Andrew Bolton and the Curatorial Process

McQueen's Raven Dress made of 2000 raven feathers
Photo by Solve Sundbro
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 2011

Andrew Bolton, curator of the Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2011, changed the paradigm of fashion exhibitions. Creating a multi-sensory experience akin to the charged emotional experience of being at a runway show, Bolton paid homage to McQueen as a designer with an extraordinary imagination "who challenged the idea of what is fashion". 

In a talk at New York's Pratt Institute on Monday, September 17, Andrew Bolton talked about his curatorial process in creating the McQueen exhibition. Generously sharing the credit with the McQueen team, including Sarah Burton, as well as his own staff, Bolton said that one of the reasons that the exhibition was staged so closely after McQueen's death was because it seemed possible that the team and the McQueen house might not survive the loss of their founder. Concerned about access to the archive and the possible dispersion of the team, the Met acted quickly to create the show. Bolton also "wanted to avoid revisionism" and capitalize on the "freshness, and rawness of memories". 

Bolton talked about McQueen's enormous creative talent and intensity in "using fashion as a way to convey complex ideas".  He cited McQueen's use of unorthodox materials in using such things as razor clam shells and microscope slides to "challenge the idea of what is fashion". McQueen also took inspiration from everywhere including films, paintings, and dolls. 

In walking the audience through the exhibition, Bolton outlined the curatorial narrative of each gallery and said that he designed the experience to be that of entering a gothic fairly tale. The choices of materials used within each gallery, such as rusty metal, wallpaper, acrylic tiles, and wood, all had parallels to themes of McQueen's runway presentations, such as the broken floorboards being from the "Highland Rape" show. Bolton also showed many clips of the runway shows to depict the dramatic intensity of these presentations, and said that McQueen used the concept of the runway show as inspiration for the garments he designed. 

In the question and answer session that followed, I asked Andrew Bolton how he edited the enormous McQueen archive to come up with a coherent narrative for the show. He said that the process was object based and that he had a difficult time given McQueen's enormous talent. Bolton made a storyboard and suggested that the themes emerged from that. 

I also asked Bolton where he stood on the debate around the intersection of fashion and art, and whether curators had a role in whether or not a designer's work is presented as art. He said that the debate is in effect "redundant", that "Fashion is a barometer of our times, and a mirror of what is happening in culture. Fashion is not just about functionality; it could also express complex ideas in the same way that art can."

Bolton said that the role of the fashion curator is "to interpret fashion through exhibitions" and "to interpret current events." He cited punk as one of the most exciting moments in fashion history which is the subject of the upcoming 2013 show at the Met Costume Institute Punk: Chaos to Couture. Bolton also said that he looked forward to the reopening of the Costume Institute's permanent galleries, mentioning his desire to encourage a different reading of fashion through the juxtaposition of historical and contemporary garments. 

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.



While abroad, fashion and arts have conversations in many dates spread all over 2012 calendar (check out our highlights for this year in the box, at the end of the report), in Brazil, this kind of production is still restricted to a more historical than artistic speech. The Costume and Textile Museum from the Feminine Institute, at Salvador city (BA), has the largest costume collection of the country, including, sometimes, special guides aimed at the dialogue between fashion and contemporary art – as proposed in the exhibition “Threads, threads, threads”, closed on March 22nd.

But this is an odd case and doesn’t describe the reality of our museums. According to Douglas Negrisolli, brazilian independent curator and art historian, the relation between fashion and visual arts in Brazil is still superficial. “The exclusiveness and the power of a small portion of the society are notorious in our country, and that comes about with much less strength in countries like United States, where the cultural production is extensively supported by both the government and private sector” – he considers.

Douglas also mentions how collections are limited to more regional representative costumes, such as cangaço (symbolical historical way of life from the Brazilian northeastern) and cerrado (typical brazilian vegetation), but, in the long run, “they are ineffective on the process of spreading brazilian costumes main feature, as well as its permanency in presentations”, he thinks.

About the art curator role due to this new work source, Ingrid Mida affirms that this professional acts as a gatekeeper into the museum, once through this selection of which and how objects are supposed to be displayed, he or she can change the public comprehension of art. “Schiaparelli and Prada”, for instance, is directed by no one less but the cineast Baz Luhrmann, who produced a video installation simulating an imaginary dialogue between the fashion designers. 


