Creative Process Journal: Dipping into the Archive

Cristóbal Balenciaga: Collectionneur de modes 

Although design ideas can come from anywhere, historical archives can be rich sources of inspiration. Christian Dior reinterpreted period silhouettes throughout his career, taking inspiration from the eighteenth century pannier, the full-skirted, soft shouldered and narrow-waisted silhouette of France’s Second Empire period (1852-1870), the back fullness silhouette of the 1870s, the apron-like swag of the dresses of the 1880s, and the 1910 hobble skirt. Contemporary designers have also taken inspiration from history. Azzedine Alaia, Commes des Garçons, Maison Martin Margiela, John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, Christian Lacroix, Nicholas Ghesquiere, Thierry Mugler, Yohji Yamamoto, Olivier Theyskens, and Karl Lagerfeld have all dipped into the past for inspiration as evidenced by the 2011 exhibition presented by Musée Galliera in Versailles: The 18th Century Back in Fashion.

Prada and Schiaparelli: Impossible Conversations

Surreal Body Gallery
Prada and Schiaparelli: Impossible Conversations
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

At the press preview yesterday for the Prada and Schiaparelli: Impossible Conversations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it seemed like there were three times as many press in attendance as compared to last year. It was a standing room only situation during the presentations by curators Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton, and inside the galleries, it was an elbows out scenario. Perhaps after the McQueen blockbuster, fashion in the museum has gained a new level of respect by the press. Seen in the crowd were Hamish Bowles, Robin Givhan, Bill Cunningham and Tavi Gavinson. My review for Fashion Projects was posted last night and can be read here.

Prada and Schiaparelli: Impossible Conversations opens to the public at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on May 10, 2012 and will run until August 19, 2012.

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.

A Conversation with Valerie Steele on Fashion and Art

Valerie Steele 2007 Photo by Aaron Corbett (Courtesy of Valerie Steele)

Dr. Valerie Steele is a renowned fashion scholar. She is the Director and Chief Curator of the Fashion Institute of Technology, editor of the journal Fashion Theory and has written numerous books including  The Corset: A Cultural History; Paris Fashion; Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to Now; Fetish: Fashion, Sex and Power; and Women of Fashion: 20th-Century Designers. She has curated more than twenty exhibitions including the current exhibition at FIT called Daphne Guinness.

In August, I spoke with Valerie about the convergence of fashion and art as part of my series of interviews with curators on the topic. The transcript of that interview was published on Fashion Projects and can be found here.

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.

It all started with Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette's Dress (Property of the Royal Ontario Museum)

Life is funny. If someone had told me that one day I'd be interviewing curators and that people in New York would be talking about a speech I'd given on the topic of Fashion and Art, I would have laughed at the improbability of it all. And yet, that is now my reality and it is all because of a dress.....

Back in 2008, I was new to blogging. All I knew at that point was that I wanted to write about fashion, art and books. It was a slow beginning. And then one day, I saw a dress at the Royal Ontario Museum that may have been worn by Marie Antoinette. It is probably the only such dress in existence and is believed to have survived because it was customary for royalty to give away their clothing after the season. The dress had been altered in the 19th century and was purchased by the ROM in 1925 by the ROM's first director, Charles Trick Currelly, from an antiques dealer in London, England.  I became obsessed with this dress and wanted to understand what it might have looked like before it was altered (actually I'm stilll obsessed with this dress and will soon begin to post about a creative project inspired by that dress).  I started reading everything I could about Marie Antoinette and 18th century dress and discovered a whole world of fashion scholarship that I had not even known existed. By immersing myself in the topic, I taught myself costume history. (The one thing I learned from my first master's degree was how to teach myself anything although I have since taken courses in costume history). And although fashion had been my muse in my art practice for several years before this juncture, I also began to make replicas of period dress in paper, in fabric and in mesh. I attended lectures and exhibitions about costumes and textiles. As I gained knowledge, I began to write about what I saw - at first for my blog, then for newsletters and then for journals and now for my masters of fashion thesis.

There was a time when I worked in finance that I had an unshakable confidence in what I was doing. They called me the Blonde Barracuda - probably because I was fearless in speaking my mind. But when I left that career to care for my sick little boy and tend to my dying father, my self confidence evaporated. It seemed that people no longer were interested in what I had to say because I was a stay at home mother.... And even after I forged a new career as a photographer and then as an artist, something still didn't fit. As much as I enjoyed the process of creation, I did not feel intellectually engaged or challenged as an artist and my days in the studio were too solitary. But what this immersion in art has done is helped me to understand the common visual vocabulary and processes shared by both art and fashion.

After attending the Costume Society of America mid-west conference last weekend, I feel like I have found my people... I speak the language of fashion academia and I'll be reshaping my speech into an article to submit for publication. Who knows maybe one day I'll actually be brave enough to actually talk to Hamish Bowles and Anna Wintour ....

P.S. I received permission from Valerie Steele and Harold Koda to publish the transcripts of our conversations on fashion and art on Fashion Projects.

A Conversation with Matthew Teitelbaum of the Art Gallery of Ontario about Art and Fashion

Matthew Teitelbaum, Director and CEO of the Art Gallery of Ontario

Recently I sat down with Matthew Teitelbaum, the Michael and Sonja Koerner Director and CEO of the Art Gallery of Ontario,  to talk about his views on fashion and art. I was looking for a contrary viewpoint to that of Nathalie Bondil, the Director and Chief Curator of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, who during our interview at the Gaultier press preview clearly defined fashion as art. Whether fashion is or is not art is definitely a topic worthy of discussion....  An extract of my conversation with Matthew was published on Fashion Projects here.

