystallized within the now abandoned collections of rare books, art and objects. What strikes Picardie most about Taylor-Johnson’s remarkable images ‘is that they capture absence, at the same time as presence’. Looking at these photographs, one suspects that Chanel’s own image may be glimpsed at any moment in the smoked glass mirror, whose octagonal form echoes the familiar shape of a Chanel No. 5 perfume bottle stopper, yet, simultaneously, the famous cream silk chair in which she reclined for many a portrait, its cushion worn from constant sitting, stands eerily empty.

For many, the glossy chiaroscuro of these large-scale photographs will be the closest they will come to experiencing this secret inner sanctum. Taylor-Johnson’s powerful and intriguing rendering of Chanel’s most cherished items, however, undoubtedly succeeds in drawing its viewers deeper into the authentic and indissoluble aura of Chanel, forming a portrait of a woman and the narrative of a life told through objects that is, at once, both elusive and inescapable.

 

Second Floor: The Private Apartment of Coco Chanel by Sam Taylor-Johnson was exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery, London in September 2014.

The book Sam Taylor-Johnson: Second Floor will be published by Steidl on 24th November 2014.

 

Sources:

Morand, P. (1976), The Allure of Chanel, trans. E. Cameron, London: Pushkin.

Picardie, J. (2014), ‘Kindred Spirits’ in Harper’s Bazaar, London: September 2014.

Picardie, J. (2011), Coco Chanel: The Legend and The Life, London: HarperCollins.

Favourite Online Resources

Fashion Horizons
Fashion Horizons 1940, Prelinger Archives
Zam Buk - Wellcome
Zam Buk advertisement, Wellcome Collection.

As the new academic year starts, we got together to choose some of our favourite online and digital resources for researching dress history.  We wanted to share these with you, and to give you examples of some of our best finds amongst the rich selection of material each resource contains. Hope you enjoy exploring them, as much as we do.

Alexis: I discovered http://www.ina.fr, the site of the Institut national de l’audiovisuel (INA), as I conducted research for my thesis on French culture and ready-made dress from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. The site, which archives a wide range of contemporary and historical materials, including interviews, television episodes, documentary film and radio reports, and fashion shows, has enriched my research, which is based on more typical textual and visual sources. One example of a chance discovery that provides insight into the period is a news report from 1974 that discussed the couture trade syndicate’s acceptance of ready-to-wear designers. Its mix of current affairs, industry, women, fashion imagery, and Paris scenery brings together many of the components of my research.

Katerina: My favourite online research resource is WorldCat, a database that connects you to both bibliographic and archival material on a subject. It’s especially useful if you’re looking up a person, because it can advise you about where their archives are located, or about lesser known, but relevant articles on them. During the course of my PhD research I wanted to find out about the photographer Alexey Brodovitch’s activity as a designer in 1920s Paris, but all the publications I had encountered overlooked this phase in his career. When I looked up ‘Alexey Brodovitch’ on Worldcat however, it brought up Nathalie Cattaruzza’s work on Brodovitch’s early career.

Liz: Berg Fashion Library (BFL) is an online reference resource distributed by Oxford University Press to academic subscription holders. The Courtauld Library holds a subscription to BFL, through which I can view the entire series of Berg Encyclopedia of World Fashion and Dress, countless e-books, extra reference resources and numerous images. These subjects can all be searched for by place, date, or key terms. BFL is always my first port of call for my own research, which has encompassed Morocco, Africa, Japan and Brazil. I find it particularly useful given the extensive attention paid to Western but also non-Western modes of everyday and high-end fashion and dress.

Rebecca: The resource I return to again and again – for work and pleasure – is the Prelinger Archives. This has an extensive collection of non-fiction films that can be watched online, downloaded and reproduced free! It’s a really exciting collection, one favourite is Fashion Horizons from 1940. This is a travelogue that shows Hollywood starlets modelling contemporary fashions, as they travel by plane to various landmarks in America. The film is in colour, and gives a really good idea of attitudes to modernity, luxury, ethnicity and gender just before America entered the war.

