Reading Between the Lines at Ivy Style

Ivy Style, an exhibition that considers the origins of the "Ivy League Look"in menswear, opened on September 14, 2012 at The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York. Presented thematically in vignettes that evoke an Ivy League university campus, including a quad, a dorm room, an athletic club, a chemistry lab and a university shop, the exhibition features around 60 ensembles of menswear that show the evolution of the style from the late 1910s to present day reinterpretations.

What's on The January Fashion Calendar

The January calendar includes fashion weeks in Paris and Berlin as well as the closing of two not-to-be-missed exhibitions about fashion icons including:

Daphne Guinness

Daphne Guinness at the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology ends on January 7th, 2012. Daphne herself was heavily involved in the production of this exhibition. She said "What draws me to fashion is art...and certainly not fashion as status symbol," and "This exhibition is done for the benefit of those out there, students or otherwise, who share this love." The show is hauntingly beautiful and many of the ensembles evoke a sense of fragile and fleeting beauty. Daphne uses clothing like armour -- attracting attention in doing so but also putting a physical barrier between herself and the world that hides her real self within these exquisite creations.

Grace Kelly Engagement

Grace Kelly: From Movie Star to Princess at the TIFF Lightbox ends on January 22, 2012. Having seen this exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, I recall marveling at the elegance of the gowns on display. Grace Kelly embodied the elegance and restraint of a modern princess.

The Haute Couture shows in Paris run January 23-26, 2012, beginning with Versace at 10:30 a.m. on January 23rd and ending with Valentino on January 25th at 6:30 p.m. The complete schedule can be viewed here. How I wish I was going... instead I'll be in class (sigh)....

May 2012 bring good things your way....Live with passion and dream big!

Notice of copyright: 
All text and images on this blog are the copyright of Ingrid Mida, unless otherwise noted. The copying of posts, images and/or text without proper attribution is violation of copyright and legal action will be pursued.

Blogging and Baudelaire

Gaga's Boudoir Window at Barney's New York by Ingrid Mida 2011

Poet Charles Baudelaire and theorist Walter Benjamin were fascinated by the concept of the flaneur, a figure who anonymously strolled through the city streets gazing into windows, embodying the concept of modernity in the specular relationship to urban space and consumer goods. I felt a bit like a flaneuse myself during my weekend jaunt to New York, strolling the city from the Museum at FIT (at 7th and 27th) up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (at 5th and 82) and stopping to admire the windows like this fabulous Gaga display at Barneys. The weather was glorious and I drank in the sunshine as if I'd recently been released from prison (which is what I equate the library I've been living in of late).

Stepping away from for a weekend was refreshing in so many ways and it re-energized me.  I also thought of all the good things that have come my way from being a blogger -  the people I've met, the exhibitions I've seen, the friends I've made.... I recently submitted an abstract for a paper called "Blogging, Benjamin and Foucault" to the Fashion Tales 2012 conference in Milan. In equating bloggers to Baudelaire’s and Benjamin's concept of the flaneur and drawing on Foucault’s theories on the aesthetics of existence, I hope to recast the blog as a creative portal and a form of conversational erudition. Call me crazy.... I don't know if it will fly, but sometimes you just have to jump off the cliff....

Notice of copyright: 
All text and images on this blog are the copyright of Ingrid Mida, unless otherwise noted. The copying of posts, images and/or text without proper attribution is violation of copyright and legal action will be pursued.

What's on the Fashion Calendar for December

In a month filled with holiday parties and festivities (not to mention a raft of deadlines), I find the reflective nature of art to be a balm to the soul. Here are some of the exhibitions I hope to visit this month:

Cecil Beaton 1948

The Museum of the City of New York presents the work of British-born photographer and designer Cecil Beaton (1904-80). The exhibition Cecil Beaton: The New York Years brings together extraordinary photographs, drawings, and costumes by Beaton to chronicle his impact on the city’s cultural life.

Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue, New York

Daphne Guiness

Tom Ford once said: “Daphne is one of – if not the – most stylish women living." In an exhibition at the Museum at FIT, curator Valerie Steele collaborated with this fashion icon to present a selection of Daphne Guiness' collection of couture. Divided into six sections, the garments are organized into six themes including Dandyism, Armor, Chic, Evening Chic, Exoticism and Sparkle. 