“Staging effects, such as the use of lighting and sound elements, invisible supports for garments, or animated mannequins, are display techniques for fashion objects that create the aura of an art installation. And, while audiences might read fashion as art because of those choices, it does not mean that what is shown in the context of a museum setting is necessarily art” – she completes.

In Douglas’ opinion, the art curator has the power of highlighting a production, but not raising it to another level. “Just as a physic reaction of an artist/stylist internal desire, in essence, is, on itself, an artwork”, he says. Concluding, he affirms that, in his opinion, “art is the expression of an intimate wish towards to something physical, visual, touchable” – so, clothing would also be, in a way or another, whether valued for installations around or not, included in these words.

BOX:
LOUIS VUITTON- MARC JACOBS
Museé des Les Arts Decoratifs – Paris
From March 9th to September 16th 2012
www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr

ELSA SCHIAPARELLI AND MIUCCIA PRADA – IMPOSSIBLE CONVERSATIONS
Metropolitan Museum of Arts (MET) – New York
From May 10th to August 19th 2012
www.metmuseum.org

CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN RETROSPECTIVE
Design Museum – London
From March 28th to July 1st 2012
www.designmuseum.org

YSL – THE RETROSPECTIVE
Denver Art Museum – Denver
From March 25th to July 8th 2012
www.ysldenver.com

BALLGOWNS: BRITISH GLAMOUR SINCE 1950
Victorya & Albert Museum – London
From May 19th to January 6th 2013
www.vam.ac.uk

DIANA VREELAND: THE EYE HAS TO TRAVEL
Palazzo Fortuny – Venice
From March 10th to June 26th 2012
www.museiciviciveneziani.it

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?

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.

What's on the Fashion Calendar for May 2012?

May will be a hectic month, with the opening of several must-see exhibitions:

Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Costume Institute in New York on May 10, 2012. In this exhibition, the affinities between Italian designers Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada will be considered. Taking inspiration from Miguel Covarrubias's "Impossible Interviews" for Vanity Fair in the 1930s, curators Andrew Bolton and Harold Koda have orchestrated conversations between these iconic women to suggest new readings of their work. 

The exhibition will feature approximately ninety designs and thirty accessories by Schiaparelli (1890–1973) from the late 1920s to the early 1950s and by Prada from the late 1980s to the present, which have been selected from from The Costume Institute's collection, the Prada Archive, and private collectors. I'll be attending the press preview on May 7th and writing a review for Fashion Projects. 

Roger Vivier at the Bata Shoe Museum 2012

The Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto presents Roger Vivier: Process to Perfection beginning May 10, 2012. In this exhibition, the work of Roger Vivier, one of the 20th century's most important shoemakers, will be displayed for the first time in North America. Loans from museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, have been obtained to create a full picture of the work of this master shoemaker. I will be attending the opening party for this event on May 8th.

Armide by Opera Atelier, Photo by Bruce Zinger 2012

The spectacular production of Lully's Armide by Opera Atelier travels to Versailles, France and opens on May 11, 2012 in the Palace's Opera Royal for three performances. Shall we meet in Versailles or perhaps in Paris?

My upcoming exhibition at loop Gallery in Toronto opens on May 26, 2012. 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. 

Creative Process Journal: The Dress in The Museum

Untitled by Valerie Belin, 1997

This dress, stuffed with archival tissue, is from a series of works by French photographer Valerie Belin that were exhibited at the Musee des Beaux-Arts in an exhibition called "State of Things, States of Places" in 1997. The work is described in the exhibition catalogue as follows: "These dresses are like bodily remains...still moulded in places to the shape of their former presence, giving the appearance of the body itself." (Muller 78)

Having been behind the scenes in many museums, and having surreptitiously taken a few photos of beautiful things inside museum storage facilities, I am drawn to this photo.... It evokes so many things for me including the duality of beauty and decay, life and death, as well as my affinity for museums and  the ephemeral nature of fashion.

