Online collections = happy eyeballs

Just in case anyone needs to kill some time on the internet or actually needs to find an object for research's sake, here are a few links that I have been perusing lately.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's digital collection

House of Worth, 1896

The Chicago History Museum's digital collection

Paul Poiret, 1913

and OMG that dress!, which is a blog dedicated to posting images of historical fashion from institutions from all over the world.

Jacques Fath, 1953, The Kyoto Costume Institute

The images in these digital collections are gorgeous and include centuries of history.  So even if you are not looking for academic purposes, just browsing for the sake of your eyeballs is a good reason too.

Enjoy!

Fashion Journals: Worn and Address

I have come across two fashion publications that I have enjoyed so much in the last few months.  Address, based out of London, is an independent, academic journal that presents fashion through many different creative mediums and perspectives.  Worn, based out of Toronto, is another independent fashion journal that also showcases fashion and the art of appearances from many different viewpoints.

One of the reasons I love these journals so much is the incorporation of different styles of writing, perspectives, cultures, themes, and personalities. Their broad spectrum view of fashion and the ways we encounter and interpret it in our past, present, and future lives is what makes these publications different from fashion journals before them.  While Address has pieces written by those in and out of the fashion industry from all over the world, Worn supports those in its local fashion community and operates in a realm of its own where an extraordinary fashion journal is cleverly disguised as a fashion magazine.  Worn and Address share an important quality, however,  in that they both approach dress as something that is unique and different to every culture and every individual for that matter.

I could not turn a page in either of these publications without finding something that struck me.  These are just a few quotes that I could not help but make note of.

The introduction to the opening article in Address titled "From Out of the Box" by Nathaniel Dafydd Beard: (This article discusses the ever-rising emphasis being placed on fashion exhibitions in cultural institutions and how museums are learning as they go to find the best ways to make their collections accessible to the public.)
"Historically, the relationship between fashion and the museum ended at the cloakroom.  Yet, just as curators began to explore the vast cultural significance of the fashion industry, their spaces saw an explosion of vitality which has now escaped from the boundaries of physical space altogether.  As fashion curators develop an increasing hunger for the digital, what role does clothing now play?"

(from the same article) "Despite their vast wealth of knowledge and expertise, there remains a slight amateurish air over the fashion curator's role, in part because so many had to create their own jobs as they went along."

"Or as Cecil Beaton once put it, 'He who ignores fashion, ignores life itself.'" (My new tagline..)

This opening article in Address meant a lot to me. While I was still interning at the Chicago History Museum, I saw first hand the types of efforts that were being made to catalog images for future public release on the web.  Fashion has always been, well, fashionable, but as for fashion in museums, the public and museum staff themselves are still trying to figure out how to receive it.  I strongly suggest anyone who has any interest in this subject to order the journal from their website.  This article is only one of many gems in their current issue.

(Don't mind it's creased corners, I've been carrying it with me 

everywhere since I got in the mail last week)

I have only been a subscriber to Worn for its last 2 issues. They are a bi-annual publication and their most recent issue was their 14th.  Just as the 13th issue was, the 14th issue has been just as much of a page turner filled with insightful and refreshing articles that do not take themselves too seriously as some long-standing fashion publications might.

Right away in the editor's letter, Worn manages to talk about style in a way that had not occurred to me before:
"When it comes to style, fashion, and taste, WORN is committed to challenging the polarizing concepts of good and bad...We believe we have as much to learn from things we don't like as things we do.  Realizing that there is no one sartorial path is to accept there is no one human narrative; ultimately, our individuality is what we have in common."

Throughout the issue, from the different types of bras and their histories to the affects the military has had on men's fashion ("Shop at all seriously for a suit, and you enter a realm of things you must always or never do."), I learn more and more about the clothing I put on everyday.  I also learn about the clothes that other types of people wear everyday, such as ballet dancers, or even other cultures, such as Mayan women in South America and their traditional huipils.  All in all, Worn presents information about style and dress in such a thought-provoking and witty way that will make me a subscriber to their journal for as long as they keep sending them to me all the way down in Memphis.

The mere existence of these publications gives clue to the rise of this once scoffed at industry of dress as interpretive history.  And as someone who hopes to have the privilege to work in this industry one day, publications, blogs, and other forms of media like these ignite my drive and passion to meet that goal even more.  And for that, editors of Worn and Address, I thank you.

"Charles James: Genius Deconstructed"

On this grey Saturday afternoon, I had the pleasure of revisiting some old stomping grounds at the Chicago History Museum and the chance to see the Charles James exhibition that has been in place since October. Charles James, a London born fashion designer, first made his stake in the industry in Chicago in the 1930s. The 1940s and 1950s were the wonder years in Charles James career. In 1946, James presented his first (and only) collection in Paris. "The Paris showing was so successful that Christian Dior credited James as an inspiration for his now-famous 1947 New Look collection."* The exhibit, titled "Charles James: Genius Deconstructed," presents James's work through the lens of construction. James approached dressmaking with techniques that he had acquired making his daring style of hats in the late 1920s. Therefore, James's designs were constantly ahead of their time in style and technique, as well as considered masterworks of art and construction.

One of the highlights for me (outside of the gowns themselves) of the exhibit were the CT scans that were taken of several of the gowns at the Field Museum. The scans revealed the very meticulous construction of the gowns which included intricate metal stays and boning in many of the gowns.