Lucy: Wellcome Images is the online counterpart to the Wellcome Collection, one of London’s most unique and diverse museums. It hosts a broad and endlessly fascinating range of images that explore the human experience through life, death, the body, art, and more. For my research, its medical and military material helps me to contextualise ways violence encroached upon fashion during the interwar period. The resource also reveals examples of this phenomenon, such as a 1930s Zam Buk advertisement. Here, the isolation of body parts upon a black background participates in a post-First World War trend that I have identified, towards fragmentation in fashion and beauty.

Self-expression, space and style: a conversation with Camille Branda at Bergdorf’s

Camille 01
Camille, 4th Floor, Bergdorf Goodman
Camille 02
4th Floor, Couture and Evening Collections, Bergdorf Goodman
Camille 03
3rd Floor, Designer Collections, Bergdorf Goodman
Camille 04
View of Bergdorf Goodman from 5th Avenue
Camille 05
Bergdorf Goodman windows
Camille 06
Camille, 1960s, Brooklyn, New York
Camille 07
Camille, 1970s, Brooklyn, New York

Camille Branda, associate and personal shopper in couture and evening collections at Bergdorf Goodman since 2011, considers the shop a museum, in that it is a space defined as much by beautiful things, as the creative people that work with them. In September, we met and discussed how these elements intersect to shape one of New York’s most iconic specialty stores. It was a pleasure to wander its spaces together, and admire the craftsmanship and ideas behind the garments. And Camille has a discerning eye – before launching her own Image Consulting Business a few years ago, she led a fulfilling career as the VP of Product Development and Sourcing for The Echo Design Group, an accessory and home décor company. While there, she travelled the world to look for novel fabrics, products and manufacturers. Camille relives this experience of discovery every day at BG, as interaction with designers enhances her understanding and appreciation of the clothing. It is the constant flow of diverse people – from the designers to those that work on the window displays and customers – that make BG an ever-changing creativity hub. This is reflected in the way she talks about her job:

Everyday I arrive excited, as I approach 5th Avenue, and see the store and its magnificent window displays. This may sound silly, but it really does thrill me. We start most mornings with a clinic, directed by a designer or designer representative, who introduces us to a particular product, to understand this brand and its seasonal inspiration. We then go live and meet the customers. Curtain unfolds at 10:00 and the real show begins!

This sense of theatre is reflected in the movement and crowds that characterise the store’s ambience. And Camille clearly moves to this fast rhythm: when we met, an hour before her next appointment, she seamlessly conversed with me in between phone calls to clients and fitters. Perhaps it is the personal shoppers, who are the most integrated within the intricate spaces of the shop: they tie all the floors together in their creation of looks. And their clients, who Camille describes as more “educated” than ever, demand thorough service. In turn, she has learned much about the many individual and cultural perceptions of fashion and the body. For Camille, ‘the “one-on-one” relationship is intimate and rewarding. We talk lifestyle, goals, preferences, and challenges, as well as colour, style and proportion as we walk through the store to feel for likes and dislikes… I am not only interested in making a big sale, I want to build a relationship with customers for a lifetime.’ Through close observation – the unspoken is most revealing – and listening, she is able to best advise on clothing that ‘accommodate[s] and improve[s] a customer’s personal style.’

Clothing is one element of a puzzle that shapes the picture of one’s image or style, based on self-presentation, expression, and the physical realities of the body in a certain space. In a typical day for Camille, she might style outfits, as ritualistic as that for a wedding or debutante presentation, or plan wardrobes to correspond to the minimalist space of an art gallery, a formal state dinner, or business and casual settings. This multi-layered definition of style was a thread that ran through our conversation, especially when we discussed unique characters, such as the late American heiress, horticulturalist and collector Doris Duke. Camille became fascinated with Duke after a recent visit to her mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, whose objects and decoration reflected its owner’s extraordinary life and unique outlook. Similarly, Camille’s memory of her mother, as ‘sophisticated, polished and elegant’ and ‘a true style icon,’ lives on in objects and pictures, with which she surrounds herself. She joked that her mother ‘groomed [her] for Bergdorf Goodman at a very tender age,’ and a few days after our meeting, she sent me a childhood photograph of herself in a carefully constructed ensemble ‘styled by Mom.’ Taken in her bedroom, she wears a coat with a large white fur collar over a dress, accessorised with leather gloves, a bag, and an ornamented hat. Her prim crossed-legged pose completes the image.

