Fashion, A-Z at The Museum at FIT

The Museum at FIT is one of my favourite fashion museums. With over 50,000 garments and accessories in their collection, Director and Chief Curator Valerie Steele and her talented staff have one of the largest collections in the world to draw on and they use this archive to come up with something fresh and innovative on a regular basis. 

Fashion, A-Z, Part II could have been a yawn, but it was not. Featuring highlights from their enormous collection, the full spectrum of design approaches and talents is presented in the upstairs history gallery.

Several of my favourite sculptural garments from their collection were on display, including: The Charles James Tree dress from 1955 in dusty rose that stands as the penultimate body sculpture (pictured above); The Martin Margiela sleeveless jacket from sprint 1997 that evokes a mannequin; and, a Madame Gres abstracted triangular black silk faille evening dress from 1967 that asserts angularity and a mod-1960s vibe. 

Fashioning the Object at the Art Institute of Chicago

In No Time Collection 2007, Hand-knitted Dress by Sandra Backlund, Image courtesy of the AIC

Fashioning the Object at the Art Institute of Chicago is an exhibition celebrating the innovative work of Bless, Boudicca, and Sandra Backlund. The practices of this group redefine fashion design into a conceptually based interdisciplinary process that sits on the intersection of art and fashion. Not driven by market forces, the work on display is intellectually engaging and exciting. 

The exhibition curator writes:  "Bless, Boudicca, and Backlund view fashion as a critical forum for dialogue and exchange, as well as an armature for understanding our place in the world. However, they endeavor to move beyond previous practices by drawing on an even greater spectrum of ideas inspired by disciplines as diverse as fine art, performance, design, and architecture to create work that responds to the social, political, and cultural environment and explores the creative process."

Online Historic Costume Collections

In a click of a mouse, I can visit the historic and contemporary costume collections from around the world. Although some museums and university collections welcome visiting scholars, digitizing a collection reduces the handling of fragile garments and also offers everyone a chance to see garments that are not on display.  Here are my top picks of accessible collections (click on museum name for related link): 

Dior 1947 Bar Suit, Image Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute

Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Collection: The Met has over 35,000 costumes and accessories in their collection, with the earliest piece going back to the 15th century. This New York museum sets the gold standard for online digitized collections, providing multiple images and extensive descriptive information and provenance details for each item.

Fashion and Art, Canadian Style

Fashionality: 
1. One's personality expressed in their clothing, “fashion personality.” 
2. One's nationality expressed in their clothing, “fashion nationality.”

—The Urban Dictionary

Today is Canada's 145th birthday and it seemed like the perfect day to post about Fashionality: Dress and Identity in Contemporary Canadian Art at the McMichael Gallery in Vaughan, Ontario. I've extracted parts from the press release below to present an overview of the show, and it is clear that this would have been the perfect venue for my beaded and embroidered hockey equipment from my recent show Constructions of Femininity at loop gallery.

“Fashionality” is a newly coined play on words that refers to the visual culture and semiotics of dress and adornment. Combining the words “fashion,” “personality,” and “nationality,” it signals the interplay between clothing, identity, and cultural affinity. Taking the idiom of dress as a starting point, Fashionality: Dress and Identity in Contemporary Canadian Art explores the use of apparel in the work of twenty-three contemporary Canadian artists. It considers the diverse ways in which the clothed body and the idiom of dress are employed as sources of inspiration, humour, and critique, and as sites for the exploration of issues of identity, hybridity, and self-expression. Not strictly about fashion, the exhibition explores the ways in which the subjectivities and identities of those living in Canada are expressed, deconstructed, and reconfigured, while raising some intriguing questions about the embodied Canadian subject.

Raquel Gaudard Interviews Me about Fashion as Art in the Museum

Not long ago, Brazillian journalist and editor Racquel Gaudard contacted me for an article she was writing for the publication Duetto. Her article was published last month and can be viewed here. Even if you don't understand Portugese, this publication is filled with beautiful imagery. Racquel also kindly provided me with a translation of the article into English for my blog.