CT scan of Charles James's "Tree" gown

Cover of exhibit catalog** featuring a side by side image of the "Tree" gown and the CT scan taken of the gown

Another highlight of the exhibit for me was a little tidbit of fashion history that I learned about one of my favorite James pieces, the Infanta or also known as the Williamsburg. The two different names for this gown refer to the two different time periods in which a similar style of gown was worn. "Infanta" was a name used for women in the royal Spanish court in the seventeenth century whose wide style skirts are infamous in paintings by Diego Velazquez. The name "Williamsburg" refers to the panniers, an undergarment that widened the appearance of the hips, that women wore in the eighteenth century in the United States.

Left to right: Velázquez, Infanta Don Margarita de Austria, 1660;

Charles James, Infanta, 1952; Robe a l'Anglaise, 1784-87.

The illustrations of Antonio Lopez are another interesting and beautiful aspect of the exhibit. James and Lopez collaborated in the mid 1960s when Lopez was beginning to be recognized in the art world. This collaboration has been a vital point to the survival and legacy of James's work. 106 of Lopez's illustrations were donated to the Chicago History Museum during Charles James's visit to the Chicago History Museum in 1974.

Illustration by Antonio Lopez of Charles James design

"The artist, Charley James, who chose silks or furs instead of stone or paint as his media, built sculptures and created paintings around the living flesh." - Franklin Rose, friend of Charles James

Charles James on his visit to Chicago History Museum in 1974,

the purpose of which was to examine the collection of his gowns.

*Quote from exhibit catalog.

**The exhibit catalog for Charles James: Genius Deconstructed can be purchased here.

Images from Metropolitan Museum of Art and Chicago History Museum.

"Unmentionables: Foundations of Fashion"

In the spirit of embracing my move back to Memphis I am seeking outlets of history and fashion history in my dear ole hometown to not only continue my own education of the subjects but also to learn more about the place in which I was born and raised. So it was my delight to learn that The Pink Palace was opening a display of fashion undergarments titled "Unmentionables: Foundations of Fashion." As every other broke post-grad does in this situation, I looked up when the museum offers free admission :) So last Tuesday in between 1-5 I trekked over to check it out. (I will be writing a separate post about the general history of The Pink Palace and the other textile and garment pieces I encountered while on my visit there.)

The emphasis of the display is on silhouette and how fashion's history has been defined greatly by shape and the undergarments that create said shapes. The display includes 12 examples of women's undergarments spanning from the 1880s to the 1960s and 4 examples of men's undergarments. The display also includes 6 women's dresses, including one wedding dress, that exemplify the type of garment that would be worn with their counterpart understructure, all spanning from the 1880s to the 1960s. The study of silhouette has always been an area of interest of mine, especially in relation to corsetry and the women's movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I complain when a belt or a pair of pants is too tight so I can only imagine the discomfort that these women dealt with daily because of tight corsetry. On the other hand, today's woman will walk around in 4 inch heels all day giving herself blisters all for the sake of beauty and fashion, so is there really that big of difference? All I can conclude is that I am thankful that it is no longer considered in vogue to wear those type of garments under my clothes everyday and to thank designers like Chanel, Poiret, and Fortuny for setting the trend on a mainstream level in the 1910s and women like Ameilia Bloomer, Annie Oakley, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton for starting the trend among women at the grassroots level in the 19th century.

Fashion is history.

So if you have not seen the NY Times article on fashion's place in museums then don't bother at this point because I'm about to point out why it has a seriously misled point of view.

It really is pointless to argue that fashion is superficial and it has no place in the academic world because it has arrived, folks, and its not going anywhere. Fashion as history has fought the same battles that any other "alternative" history has fought. And by "alternative" I mean, anything that is not the old, rich white man's version of history. Emerging social histories fought for their relevancy back in the 1960s, and fashion has been fighting the same battle in academia since before the 1990s.

Yes, it is true that fashion exhibitions are popular with the public because fashion as a general subject is popular. But who is to argue against something that brings in revenue for museums that are struggling financially more than ever in this downward trending economy? Also, just because museums and academia are finding a place for costume exhibitions doesn't mean that the public in general understands how fashion can be used to tell the stories of the past. Isn't educating one of the basic missions of a museum? Imagine the surprise for those lucky wanderers of New York's Met or Chicago's Chicago History Museum or L.A.'s Los Angeles County Museum of Art when they find themselves face to face with a turn of the century gown that demonstrates how couturiers freed women from rigid corsetry or how garment factory workers used the emerging ready-to-wear industry to uplift their position in life. Conserve, share and educate. That is what museum's are doing with their costume collections just as they are with their paintings and photographs and other forms of "art."

Dresses featured in Chicago History Museum's exhibition Chic Chicago: Couture Treasures from the Chicago History Museum that demonstrate how couture fashion "trickled down" to ready-to-wear fashion. Christian Dior (on right) circa 1953 and Sophie (on left) circa 1954 could both have been purchased at Chicago's Marshall Field's in their different departments of course.*

What it comes down to, honestly, is that dress, in all its different forms, is something we use everyday. And whether or not you are plucking t-shirts out of the half off bin at Express or strolling into Dior on Avenue Montaigne, dress expresses identity. Dress has acted as an expression of identity since before the Etruscans draped their first chiton in the 6th century B.C. and will continue to do so forever. Therefore, it is not hard to connect how fashion can give us a tangible window into the societies of the past, whether it's a gown from the couture house of Gabrielle Chanel from the 1920s or an English red coat from the Revolutionary War.

So, believers in fashion, continue to support the arts, in all its forms, by visiting the exquisitely well thought out fashion exhibitions being featured in museums across this country. Thank you and goodnight.

*Information from the catalog of the exhibition, which can be purchased here. (One example of the scholarly work that goes into a fashion exhibition.)