fashion

Tokyo: a bridge between tradition and modernity, by Carla Scarano D’Antonio.

June 1, 2019 by Carla Scarano • architecture, art, design, drawing, exhibitions, fashion, festivals, food, history, installations, painting, poetry, sculpture, society, travel, year 2019 • Tags: architecture, art, Carla Scarano, design, drawing, exhibitions, fashion, festivals, food, installations, painting, poetry, sculpture, society, travel •

Swinging London: A Lifestyle Revolution. Review by Barbara Lewis.

April 13, 2019 by Barbara Lewis • design, exhibitions, fashion, history, society, year 2019 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, design, exhibitions, fashion, history, society •

Swinging London: A Lifestyle Revolution
Venue: Fashion and Textile Museum, Bermondsey, London
Dates: Until June 2

If Brexit is the result of a backward-looking nostalgia, the Swinging London of the Chelsea Set was the opposite: it marked a determination to move on from the devastation and austerity left by World War II.

Around half a century on (the exhibition spans 1952-77), the time is ripe for reflection on whether the impact endures as some of yesterday’s bright, young, fun-loving things are among those backing today’s reaction – just as their parents and the more conservative provinces did not inevitably approve of short skirts and psychedelia.

This time the establishment is a driver of disruption that goes well beyond fashion. Conversely, the Chelsea Set – a group of architects, designers, photographers and artists who redefined the concept of youth – were extremely well connected.

The exhibition’s claim that their rebelliousness from previous style led to an inclusive, multi-cultural, liberal society is in question as we ask whether the openness of the sixties and seventies – when Britain voted to join the Common Market – was no deeper than a fashion.
Symbolically, Terence Conran’s Habitat shop has left Chelsea’s King’s Road as the brand in latter years has been taken over and its high street presence drastically shrunk.

The commentary, however, doesn’t dwell on the contradictions and in the tradition of previous displays in this museum founded by Zandra Rhodes, Swinging London speaks primarily to design students of style’s power to lift our collective mood. The appeal that its educational, fashion-history approach also has for the anxious liberal classes, looking for light cultural fare before they hit the humming bars and eateries of Bermondsey Street, is almost accidental.

We begin with the opening of Mary Quant’s Chelsea boutique Bazaar in 1955, when the hottest item in stock was a pair of “lounging pyjamas” for saucy day-wear inspired by Victorian underwear.

The interplay of decades continues as the flapper’s drop waists of the roaring twenties inspire Quant’s 1960-61 flapper-style dresses, which dummies sport against a backdrop of Conran’s slick furniture.

We’re also told to imagine that the slim figures clad in Quant’s designs were nourished by the cooking of Elizabeth David, whose continental cookery books had at least as much influence on the way we eat as Quant and Conran had on changing how we dress and furnish our homes.

I found myself remembering the scene of Michael Caine cooking up a gourmet storm in The Ipcress File, but the Michael Caine of the exhibition is the one starring as Alfie alongside Jane Asher, then Paul McCartney’s girlfriend. Asher’s outfit is a Mary Quant mini-skirt suit in a Liberty print as Art Nouveau meets psychedelia and proves the best designs are relevant to every generation.

Perhaps the exhibition’s biggest surprise is the inclusion of Bernard and Laura Ashley. We discover they explored “urban ruralism” from their kitchen table in Pimlico before decamping to Wales in the early 1960s and their fashion empire began, not with the flowers and frills for which they tend to be known, but with very simple gardening smocks and basic dresses.

They don’t come across as radical now, but they were a liberating leap forward from the prim, restrictive couture of the 1950s.

Copyright Fashion and Textile Museum (1).

Copyright Fashion and Textile Museum (2).

Copyright Fashion and Textile Museum (3).

Copyright Fashion and Textile Museum (4).

Copyright Fashion and Textile Museum (5).

Copyright Fashion and Textile Museum (6).

Copyright Fashion and Textile Museum (7).

Copyright Fashion and Textile Museum (8).

Heather Tilbury Phillips and Dame Zandra Rhodes attend the opening of Swinging London A Lifestyle Revolution. Copyright Fashion and Textile Museum.

Sir Terence Conran attends the opening of Swinging London A Lifestyle Revolution. Copyright Fashion and Textile Museum.

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams. Review by Carla Scarano.

March 6, 2019 by Carla Scarano • design, exhibitions, fashion, year 2019 • Tags: Carla Scarano, design, exhibitions, fashion •

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams
Victoria and Albert Museum
Sainsbury Gallery
2 February – 14 July 2019

‘La couture, c’est aussi une forme de sculpture, car la toile garde la mémoire des formes’
Christian Dior
(couture is also a kind of sculpture because the fabric keeps the memory of forms)

Two hundred unique artistic creations by Christian Dior and his successors are featured at the V&A exhibition. It is the biggest show on the renowned French fashion house ever presented in Britain based on an exhibition of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. It opens with the famous ‘Bar Suit’ (Corolle line, spring/summer 1947) donated to the V&A in 1960 by House of Dior. It is a revolutionary outfit with a black rich silk skirt and an ivory jacket marked by a narrow waistline that enhances the hips and the bust valorising the curves of the female body and evoking the petals of a flower (corolle). The figure 8 is the shape that best describes the ‘New Look’ Dior created redefining the style of women’s fashion after the second world war.