Now if only I could get Harold Koda or Anna Wintour to have a chat with me....

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.

Scenes from the Preview of The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier

MMFA, The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier
Photo by Ingrid MIda 2011

JPG Smart Car
Photo by Ingrid Mida 2011

Press waiting to preview the JPG exhibition
Photo by Ingrid Mida

As I waited outside yesterday at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to enter the press preview of The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier, I was feeling a bit jaded. Although it has been said that "fashion is for everybody", sometimes that world can be a bit insular. And while my niche in writing about art and fashion is a unique one, it still requires me to have a thick skin.

Red carpet shoes
Photo by Ingrid Mida 2011

Luckily it was not long before my spirits were lifted. At the press conference, Nathalie Bondil, director and chief curator of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts talked about her vision for the exhibition of Jean Paul Gaultier's work. She saw beyond the provocative and humourous aspects of his work, identifying him as a contemporary artist with an important but subtle message about the dictates of beauty, where "everyone can wear his fashions regardless of size, age, gender, or sexual identity". She thought that this was something society needed to hear and initiated the exhibition which was funded by the museum, (an important distinction in my mind compared to marketing oriented exhibitions funded by the fashion house). Although Ms. Bondil described herself as "not a fashion person", she is both beautiful in looks and spirit. When one well known fashion diva walked in twenty minutes late to the conference and started up the self-serve espresso machine, Ms. Bondil laughed and said "Je me recommence" (I start again). And at the end of the day, I had a one-on-one half hour interview for Fashion Projects with Ms. Bondil and she was as articulate, gracious and fresh as if it was her first interview.

Nathalie Bondil, JPG, and Thierry Maxime Loroit
Photo courtesy of the MMFA

Jean Paul Gaultier being interviewed for TV in the Skin Deep Gallery
Photo by Ingrid Mida 2011

Jean Paul Gaultier laughed often and was both humble and sweet. He said "I am no longer l'enfant terrible. I am just the old terrible."  He worked hard to convey his message that "there is not only one type of beauty".   I'm not sure how many other journalists appreciated his humanist approach to fashion, but it was refreshing to hear it spoken.

On the steps of the MMFA
Photo by Ingrid Mida 2011

I have so much more to share about The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier and will follow up in upcoming posts with links to my review and interview for Fashion Projects as well as photos and video clips.

This exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts opens to the public on Friday, June 17, 2011 and runs until October 2, 2011. It will later travel to Dallas, San Francisco, Madrid and the Netherlands.

My Fashion Calendar for June

Invite to the Jean Paul Gaultier Opening Night Party

In the past few months, I've traveled to New York, LA, San Francisco, San Diego, and Paris in the quest of art and fashion. Although I am a bit weary, the show that looks to be the most promising in terms of spectacle is the Jean Paul Gaultier retrospective at the Musee des Beaux Arts in Montreal. This show called "The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier" is a celebration of the designer's 35 year career. Opening to the public on June 17th, the exhibition will later travel to Dallas and San Francisco.  I will  be attending the press preview on June 13th to interview the curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot and to write a review for Fashion Projects.  The opening night event just might to be THE party of the season, and of course that necessitated a new frock by Jean Paul Gaultier which is awaiting its debut in my closet.

Also on my calendar is this Thursday's party at the Spoke Club for Rent-Frock-Repeat This is a business that offers cocktail and evening gowns for rental.  Apparently, all it takes is a click of a mouse to chose from RfR’s inventory of designer collections and two sizes of the dress will be delivered to the customer's home or office. After the party, the dresses go back in a postage paid package. It is that simple! And what a clever idea for those that like to keep their look up-to-the-minute.

Beyond that, I will be speaking to costume history students again at Ryerson University and also have a writing deadline for Worn Fashion Journal. And then, I'm looking forward to a relatively quiet summer, especially as the sun has finally made an appearance in Toronto and my backyard beckons.

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.

Madame Gres at the Musee Bourdelle

Madame Gres White Gowns,  Photo by Ingrid Mida 2011

Born Germaine Krebs, the girl who wanted to become a sculptor became the designer Madame Gres and later was nicknamed the "Sphinx of Fashion". Secretive about her private life, her work was her passion and her career spanned half a century from the early 1930s to the late 1980s. Known for her use of  innovative construction techniques, her classically inspired pleated gowns, usually of silk jersey, resemble sculptures from antiquity.

An exhibition of gowns, drawings and photographs of Madame Gres work is currently being shown at the Musee Bourdelle in Paris. I visited the exhibition last week (where I ran into Hamish Bowles again!). I wrote a review of the exhibition for Fashion Projects. Visit Fashion Projects or click here to read my review.

Madame Gres, Couture at Work
March 25 - July 24, 2011
Musee Bourdelle
16 rue Antoine Bourdelle
75015 Paris

Alexander McQueen's Savage Beauty at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Alexander McQueen Dress, autumn/winter 2010
Photograph by Solve Sundsbo/Art+Commerce
courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

At 10 am on Monday morning, I will be handing over my assignment letter from Fashion Projects to the press officer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to gain admittance to the press preview of Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty.

The exhibition will feature 100 ensembles and 70 accessories which span the period from McQueen's postgraduate presentation in 1992 until his death in 2010. Some items have been borrowed from collectors, models and friends of the designer but most of the items come from the McQueen and Givenchy archives. I'll be writing my review for Fashion Projects tomorrow and will post the link here soon thereafter.



The show opens to the public on Wednesday, May 4th and runs until July 31, 2011.