When fashion in the museum became a synonym of art
By Raquel Gaudard

The 2012 calendar is full of great fashion exhibitions not to miss, however, the most awaited are – once again – happening far from Brazil.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) presents in New York, from May 10th to August 19th, “Schiaparelli and Prada – Impossible Conversations”. Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada, parted by time and linked by style connections, get an exhibition that shows how both explored different angles of similar issues in their collections.

Heading to the old world, specifically to Paris, the Les Arts Decoratifs is ready to open its doors and face a huge line of fashion lovers, coming from all parts of the world – that´s what the exhibition  “Louis Vuitton - Marc Jacobs” is expecting – from March 9th to September 16th. In view of the extended time, the foresights point to a success as great as Alexander McQueen´s show, last year. Almost 700 thousand people passed by the event, a great amount, specially if we consider the contemporary art audience.

“Fashion exhibitions are in fashion”, says Ingrid Mida, Canadian artist and researcher of the intersection of fashion, art and history. “Fashion attracts young audiences into museums, and savvy curators are aware of the seductive power of staging exhibitions that will bring people into the museum”, she analyses.

Ingrid reminds us that it was Diana Vreeland who first presented, in a museum, the work of an living fashion designer, in 1983, when she showed off an Yves Saint Laurent retrospective, at the MET. “That exhibition generated a lot of controversy, but also set a precedent that others have since followed”. For Mida, fashion shows are more accessible to the mainstream perception than the traditional contemporary art installations, fact that explains – in her point of view – the big audience created by these events.

What I'm Reading ....

Summer is my time to read. I love to lay in the backyard on a chaise and catch up on my reading.... Hot off the press from Berg are two new titles that dovetail my research: Fashion and Art as well as Victorian Fashion Accessories.

In Fashion and Art, editors Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas have compiled a selection of essays by leading scholars including Valerie Steele, Hazel Clark, Joanne Eicher and Diana Crane on the intersection of fashion and art. To date, papers on the topic were difficult to find and this book provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the discourse thereon. My initial review of this book indicates that Valerie Steele's essay on Fashion and Art in this book mirrors her comments in Milan as well as my interview with her for Fashion Projects. I am looking forward to digging deeper into these essays, especially since this is a topic that I am passionate about.

Report from Milan Fashion Tales 2012

Dolci is the word I would use to describe my trip to Milan Fashion Tales 2012. It was three days of intense focus on fashion theory and I took it all in like a sponge. Funnily enough, many people said to me "You look familiar" and when I'd admit that I was the author of "Fashion is my Muse!", they would often laugh and said they had visited before. It seems that my slog (scholarly weblog) is a fashion academic's guilty pleasure.....

The Duomo in Milan, Photo by Ingrid Mida 2012

The conference was kicked off by fashion scholar Valerie Steele who gave a talk entitled "Is Fashion Art?". She had given a similar paper last summer but revised this talk to incorporate the quote from Muccia Prada used in the Costume Institute's exhibit on Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Prada said: “Dress designing is creative, but it is not an art…. But to be honest, whether fashion is art or whether even art is art doesn’t really interest me. Maybe nothing is art. Who cares!”

Fashion Tales 2012 Milan

This afternoon I will present my paper The Metaphysics of Fashion Blogging in Milan at the Fashion Tales 2012 conference. Of course, I wanted to wear something out of the ordinary and I asked a talented friend - Anna Zygowski - to create a dress for me. She first created a digitally printed silk fabric from photos of distressed lace and then copied a style of sheath dress that I often wear. The fabric presented its own challenges for Anna, but I think the result is fabulous. Even if my paper doesn't get rave reviews, no doubt the dress will!

The abstract of my paper is:

The emergence of the fashion blog is an aspect of culture that has gone largely unexamined. Although fashion blogs seem to be a relatively recent phenomenon, the drive to document aspects of one’s life goes back many centuries. Journals, diaries, sketchbooks and albums are evidence of the urge to memorialize and share ideas, events, activities, and accomplishments. For example, Barbara Johnson, a well-to-do Englishwoman from a clerical family, made detailed notes about her wardrobe for the period 1760-1823. Her album, which is now in the archives of the Victoria and Albert Museum, includes a detailed description of each garment, fabric swatches, information about cost and trimmings as well as clipped pocketbook engravings with the styles of the day. Drawing on historic precedents and the author’s experience as a blogger, blogs are reconsidered in the context of theorist Michel Foucault’s theories on the aesthetics of existence as creative portals for identity construction. In equating bloggers to Walter Benjamin and Charles Baudelaire’s concept of the flâneur, this social media tool is also recast as a forum in which the ephemeral and transitory processes of fashion can be captured. 