If I could, I would create a series of photos taken behind the scenes in a museum like the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Musee de la Mode in Paris... But baring that, I will have to find some other way of depicting this idea. It seems to bring me back full circle to the original source of inspiration for this creative project, which was a quote from Elizabeth Wilson's book Adorned in Dreams when she wrote:
"The living observer moves with a sense of mounting panic, through a world of the dead…We experience a sense of the uncanny when we gaze at garments that had an intimate relationship with human beings long since gone to their graves. For clothes are so much part of our living, moving selves that, frozen on display in the mausoleums of culture, they hint at something only half understood, sinister, threatening, the atrophy of the body, and the evanescent of life.” (Wilson 1).

References:

Muller, Florence. art and fashion. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000
Wilson, Elizabeth. Adorned in Dreams. London: Virago Press, 1985.

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....

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....

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

Creative Process Journal: Marie Antoinette and Elsa Schiaparelli

Insect Necklace by Schiaparelli

Sometimes inspiration comes from the least likely of places. Earlier this week, Harold Koda, chief curator of the Costume Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, showed a slide of Elsa Schiaparelli's Insect Necklace during his talk as part of the Bata Shoe Museum's Founder's Lecture Series. The surrealist whimsy of this piece captivated me and I had to know more.

According to the Met's website, this piece came to the museum via the Brooklyn Museum's Costume Collection and was created by Elsa Schiaparelli in 1938 for  the fall pagan collection.  "This iconic necklace epitomizes Schiaparelli's Surrealist tendencies, perhaps more than any other design she executed because of the unreal idea of insects crawling on your skin as a fashion statement." The necklace was worn by Millicent Rogers - one of Schiaparelli's "best clients who was brave enough to wear her outré designs."

As unlikely as the connection between this necklace and Marie Antoinette is, a light bulb went off in my head when I reviewed accounts of hygiene practices in the 18th century.

In an out of print book from 1932 called The Elegant Woman, From the Rococo Period to Modern Times by Gertrude Aretz (translated and with a preface by fashion scholar James Laver), the author wrote about the lack of hygiene in 18th century, including the rank odour of the lack of bathing that was covered up with heavy doses of scent.  "Marie-Antoinette was not altogether a vain and coquettish woman, nor was her elegance altogether consistent. Her clothes were rich and beautiful, but somewhat negligently put on, and she was often careless and untidy in her dress. Her personal cleanliness was not very strict, especially before she became Queen, and she used her bathroom but seldom..... The Rococo period, with all its luxury, was a period of dirt and lack of hygiene." (pg. 62-63)

The elaborate pouf hairstyles of the period were crafted out of false hair, pins, dye, grease, and powder and then laden with accessories like feathers, flowers, jewels, and even such implausible additions as vegetables and small ships. Aretz wrote: "It goes without saying that with such complicated coiffures elegant ladies could not pay much attention to cleanliness of the head and hair. Indeed, very little consideration was given to personal hygiene in the eighteenth century. The hair was very rarely washed, perhaps once a year or even not at all. Elaborate coiffures were expected to last for weeks, and it was no rare occurrence for vermin to nest in these monstrous edifices of hair and to attack their owners in a terrible way." (pg. 76) Caroline Weber in her book Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette wore to the Revolution  also wrote about the "Queen's hallmark hairstyles" and the "special head-scratchers (grattoirs) made from ivory, silver, gold, and even sometimes decorated with diamonds" (Weber: 111).

Our perceptions of the grandeur and beauty of this period are no more than illusions. And this I think is the key to adding a subversive element to my recreation of a robe a la francaise. Funnily enough, it seems to tie in rather nicely to my previous dress sculptures made out of mosquito mesh - which originated from a play on the word "fly" as a reference to both the pest and the tag word for "cool".

I am going to appropriate Elsa Schiaparelli's insect necklace and reinterpret it in the context of the 18th century as a reference to "all manner of vermin" that crawled out of the elaborate pouf hairstyles of Marie Antoinette's time (Weber: 111).

Sources:
Aretz, Gertrude. The Elegant Woman: From the Rococo Period to Modern Times. London: Geroge G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., 1931. (Translated by James Laver)

Weber, Caroline. Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2006.

Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Collection: Elsa Schiaparelli Necklace 2009.300.1234
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/80093782
sourced: November 12, 2011

Project Clock: +3 hours
Project Clock to date: 27.5 hours

Harold Koda on Fashion in the Art Museum at the Bata Shoe Museum Founder's Lecture

Harold Koda (Photo by Karin Willis)

Last night, Sonja Bata introduced The Founder's Lecture series at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto as being part of a new initiative to bring "one truly outstanding personality" related to fashion to speak about their work. Harold Koda, the "rock star of fashion curators",  is the curator in charge of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, was the first speaker in the series.

Harold's talk was entitled "The Arrangement: Fashion in the Art Museum" and traced the history of the costume collection at the Met from its earliest incarnation in 1947 as a resource collection for the fashion industry through to the present as one of the largest costume collections in the world.

The history of the Costume Institute is a story of personalities - from Diana Vreeland through to Richard Martin and Harold himself. An engaging speaker, both brilliant and humble, Harold kept all of us in rapt attention throughout his talk.

Not shy about the necessity of raising funds to support the Costume Institute, Harold mentioned the  strategies used by the museum to create excitement and raise funds for the collection. He gave credit to Diana Vreeland for recognizing that the annual party needed to have a high and glamorous profile in order that people would pay a lot of money to attend. He gave credit to Richard Martin who had the idea to create conceptually developed themes to generate audiences. Harold did not take any credit for himself, but he should have -- for his intra-museum collaborations for shows like "Dangerous Laisons" and his foresight in developing exhibitions of women of style like Jacqueline Kennedy and Nan Kemper as well as monographic designer displays like Chanel and Alexander McQueen.

Although fashion is one of the industries that drives the world economy, it seems that there is an uneasy relationship between fashion and finance and I was impressed that Harold addressed this head on. He said that when the museum presents a monographic designer exhibition (like Chanel), they often receive criticism as if there has been some kind of "collusion between high culture and the museum". And this problem is "complicated by fashion brands curating their own shows" in which the "concept never becomes as lucid as having someone outside the house reflect on it." Although the museum has to ask for the cooperation (and often sponsorship) of the fashion house, he made the point that "we are not working for the fashion company...we ask for access to their collection and archives...but there is a type of firewall between curation and the company."

Harold also talked briefly about the relationship between fashion and art and he mentioned that art is something that "elevates us beyond our daily experience". He gave examples of a few designers that he feels do this including Hussein Chalayn (and his airplane dress), Roberto Capucci who used "dress as a medium for sculpture" and Jean Paul Gaultier who uses "fashion as a vehicle for some other narrative". He said that the pattern for collecting at the Costume Institute is "focused more and more on the objects that have artistic virtue but are estranged from the experience of daily life".

To read more about Harold's views on the relationship between fashion and art, visit Fashion Projects here for the transcript of our conversation.

To join the Bata Shoe Museum and be at the front of the line for other illuminating talks and their upcoming show on Roger Vivier, visit their website here.

What's on the Fashion Calendar for November?

Queen Alexandra in Court Dress
Courtesy of the ROM and subject to copyright

November is another hectic month!!! Here is what's on the fashion calendar:

November 4 - Opening of the Grace Kelly exhibit at the TIFF Lightbox in Toronto. Last year, I went to London to see this exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Read my review here.

November 5 - I will be speaking about my research on Ruth Dukas, a Canadian designer of evening wear in the 1960s, at the Ryerson University Graduate Research Symposium called Convergence. Speakers will present their research in three panels including - Narratives of Femininity in Fashion; Canadian Content? From Local to Global; and The Spaces in Fashion: Conditions & Contexts. The plenary talk will be given at 4:30 pm by Kate Strasdin of the University of Southampton and The Royal Ontario Museum’s 2011 Gervers Fellow. This event is free and held on campus. More details are available at www.ryersonfashionsymposium.ca.

November 8 - Harold Koda, Chief Curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be coming to Toronto as the Bata Shoe Museum Founder's Lecture Series to talk about Fashion and the Art Museum. The transcript of my interview with Harold Koda will be published on Fashion Projects next week. Tickets for the event are available through the Bata Shoe Museum.