Museum at FIT, 7th Avenue at 27th, New York 

In the exhibition Stieglitz and his artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe, the Metropolitan Museum of Art presents over 200 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints from Alfred Stieglitz's collection. These artworks were acquired by the Metropolitan in 1949 from Georgia O'Keefe. After reading the book "How Georgia Became O'Keeffe" by Karen Karbo and learning about their stormy relationship, I'm keen to see this exhibition, especially since many of the works were acquired by Stieglitz when the artists were relatively unknown.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue (at 82nd Street), New York

Blue Circus by Marc Chagall

The Art Gallery of Ontario presents Chagall and the Russian Avant-Garde: Masterpieces from the Collection of the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and features the work of Marc Chagall alongside his contemporaries of Russian modernism, including Wassily Kandinsky and Sonia Delaunay.
The exhibition of 118 works comes from the Centre Pompidou and features 32 works by Chagall and eight works by Kandinsky.

Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas Street West, Toronto

Notice of copyright: 
All text and images on this blog are the copyright of Ingrid Mida, unless otherwise noted. The copying of posts, images and/or text without proper attribution is violation of copyright and legal action will be pursued.

If I were in New York over the Holidays.....

Sometimes I wish I was Eloise and lived in the Plaza Hotel with the magic of Manhattan at my doorstep. I'm not going to be in New York over the holidays but a friend is and she asked me what I'd recommend. Here is my list of top three shows in the Big Apple.

Overcoat 2004 by Charles LeDray
Photograph by Tom Powel

Charles LeDray WORKWORKWORKWORKWORK at the Whitney Museum
945 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10021, United States
(212) 570-3600
Subway: 77th Street - Lexington

This retrospective of New York-based sculptor Charles LeDray's work celebrates his highly original and uncanny manipulation of scale to create objects such as tiny men's jackets out of cloth, teeny flip flops out of rubber and embroidery floss and little chairs carved out of bone. His meticulous technique and the small scale of his work, some of which is the size of a child's finger, evoke whimsy and wonder.

Balenciaga Infanta evening dress 1939 (left) and Evening dress and stole 1952 (right)

Balenciaga Exhibition at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute
684 Park Avenue, New York
(212) 628-0420

One of the great fashion couturiers was Balenciaga (1895-1972). His mastery of line, cut and tailoring created sculptural pieces that are unparalleled in their elegance and beauty. In the exhibition BALENCIAGA: Spanish Master,  curator Hamish Bowles presents important examples of the couturier’s designs borrowed from archives and private collectors, including the flamenco-style gowns, the fichu stoles and matador-inspired hats, the evening dresses that evoke the austere sweep of a nun’s wimple.

Men's 3 piece court suit, France c1785

His and Hers Exhibition at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology
7th Ave W 27th St
New York, NY 10001
(212) 217-7676

His & Hers explores changing perceptions of "masculine" and "feminine" dress from the mid-18th century to the present and includes more than 100 garments, accessories, and textiles.

American Beauty, Aesthetics and Innovation in Fashion

I am continually playing catch-up on my blog. There are so many things that I'd like to write about (lectures, exhibitions and books), but there never seems to be enough time for it all. There are only a few days left to see the American Beauty, Aesthetics and Innovation in Fashion  exhibit at the Museum at FIT in New York which will close this Sunday, April 10, 2010.

I had the pleasure of hearing the curator of the exhibition, Patricia Mears, speak at the American Beauty Symposium. She talked about the groundbreaking work of such American fashion designers as Charles James, Claire McCardell and others chosen to represent the interdependence of technical aspects of dressmaking and the American aesthetic of beauty. The display was organized according to the specific methods of construction including the use of geometric forms, dressmaking, tailoring, highly structured or engineered eveningwear, and embroidery and other surface embellishment.  In Patricia’s words, “impeccable design is – and always has been – at the core of innovative American fashion”. 

For me, the highlight of this exhibition was an exquisite Charles James Tree evening gown in pink silk taffeta from 1966. The body of work by this American designer is small, because he was a "relentless perfectionist" and continually revised his previously finished garments. In absence of the labels, I would have guessed that the gowns with magnificent tailoring,  heavy voluminous skirts and rigid under-structures were engineered by Christian Dior. To those in the know, Charles James is considered "America's greatest couturier."

Museum at FIT
Seventh Avenue at 27th Street
New York City

What's on the Calendar in April?

Spring is upon us and there are a myriad of fabulous and fashionable shows to see around the world. Here are some that are on my radar.


Ongoing      The Bata Shoe Museum   On a Pedestal: From Renaissance Chopines to Baroque Heels
The Bata Shoe Museum is one of Toronto's jewels and I've been meaning to pop into this exhibition since it opened in November. On a Pedestal explores two of the most extreme forms of footwear ever worn in Western fashion, the platform chopine and the high heel. This exhibition presents some rare examples of Renaissance and Baroque footwear on loan from museums around the world as well as shoes from the museum's own collection. The exhibition runs to September 20, 2010.