As she grew older, Camille used fashion as her own means of creativity and self-expression. She recalls wearing a shearling coat and printed headband while in high school. The processes of styling and wearing this outfit were, for Camille, transformative experiences that made her feel ‘so cool and simply amazing.’ Through them she could assert her independence, as well as relate to the wardrobes of films, including Love Story and Annie Hall.

Camille has thus always combined the realities of fashionable dressing, with a ‘romantic, fun’ fantasy realm. Throughout her career, Camille has honed her expertise and fashion eye, and now similarly seeks to enhance and elevate her clients’ images to match Bergdorf’s own, stylish reputation.

Wearable Technology

During the summer of 2014, the Barbican staged its Digital Revolution – an exhibition that celebrated technology. From the humble home computer of the 1970s, to innovative special effects and interactive artworks of the present and future, it highlighted the way technology has come to immerse itself within, and drive, almost every aspect of daily life. Fashion is by no means immune to this convergence, and the show duly acknowledged this, by featuring garments by Studio XO for TechHaus, the technical division of Lady Gaga’s Haus of Gaga, and wearable technology by Pauline van Dongen. The examples on display went beyond wearable gadgets that are solely functional, such as sporting devices, and instead demonstrated how technology can be fused seamlessly with sartorial ensembles, breaking any boxy, plastic stereotypes and looking unmistakably like couture.

One dress from Pauline van Dongen’s Wearable Solar collection was especially striking. Smooth, cool leather moulds itself over the torso, joined by a simple, black, wool skirt that sits just above the knee. Generous, but form-skimming shapes prevent the look from being overly sexualized, and instead promote a strong, confident style, enhanced by elongated shoulders. One would be forgiven, from a distance, for presuming that the shining stripes made up of small squares that descend from each shoulder serve a decorative purpose only. However, the dress in fact incorporates 72 flexible solar cells, and is capable of fully charging the wearer’s mobile phone with just two hours of full sunlight.

This is just one example of new ways of thinking and working in the fashion industry, which are re-invigorating the existing model that has been in place for decades. The relationship between clothes and their wearers is changing: dress no longer must necessarily be worn passively. Rather, it is capable of responding, communicating, and even assisting. Furthermore, such developments create new links and dialogues between fashion and other areas, such as the energy industries.

Van Dongen asserts that this will help to restore sustainability, both in her work, through the clear environmental benefits of using solar energy, and, on a more general scale, by increasing the longevity of garments, on the basis that incorporated technology will raise their value (actual and perceived) and theoretically decrease their disposability. The implied sense of frugality and practicality maximizes the usefulness of something that is already a constant accompaniment in everyday life: clothing.

However, this infusion of technology into dress is not entirely new. For example, since the late-1980s the Cyber Goth trend has entailed distinctly future orientated and styled dress, incorporating technological elements such as LED circuits. However, it seems that the 2010s mark a new transition point towards usability and ubiquity within this phenomenon. Since the late 2000s, shoppers have been able to use digital representations of themselves to ‘try on’ makeup and fashion looks in a virtual reality environment, for example at Shiseido and Topshop. The launch of the Apple Watch in September 2014, blends design, function, and lifestyle, and Topshop Unique’s use of virtual reality to transport in-branch shoppers to the heart of its Spring/Summer 2014 catwalk show are two other uses of technology within fashion and design. It seems the Barbican’s crowning of a digital renaissance comes on the cusp of technology’s transformation of the ways we experience dress.

Welcome!

MA Class

Please join us in welcoming this year’s MA students on the course Documenting Fashion: Modernity, Films and Image in America and Europe, 1920-1945, taught by Dr Rebecca Arnold. Look out for their posts when they join our blog team next month!

Fashion Week Reactions Part 4. Redressing Feminism: Chanel’s Fashion Riot

FeminismRedressed

Under the glass roof of Paris’s Grand Palais, a protest is taking place, a procession of women, signs held aloft, calling for female empowerment, as they stride confidently past the large crowds they have attracted. Its setting is a monumental screen print of a typical Parisian rue dubbed the ‘Boulevard Chanel’; its demonstrators, eighty models centered around such high-profile names as Cara Delevingne and Gisele Bündchen; the props, quilted megaphones and handbags dripping in Chanel iconography.