November 11 - Kate Strasdin will be giving the 20th annual Veronika Gervers Memorial Lecture called "A Royal Wardrobe Unlocked: Queen Alexandra 1863-1910" at the Royal Ontario Museum from 530-630 pm. Kate has been studying the ROM's collection of  Queen Alexandra’s clothing. According to the press release, the Museum’s holdings "include significant evening garments from her earliest years as Princess of Wales to the more stately examples she wore as Queen. These objects offer a sparkling snapshot into the world and wardrobe of one of the most famous women of the nineteenth century." For more information on this free event, visit the ROM's website here.

November 13 - The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier opens in Dallas at the Museum of Art. This exhibition was developed by the Montreal Museum of Fine Art and this will be its first stop on its tour of the world. There will be some new exhibition additions including a motorcycle suit with headlights costume for Pedro Almodovar's 1993 film "Kika" and a menswear outfit from the recent Gaultier Haute Couture Fall Winter 2011/2012 collection. My review of the MMFA exhibition and my interviews with curators Thierry Maxime Loriot and Nathalie Bondil are on Fashion Projects.

Fashion and the Art Museum: A Talk by Harold Koda

Harold Koda

 On Tuesday, November 8, 2011, Harold Koda will be speaking on the subject of Fashion and the Art Museum as part of the Bata Shoe Museum's Founder's Lecture Series.

Harold Koda has served as the Curator-in-Charge of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since June 2000. He is the author of 19 books including Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed.

He has curated and co-curated many exhibitions including Balenciaga (1986), Fashion and Surrealism (1987), Jocks and Nerds (1989), Fashion in Film (1990), Splash! (1991), Giorgio Armani: Images of Man (1990), Paper Clothes (1991), and Halston: Absolute Modernism (1991), Diana Vreeland: Immoderate Style (1993), Waist Not (1993), Madame Grès (1994), Orientalism (1994), Haute Couture (1995), Bloom (1995), Bare Witness (1996), Two by Two (1996), and Christian Dior (1996) and The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion (2009).

Born in Honolulu, he graduated from the University of Hawaii with a B.A. in English Literature and a B.F.A. (Art History), and a Masters degree in Landscape Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.

Last week, Harold answered a number of questions for me on the topic of Art and Fashion which is the subject of my keynote address at the Costume Society of America mid-west conference in October. His eloquence and the clarity of thought helped illuminate the topic for me and I was grateful for the generosity of his time. Because of that interchange, I know that his talk will be an unforgettable experience.

Tickets are available through the Bata Shoe Museum.

The Arrangement: Fashion and the Art Museum by Harold Koda
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011 at 6:30 pm
George Ignatieff Theatre, Trinity College
15 Devonshire Place, Toronto

McQueen Hats and Accessories

"Everything I do is connected to nature in one way or another."

Lee Alexander McQueen

Over the course of his career, McQueen collaborated with a number of others in the production of accessories, including milliner Philip Treacy and jeweler Shaune Leane. In these selected photos from the Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the proof of his extraordinary vision and creativity is evident.

Corset (backplate) and Headpiece, VOSS collection 2001
(Hand-draped glass etched and painted red)

"I especially like the accessory for its sadomasochistic aspect."

Lee Alexander McQueen

Spine Corset, Shaun Leane for Alexander McQueen 1998

This will be my last post about the McQueen exhibit at the Met. While I have enough photos and material to write about it for weeks to come, I think it is time to move on to other things. When this post goes live, I shall be in Paris.


Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty continues at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until July 31, 2011. If you cannot make it to NYC, there is a beautiful exhibition catalogue available through Amazon. I will not be posting a review of the book on my blog as I've been asked to write about the book and the exhibition for Worn Fashion Journal, an independent fashion  publication for fashion geeks (like me).  If you haven't heard about Worn, visit their website and blog at www.wornjournal.com or click here.

McQueen and Embroidery

Although Alexander McQueen was known for his exquisite tailoring, I've not seen much mention of the extent to which he deployed embroidery and beading to embellish his garments. However, in touring the retrospective of his work at the Met, it was apparent that embroidery was one of the creative tools that McQueen used often.

McQueen kimono inspired coat spring/summer 2001

The workmanship on these pieces is incredible and cannot be fully appreciated unless you see them in person.  All I can say is that they were utterly breathtaking in both conception and execution.