Photo credit: Bata Shoe Museum 2009

April 9          Textile Museum of Canada: Lia Cook, David Harper and Stephen Schofield
Lia Cook's exhibition at the Textile Museum in Toronto is called Faces and Mazes and features her most recent series of weavings. Cook uses an electronic Jacquard hand loom to weave faces that dissolve into continuously changing maze-like patterns. As the faces fragment, a perceptual shift occurs, moving through a place of transition and ambiguity to reveal the physical, tactile nature of the constructed image. Drawing on familiar and childhood sources, Cook uses a detail, often re-photographed, layered and re-woven in oversized scale, to intensify an emotional and/or sensual encounter.

Photo credit: Textile Museum of Canada

David R. Harper embroiders portraits of people on animal skins, playing with the traditional roles of portraiture to immortalize and elevate the subject through artistic representation – just as the trophy from a hunting excursion might be a bear skin rug or a rack of antlers. These images of anonymous, Victorian-era men and women imply an emotional distance that allows the artist to poke at the slippery slope where nature and culture meet.

Photo credit: Textile Museum of Canada

Montreal artist Stephen Schofield’s one-and-a-half life-sized sculptures are intensely sensual. His patchwork figures, based on Pliny the Elder’s tale of Dibutade recounting the origin of drawing, are mapped from the male body and then expertly tailored out of old clothes. Soaked in sugar water and then inflated, the cloth becomes a taut skin that contains the human forms that hover between a highly spirited/spiritual realm and a dream world filled with personal reverie.

Photo credit: Textile Museum of Canada

April 10      Last day to see the American Beauty Exhibition at FIT in New York
I saw this exhibition in New York not long after it opened and never got around to posting about it. It is worth a trip because American Beauty: Aesthetics and Innovation in Fashion examines the relationship between the “philosophy of beauty” and the technical craft of dressmaking in the United States. Curated by deputy director Patricia Mears, the exhibition features approximately 80 garments by about 25 designers, including Halston, Claire McCardell, and Charles James, as well as some not as well known.

Photo credit of Halston gown from FIT website

If you live in NYC, this would be a lovely prelude to the upcoming exhibition on American Women: Fashioning a National Identity set to open at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of New York on May 5, 2010.

April 17       Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK: Grace Kelly, Style Icon 

The spectacular wardrobe of Grace Kelly will be on display from April 17 to September 26, 2010. Tracing the evolution of her style from her days as one of Hollywoods most popular actresses in the 1950s and as Princess Grace of Monaco, the display will present over fifty of Grace Kelly's outfits together with hats, jewellery and the original Hermès Kelly bag. Dresses from her films, including High Society, will be shown as well as the gown she wore to accept her Oscar award in 1955. These will be accompanied by film clips and posters, photographs and her Oscar statuette. The display will also include the lace ensemble worn by Grace Kelly for her civil marriage ceremony to Prince Rainier in 1956 and 35 haute couture gowns from the 1960s and 70s by her favourite couturiers Dior, Balenciaga, Givenchy, and Yves St Laurent.

Weekend in New York

I am just back from a long weekend in New York.  I attended the American Style Symposium at FIT where I also viewed the American Beauty and the Day to Night exhibitions. Plus I managed to squeeze in visits to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) for the Tim Burton show and the Contemporary Drawing show, the Whitney Museum of American Art to see the Georgia O'Keefe abstracts, and the Frick Museum to see the drawings by Watteau, Degas and Boucher. It was four days filled with art and fashion and I'll be posting about these exhibitions in the coming weeks (in between catching up on my regular life, striking my show at Launch Projects, birthday celebrations and Christmas shopping). Happy Holidays everyone!

What's on My Fashion Calendar for December

I never thought I'd want to go to Ohio but December is the last chance to see Confessions and the Sense of Self: Works by Noel Palmomo-Lovinski at Kent State University Museum. In this provocative exhibition, Noel Palomo-Lovinski has used dress as a medium for expressing the tension that many women feel in their roles as wives, mothers, sisters, friends. Taking quotes from several confessional websites and applying them to clothing in a variety of decorative embellishments, texture and pattern, the artist has translated women's internal conflicts in striking visual forms. I'll be posting works from this exhibition and an artist profile of Noel Palmomo-Lovinski later this week.


Opening December 3, 2009 is the exhibition Night and Day at FIT in New York. Curated by Molly Sorkin, associate curator of Costume, this show examines how the rules that dictate appropriate dress for women have changed over the past 250 years. Featuring over 100 day and evening garments displayed in chronological order to illustrate how conventions for appropriate dress have changed, the exhibition includes the work of Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and other designers.