What is on the Fashion Calendar in June 2012

June seems relatively quiet compared to this past month! Some of the ongoing shows and events that I would recommend include:

Cristobal Balenciaga: Collectionneur de modes (Gallery Installation Shot by Ingrid Mida 2012)

Cristobal Balenciaga: Collectionneur de modes at the Musee Galliera in Paris
Balenciaga collected garments, accessories, and books from the 18th and 19th century as part of his personal archive. The juxtaposition of these items alongside the contemporary designs created by the Spanish designer show the links between the inspiration provided by history and the end result. This exhibition was so innovative in presentation that I think it is worth a closer look. The curators were creative in their display of items that could only be shown flat due to conservation issues, as well as innovative use of relatively inexpensive design modules. 

Prada and Schiaparelli: Impossible Conversations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
The imaginary conversation of two women designers -- Muicca Prada and Elsa Schiaparelli -- from different decades celebrates the power of ugly chic as well as the connection between fashion and art. Read my review on Fashion Projects here: http://www.fashionprojects.org/?p=3904

Roger Vivier: Process to Perfection (Gallery Installation Shot by Ingrid Mida 2012)

Roger Vivier: Process to Perfection at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto
The delicate jewel-like creations of Roger Vivier remind me of candy. Exquisitely crafted with beadwork and other embellishments, Vivier shoes are truly wearable works of art.

Fashion Tales 2012 in Milan (June 7-9)
If you happen to be in Milan next week, please join me at the Fashion Tales conference at the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. I will be speaking on the Metaphysics of Fashion Blogging on Friday, June 8, 2012 at 2:30-4 pm.

Constructions of Femininity Q&A at loop Gallery (June 17, 2012 at 3 pm)
On the last day of my show at loop, there will be a question and answer period moderated by Peter Legris. I know it is Father's Day, but since most guys will be out golfing, why not get a dose of art?

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.

Photos from the Opening of Constructions of Femininity by Ingrid Mida at loop Gallery

Installation Shot, Constructions of Femininity by Ingrid Mida
Photo by Patricia Njovu 

Ingrid Mida at Opening Reception Loop Gallery, May 26, 2012
Photo by Patricia Njovu

A Peak into the Gallery

Selected installation shots of Constructions of Femininity show a sampling of my work on display at Loop Gallery, Toronto.

Just prior to the opening an elderly man banged on the window, pointed at the sculpture called Isobel (named after Lord Stanley's daughter who played hockey), and asked me "What does this mean?" Not wanting to give him a long explanation, I simply replied: "Women used to play hockey wearing long skirts and it helped stop the puck". He said "Good" and continued on his way. One of the most amusing parts of this installation is watching the reaction of people passing by. I often see people stop dead in their tracks, point and then peer inside the window. It is literally a traffic stopper. Drop by the gallery if you can. The show at loop runs until June 17, 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.

Constructions of Femininity

My art show/installation Constructions of Femininity at loop Gallery opens on Saturday, May 26, 2012. Work on this project has been underway for more than a year, and has happened in fits and spurts as I've juggled a myriad of research papers, speaking engagements and other things. It has been one of the busiest years of my life and at times I've wondered why I took on so much. I didn't know how I would juggle it all and I've been tempted to walk away this opportunity more than once, but my biggest fan and supporter, my husband, believed that I could do it and would not let me quit.

Constructions of Femininity is an exploration of the artifice of feminine dress and identity. This work juxtaposes the extreme silhouettes of 18th century dress with the armour of the modern day hockey warrior and was inspired by young women hockey players who have redefined femininity to include feats of courage, strength, and power. Hockey equipment has been transformed with feminine signifiers of ribbon, sequins and beading paired with silhouettes such as a romantic tutu or panier made out of armour-like mesh.