From McQueen's show Autumn/Winter 2008-2009

From McQueen's Dante collection Autumn Winter 1996/97

And as I walked through the show, I thought of my friend Susan Elliot of Plays with Needles who is incredibly passionate about embroidery and beading.  These photos are for her!

From McQueen's Ecclect Dissect Collection for Givenchy Autumn/Winter 1996-1997

From McQueen Voss collection, spring/summer 2001 collection

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty is now on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and runs until July 31, 2011. To read my review of the exhibition, please visit Fashion Projects or click here.

McQueen Masks

Alexander McQueen once said "Life to me is a bit of a [Brothers] Grimm fairy tale". A gothic fairy tale was what came to mind when I toured the retrospective of McQueen's work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art  on Monday.

Intensifying this dark mood are the unusual masks fitted to many of the mannequins on display. Constructed out of linen, leather, lace and a variety of other materials, these masks custom made by artist Guido Palau added a haunting and ghostly aura to the show.

Mask by Guido for Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty at the Met

Mask by Guido for Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty

McQueen often incorporated masks into his runway shows himself. The first incarnation thereof was a fencing mask worn with a liquid metallic floor-length gown shown in the McQueen spring/summer 1995 collection shown in London.  He revisited masks and face coverings many times over the span of his career, including in fall/winter 2009 when he designed a chain-mail long-sleeved top  and built-in face mask that was worn underneath an evening gown in an avant-garde graphic print.

The Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition is now open to the public at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and runs until July 31, 2011. In my review for Fashion Projects, I explain why this exhibition is cutting edge in presentation of fashion as art. To read that review, visit Fashion Projects at www.fashionprojects.org or click here.

Anna, Stella and Sarah at Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty

Sarah Burton, Stella McCartney and Anna Wintour at the Press Preview for Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty

There seems to be a little bit of confusion as to where I was on Monday. I am a fashion scholar, not a fashionista and I did not attend the Costume Institute Gala at the Met.  But I was at Monday's press preview for Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, attending as the reporter for Fashion Projects.

The speakers that morning included Metropolitan Museum of Art director Thomas P. Campbell, curator of the exhibition Andrew Bolton, as well as Stella McCartney and Sarah Burton. Anna Wintour, although present at the event, did not speak (and yes she had her sunglasses in her hand).

Stella McCartney at the Press Preview for Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty at the Met

Stella McCartney, who was co-chair of the gala event in the evening, said "the mind, the hand and the artistry (of McQueen's work) are breathtaking".  In her poignant comments, she honored both his memory and their friendship,  citing the many parallels between their careers.

Sarah Burton at the Press Preview for Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty at the Met

Sarah Burton, who is no doubt exhausted after her work on the royal wedding, said only a few sentences about her work with Lee describing him as a "genius" who had incredible "passion and attention to detail". She also said that she was "proud to have worked with him".

As is probably evident from my photos, I had front row seats during the presentation. There were literally hundreds of press in attendance and it was really memorable to be part of the opening of this extraordinary exhibition that celebrates the rare genius of Lee Alexander McQueen.

Over the next week or so, I will post selections of the many photos I took inside the exhibition as well as a review of the exhibition catalogue. To read my review of the exhibition itself, please visit Fashion Projects at  www.fashionprojects.org or click here.

An Exhibition Review of Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Photograph by Solve Sundsbo/Art + Commerce
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

It was a day I'll never forget. While at the Metropolitan Museum's press preview of Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty,  I rubbed shoulders with Harold Koda, Philip Treacy, Hamish Bowles, Suzy Menkes, and Anna Wintour.  Read my review for Fashion Projects  here.

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.

Make it McQueen Times Two

The Duchess of Cambridge and The Duchess of Cornwall before the Wedding Supper

One McQueen was not enough. The Duchess of Cambridge chose to change into another exquisite McQueen gown for the wedding supper. With her hair down, a jewel encrusted belt and an angora bolero sweater, she looks like a happy bride ready to party.
While neither gown really looks like the avant-garde stuff of a McQueen runway show, no doubt both gowns have the details of workmanship and tailoring that define the McQueen label.
Sarah Burton must be ready to collapse with exhaustion. She only has a few days to recover before the Costume Institute gala and the official opening of the McQueen exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art  on Wednesday. The Met blog is up and running if you want a sneak peak before my review. Check it out here.