December 4th and 5th will be full days at the Fashion Institute of Technology where I'll be participating in the American Style symposium. Featuring speakers such as Dr. Valerie Steele, Nina Garcia, Patrician Mears (curator of the American Beauty exhibition at FIT), Dr. Alexandra Palmer (curator of Fashion and Textiles at the Royal Ontario Museum) and other fashion scholars, this two-day symposium should be a promising source of material for future posts.


I was too busy to attend the November 19th opening of the new show at the Bata Shoe Museum From Renaissance: Chopines to Baroque Heels. This exhibition features rare and extreme forms of footwear including a pair of Venetian chopines from the 16th century that have pedestals over 50 cm (about 25 inches) in height. These towering chopines from the Fondazione Musei Civici de Venezia will never again be displayed after the September 2010 closing of the show.

Sunday, December 6th is the last day to see my work at the Stepping Stones show at the Launch Projects Gallery in Toronto. 

December is always a hectic month for me - with my birthday and preparations for the holidays all crammed into a few short weeks. But I won't complain, because I love being busy!

Fashion Happenings in November

November 2, 2009 - It's Marie Antoinette's Birthday!!! Eat cake! And visit the blog History-Fiction Chick where my work is being featured today!

November 5, 2009 - The exhibition American Beauty opens at Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

November 7, 2009 - Last day to see the Fashion & Politics exhibition at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

November 7, 2009 - Embellishment Canadian Style: Painted Skins, Beads, Cloth, Threads at the Royal Ontario Museum

9:15 am - 430 pm Learn about Fashionable Domestic Embroidery from Jennifer Salahub, Cloth in Canadian Quilts from Adrienne Hood, Storied Beadwork from Trudy Nicks, and Narrative Painting on Buffalo Robes from Arni Brownstone at the ROM's day long symposium on Canadian forms of Embellishment.

November 11, 2009 at 630 pm - Lecture on Style Alchemy with Carole Tanenbaum and Julia Grieve at the Textile Museum of Canada

Carole Tanenbaum will discuss her collection of vintage costume jewellery while Julia Grieve, founder of Preloved will speak about upcycyling, the practice of making something old new and valuable.

November 21, 2009 - Workshop on The Joy of Small Blocks (in Quilting) with Kinch & Storms in conjunction with the exhibition Kaleidoscope: Antique Quilts from the collection of Carole and Howard Tanenbaum at the Textile Museum of Canada

November 22, 2009 - The exhibition On a Pedestal: From Renaissance Chopines to Baroque Heels opens today at the Bata Shoe Museum and features rare examples of fashionable footwear dating from 1500-1660.

So much to do and so little time!!!

Lessons from Isabel Toledo

Photo of Isabel Toledo by Ruven Afandor

In a world that often measures success by fame, I find it utterly refreshing to discover that Isabel Toledo walks her own path. She pursues her own goals, does not follow the trends, and does not show at Fashion Week. She does not consider herself an artist or designer, and prefers to describe herself as a "seamstress" since she loves "the technique of sewing more than anything else." How radical and how original!

Being in a reflective mood about my own work, I've taken to heart some of the lessons I learned from reading the book "Isabel Toledo: Fashion from the Inside Out" by Valerie Steele and Patricia Mears.

1. Be true to yourself.
Unlike most fashion designers, Isabel Toledo does not sketch. She conceives of a garment in her mind and works to manipulate fabric to realize her vision. Her husband, Ruben Toledo, an artist and fashion illustrator, will sketch that vision for her based on her description and continues to sketch for her as the garment takes form.

The strikingly original clothing that comes from Isabel Toledo's studio does not follow trends. She once said "My inspiration this season was having no inspiration. I just worked and it came from the function. It's not as easy as having a concept".

Typically, fashion designers have to have a huge commercial enterprise to be considered successful. Isabel Toledo's small atelier of about twenty workers produce only about 300 finely crafted garments per season.

2. Acclaim is not a measure of success.
At various points in her career, Isabel Toledo has been heralded as "New York's best new designer" (New York Talk), "one of America's 7 rising stars of fashion" (Vogue), "most inventive designers of the under-30 generation" (NY Times). However, the Fall 1989 collection was dismissed by WWD as an "artsy horror show". Other collections have been described as "quirky" and "cultish". In her own words, Isabel says she prefers to fly "under the radar."


3. Setbacks are inevitable.
In 2005, Isabel Toledo was one of ten finalists for the Vogue/CFDA Fashion Fund award, but "to the shock of observers", Isabel lost and was not even chosen as a runner-up.

