Last Chance to See

The summer is drawing to a close as are a number of exhibitions of fashion in the museum. The list includes:

Surreal Body Gallery from Impossible Conversations: Schiaparelli and Prada at the Met
Photo courtesy of the Costume Institute at the Met

Impossible Conversations: Schiaparelli and Prada at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York closes TOMORROW Sunday, August 19, 2012. My review of the exhibition was published on Fashion Projects and can be read here.

What's on the Fashion Calendar for March

March offers a number of exciting museum exhibitions related to fashion. The host cities span the globe:  from Los Angeles to Paris and between.

Peggy Moffitt wearing Rudi Gernreich
Photo from MOCA West Hollywood (Pacific Centre)

The Total Look: The Creative Collaboration between Rudi Gernreich, Peggy Moffitt, and William Claxton opened this past weekend in Los Angeles at the MOCA West Hollywood Pacific Centre. This exhibition celebrates the collaboration between fashion designer Rudi Gernreich, his model and muse Peggy Moffitt, and Moffitt's late husband, the photographer William Claxton, who created the distinctive images of Moffitt activating Gernreich's designs. The exhibition features selected looks from Moffitt's definitive collection, with films and photographs by Claxton of Moffitt modeling the clothes. "Fashion will go out of fashion" is one of Gernreich's many memorable declarations, but his designs continue to resonate, and still look modern 50 years after they were made. This exhibition will run until May 20, 2012.

Untitled #225, Cindy Sherman 1990
MOMA

A retrospective of the work of American photographer Cindy Sherman opened this past week at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. This exhibition traces her career from the mid-1970s to the present, bringing together 171 key photographs from the artist’s significant series—including the complete ―Untitled Film Stills (1977–80), centerfolds (1981), and history portraits (1988–90)—plus examples from all of her most important bodies of work, ranging from her fashion photography of the early 1980s to the breakthrough sex pictures of 1992 to her 2003–04 clowns and monumental society portraits from 2008. In addition, the exhibition features the American premiere of her 2010 photographic mural. Of special note is a gallery devoted to her work made for the fashion industry which showcases her commissions from 1983 to 2011. The exhibition runs until June 11, 2012, but if you cannot make it, the MOMA website offers an interactive digital gallery here.

Prada coat 1994-95 for The Sea at the Phoenix Art Museum 

On March 3, 2012, the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona will present The Sea in the Ellman Fashion Design Gallery. This exhibition explores the far-reaching influence of the romance of the sea on fashion design and includes ensembles from the 19th century to the present time, including Emilio Pucci, Emanuel Ungaro and Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel. This exhibit runs until July 15, 2012.

Marc Jacobs at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs

Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs will open at Musee des Arts Decoratifs on March 9, 2012. This exhibition tells the stories of two men of fashion, separated by a century, Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs, and will highlight their contributions to the fashion world. Designed to be an analysis rather than a retrospective, this parallel Vuitton-Jacobs comparison is intended to provide new insight into the fashion system during its pivotal periods, beginning with its industrialisation and ending with its globalisation, focussing also on its artistic professions and crafts, technological advances, stylistic creations and artistic collaborations.

The Art of Kuboku and Hisako Takaku
at the San Diego Museum of Fine Art

San Diego Museum of Fine Art in California presents an exhibition called Dyeing Elegance: Asian Modernism and the Art of Kūboku and Hisako Takaku which opened earlier this month. The artist Kuboku Takaku (1908–1993) perfected the ancient Japanese technique of wax-resist dyeing to create textile paintings on obi, kimono, and screens, merging cubist and modernist styles.  His daughter Hisako (born 1944) is now one of the last living artists who preserves the knowledge of this painstaking dyeing technique, and her obi and kimono continue to be among the most chic and sought-after throughout Japan. In this exhibition 71 obi, kimono, and other textile paintings of Kuboku and Hisako Takaku have been borrowed from museums and collectors and are on display outside of Japan for the first time.

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.

Roger Vivier at the Bata Shoe Museum and other Must-see Exhibitions for 2012

Roger Vivier at the Bata Shoe Museum, photo by Ron Wood, copyright of the Bata Shoe Museum

The explosion of fashion exhibitions in museums has made it virtually impossible to see everything that there is to see. Discerning the extraordinary from the run-of-the-mill show takes work and this is my list of top choices for 2012.

1. Roger Vivier: Process to Perfection at the Bata Shoe Museum beginning May 10, 2012
The Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto never disappoints. This jewel of a museum is headed by curator Elizabeth Semmelhack and she knows how to put on a good show.  In Process to Perfection, the exquisite work of Roger Vivier, known for bejewelled and elegantly sculptural shoes and one of the 20th century's most important master shoemakers,  will be displayed for the first time in North America. Loans from museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will make this show into a shoe-aholic's dream display.

2. Schiaperelli and Prada: On Fashion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning May 10, 2012
This exhibition at the Costume Institute of the Met in New York will explore the affinities between Elsa Schiaparelli and Miucca Prada who come from two different eras. Curated by Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton, the title of the exhibition is based on Umberto Eco's books on the philosophy of aesthetics - On Beauty and On Ugliness  and organized according to the book's outline by topics such as "On Art," "On Politics," "On Women," "On Creativity". The exhibition will run until August 19, 2012.

3. Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs at Musee des Arts Decoratifs beginning March 9, 2012
This exhibition tells the stories of two men of fashion, separated by a century, Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs, and will highlight their contributions to the fashion world. Designed to be an analysis rather than a retrospective, this parallel Vuitton-Jacobs comparison is intended to provide new insight into the fashion system during its pivotal periods, beginning with its industrialisation and ending with its globalisation, focussing also on its artistic professions and crafts, technological advances, stylistic creations and artistic collaborations.

I chose these exhibitions because they are about fashion game-changers. Each one - Vivier, Schiaparelli, Prada, Vuitton and Jacobs - brought a unique vision to the world of fashion. Plus, the curators behind these exhibitions are the best of the best....

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.

Painting as a Fashion Motif

Whether fashion can be considered to be a work of art in and of itself is an ongoing debate among art curators and fashion historians. But it cannot be disputed that Yves Saint Laurent was the first fashion designer to use a painting as a direct source of inspiration for his collections and as a fashion motif.

In 1965, YSL created the "Mondrian" dress which applied the simplified colour blocks seen in the work of the artist Piet Mondrian to a sleeveless jersey knit tunic dress. This deceptively simple design with the graphic blocks of white, yellow, red, blue and black from Mondrian's paintings was considered a masterpiece of construction.

This reference to art in YSL designs was followed up with the "Pop Art Look" in the following year and hand-beaded Van Gogh iris jackets in the 1980s.

Since that first Mondrian dress, many other designers have referenced art in their designs. This past season alone there were countless designers who did os, including John Galliano for Dior Haute Couture (Hand-painted and embroidered dress after Gustav Klimt's Adele Block-Bauer portrait), Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton (Sheer dress and slipdress after Richard Prince's Man Crazy Nurse #3), and Armani (Silk-organza petal dress with jewel brooch after Degas Dancers).