Indeed, the finale of Chanel’s Spring-Summer 2015 ready-to-wear show possessed all the ingredients for a potent collision of fashion and feminism, yet it left many a critic cold and confused as to its underlying intentions. A prevailing mood of discomfort regarding Lagerfeld’s seemingly hollow hijacking of the feminist cause for publicity purposes immediately permeated the international press, giving rise to concerns as varied as they are, perhaps, unfounded. While some dwelled on the apparent hypocrisy of this multi-billion dollar luxury brand’s attempt to promote a liberated individualism by way of exorbitantly expensive garments, others bristled at the narrow spectrum of ‘ideal’ female beauty represented by the designer’s casting of professional fashion models in the role of feminist activists. Protest signs carrying such slogans as, ‘Tweed not Tweet’, ‘Ladies First’ and ‘History is Her Story’ were widely derided as empty and naïve attempts to exploit the gravity of a highly topical social issue. Journalist Alexander Fury even went as far as to suggest that the show had been the very ‘artifice of anarchy’, a noisy, fussy publicity stunt lacking in any real, honest political statement.

But as debates raged over potential misinterpretations of that significantly weighted word – feminism – and accusations of trivialization poured forth, the very point of the show itself appeared to have been not just overlooked, but also largely, and sadly, missed. The true stars of the show were, in fact, the clothes themselves, which formed, in the words of Vogue’s Suzy Menkes, a ‘back-to-Coco parade’, one which confirmed that the dynamic spirit of the label’s fiercely independent female founder still endures, nearly a century after its sartorial debut. Gabrielle Chanel herself was fashion’s greatest inadvertent feminist. She bestowed a freedom of movement and gender blurring right to comfort and function upon women, whose experiences of dress had, thereto, been characterised by restriction, adornment and submission. This specific collection’s layering of menswear-inspired elements (boxy tweed jackets, wide-leg trousers and sailor stripe knits) atop feminine basenotes of florals, unusually vibrant prints and classic Chanel monochrome palettes travelled to the very heart of the brand’s unique heritage, while, simultaneously, allowing the image of the modern, active woman to be effectively reimagined and updated for a post-Coco society.

It is important that such a presentation is not taken out of context as, after all, it seems illogical to dismiss the theatrical spectacle of the show’s format as mere ‘publicity stunt,’ when the very function of a fashion show is that of self-promotion and commercial endorsement. Unlike the design philosophies at the root of the Chanel brand, gender equality debates can arguably never truly be timeless, as constantly shifting social mores require them to move and morph with their times, never standing still. Therefore, to accuse Chanel of presenting a reductive view of diluted feminism seems a step too far, and the very fact that it is engaging in the discussion at all should be applauded. Fashion, viewed through the lens of feminism is likely to remain a problematic concept on many levels, but it should be recognized that attempts to exclude it from the conversation would only be counter-productive. The most negative aspect of feminism’s fraught relationship with fashion does not lie in the sartorial embrace of what it means to be a modern woman, in any era, but in the fact that the two spheres are being forced to uncomfortably co-exist as conflicting and contradictory ideologies. Lagerfeld’s riot of a show may not have brought about longed-for permanent change, but it has taken us one step closer to breaking down the seemingly obligatory boundaries between the two by, at last, allowing them to assume a much-needed dialogue that is imperative to the future success of both.

 

Sources:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/04/are-fashion-and-feminism-compatible-lagerfeld-chanel

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/chanel-springsummer-2015-show-review-a-fashion-riot-to-the-feminist-cause-9765074.html

http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/2014/09/30/suzy-menkes-at-paris-fashion-week-day-seven

http://www.irishexaminer.com/examviral/real-life/feminism-or-pure-publicity-chanel-ss15-catwalk-sparks-new-debate-289436.html

http://chanel-news.chanel.com/en/home.tag.spring-summer-2015-ready-to-wear.html?WT.srch=1&WT.mc_id=FA_en_GB_201410_15SShow&WT.mc_t=sea