In 2006, it appeared that Isabel Toledo was on the cusp of financial security and success when she was hired as the new creative director of Anne Klein. In spite of rave reviews and strong sales for her debut collection in 2007, the changes in management at Jones Apparel Group resulted in the brand being discontinued and Isabel received a pink slip.

In spite of these public failures, "Toledo does not view herself as an unknown entity or an underdog." She continues to walk her own path, swimming against the tide of fashion.

4. Have a sense of humour.
Looking at the photograph of Isabel above and seeing some of the surrealist type of designs that Isabel Toledo has created over her career (including one fabulous hair clip with eyes to convey "eyes at at the back of one's head"), I would have to hazard a guess that Isabel has a sense of humour. This probably served her well in the many setbacks she faced, keeping her grounded and laughing at the absurdity of life!

Perhaps Glenda Bailey, editor-in-chief- of Harper's Bazaar, said it best:

"Isabel Toledo is a lover of order - who finds inspiration in anarchy. She is a mathematical genius - who makes it look like magic. She is a pragmatist - who creates the clothes that dreams are made of. Isabel's work is more than fashion and it's more than life. Perhaps that's because, to Isabel, art and fashion are life. And no one makes life look better."

The show "Isabel Toledo: Fashion from the Inside Out" at the Fashion Institute of Technology closes on Saturday, September 26, 2009.

Book Review: Isabel Toledo, Fashion from the Inside Out

Title: Isabel Toledo, Fashion from the Inside Out
Authors: Valerie Steele and Patricia Mears
Publisher: Yale University Press in association with FIT (New York) 2009
Category: Non-fiction (Fashion)
Number of Pages: 250

Designer Isabel Toledo was the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Museum at FIT this summer (June 17 through September 26, 2009). Having attended the exhibition a few weeks ago (during my blogging hiatus), I was blown away by the huge talent of this largely unheralded designer. Her sculptural fashion designs must be seen in person to be truly appreciated. Nevertheless, the high quality of the exhibition made me lust after the accompanying book.

Isabel Toledo, From the Inside Out, was co-written by Valerie Steele and Patricia Mears. Steele tells Toledo's story, from her Cuban roots through her ups and downs as a fashion designer to the triumphant day when Michelle Obama wore an Isabel Toledo ensemble to her husband's inauguration. In the second half of the book, Mears presents an analysis of the thematic designs in the exhibition including: Suspension, Liquid Architecture, Shadow, Shape, Manipulated Surfaces, and Organic Geometry.

Illustrated with exquisite photographs, this book is not just a pretty picture book. Both Steele and Mears write thoughtful, comprehensive and well-written analyses of Toledo and her work. I also gained a new appreciation for Isabel Toledo's designs. The integrity with which she approaches her designs, ignoring trends and the fashion cycle to instead embracing her own artistic vision, made me wish I had access to her clothing in Toronto. This is the kind of book that I'll look at and reread many times, especially when I'm short of inspiration.

P.S. If you can make it to the exhibition before it closes next weekend, you won't be disappointed!!

Isabel Toledo, Fashion from the Inside Out
June 17th - September 26th, 2009

The Museum at FIT
Seventh Avenue at 27th Street
New York City, 10001-5992
www.fitnyc.edu/museum
212-217-4558

Isabel Toledo: Fashion from the Inside Out

Blossom Sleeve Bolero and Balloon Dress, Spring/summer 2005 by Isabel Toledo
Photo by Irving Solero

Half Moon Blossom into a Cornflower, Fall/Winter 1998 by Isabel Toledo
Photo by Irving Solero

The Fashion Institute of Technology is currently featuring a retrospective of the work of fashion designer Isabel Toledo (June 17-September 26, 2009). Curated by Valerie Steele, this exhibition called Fashion from the Inside Out includes 70 iconic looks from the mid 1980s to the present, including Michelle Obama's Inauguration Day Outfit.

Cuban-born designer Isabel Toledo works closely with her husband fashion illustrator Ruben Toledo and does not herself sketch. She says she is "not a fashion designer, but rather a seamstress" and construction and draping are the starting point in her designs. "I really love the technique of sewing more than anything else...the seamstress is the one who knows fashion from the inside! That's the art form really, not fashion design, but the technique of how it's done!"

The exhibition is organized into 7 sections including:
Organic Geometry
Shadow
Suspension
Liquid Architecture
Shape
Manipulated Surfaces
Origami

Admission is free to FIT but if you cannot make it to NYC, there is a comprehensive on-line exhibition.

Fashion Institute of Technology
Seventh Avenue at 27 Street
New York 1001