Dior came from a wealthy family of manufacturers from Normandy and manifested artistic talent since his youth. His parents wanted him to be a diplomat but then supported his love for art and funded his project for an art gallery where he exhibited works by surrealist and cubist painters such as Picasso, Braques, Duchamp, Magritte, Dalí and Giacometti. Unfortunately, he had to sell his pictures after the financial crisis of 1929 and started to work for top Parisian fashion designers such as Robert Pignet and Lucien Lelong.

In 1946 he founded his own couture house, House of Dior, and had his first collection, New Look, in February 1947. The couture house started with eighty-five members of staff and three ateliers but in eight years it had twenty-eight ateliers and more than a thousand staff, and by 1955 it covered fifty per cent of the exports of French haute couture. In ten years Christian Dior launched twenty-two collections and opened retail outlets in the UK and in America.

The exhibition celebrates his artistic achievements and his success as a business man as well as his connections with Britain. He once said he even liked English food and created Princess Margaret’s ball gown for her 21^st birthday using raffia embroidery and sequins made from straw giving the idea of gold decorations. The gown looks fabulous in its weightlessness and preciousness.

Some impressive sketches of his models highlight the rounded geometry of his figures, ‘silhouettes qui s’impose à l’imagination’ (figures that impose themselves to the imagination). His concept of a dress was similar to the principles of architecture. He constructed it like a sculpture according to the laws of proportion and in this way moulded the female body. He both expressed a new vision of a desirable woman, after the austerity of the war years, and his concept of how a dress should be constructed. According to him, a dress needs to be built like a piece of architecture and the line of the fabric, called grainline, is the secret of the cloth design. The fashion designer has to obey the grainline of the fabric and make a dress that looks weightless. It is an idealisation that makes his clothes look like pieces of art.

It is no wonder that he was the favourite stylist of film stars such as Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Liz Taylor and Marlene Dietrich, for whom he designed the whole wardrobe of Hitchcock’s film Stage Fright.

The exhibition displays the different stages of his career from the launching of New Look in 1947, to the lines of 1950-1953, which reveal less marked shapes, and the renovated style of the late 1950s where the waistline almost disappears in the Ligne H dresses looking like the fashion of the 1920s.

Some outfits stand out such as ‘Maxim’s Ensemble’ (En 8, spring/summer 1947), a black dress with tight waistline enhancing the bust and the hips, or ‘Ulysse Coat’ (autumn/winter 1952), a red coat loosely enwrapping the figure. The ‘Sonnet Dress’ (Profilée line, autumn/winter 1952) and ‘Blandine Dress’ (Libre line, spring/summer 1957) are apparently simple outfits but show strong lines that define and idealise the body like in Greek sculptures.

The following section of the exhibition displays the creations of his successors: Yves Saint Laurent, who was only twenty-one when he took the lead of the couture house when Dior died in 1957, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons and now Maria Grazia Chiuri. The outfits are inspired by 18^th century dresses of the king’s court at Versailles and also by mid and late 19^th century dresses. Their precious fabrics are richly decorated showing exaggerated and exclusive interpretations of examples from the past, as in the jacket by Ferré (spring/summer 1993) or in the ‘Look 24 Dress’ by Galliano (autumn/winter 2004).

Dior and his successors were also inspired by travels in their creations, both in textiles and models. The exhibition features outfits from five countries: Mexico, Japan, Egypt, China and India. Once again, the richness of the fabric and the embroideries combines with the line of the dresses giving a distinctive shape.

The last section is titled ‘Garden’, a reminiscence of the garden belonging to Dior’s mother in the family house at Granville, now Christian Dior Museum, and of the fashion designer’s passion for flowers. The ‘Jardin Fleuri Dress’ by Maria Grazia Chiuri (spring/summer 2017) has petal-like hand died decorations throughout the gown giving the impression of a spring flower bed. Flowers also inspired his love for perfumes that, according to Dior, were the ‘finishing touch of a dress’. His first perfume, Miss Dior, was created in 1947 in honour of his sister Catherine Dior, in an elegant bottle inspired by ancient amphorae.

The exhibition amply testifies Dior’s career and his exclusive creations that revolutionised women’s fashion after the second world war and continued to inspire his successors in a legacy that encompasses boundless creativity, craftsmanship and business.

Dior Blandibe dress spring/summer 1957.jpg

Dior Écarlate (scarlet) dress autumn/winter 1955.

Dior Maxims Ensemble spring/summer 1947.

Dior Mazette ensemble autumn/winter 1954.

Dior Romaneque dress autumn/winter 1950.

Night and Day: 1930s Fashion & Photographs. Review by Barbara Lewis.

October 28, 2018 by Barbara Lewis • exhibitions, fashion, history, photography, year 2018 • Tags: art, Barbara Lewis, exhibitions, fashion, history, photography •

Night and Day: 1930s Fashion and Photographs,
Textile and Design Museum, London,
Until January 20.

In 1933, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. In the world of fashion, shoulders broadened and the iconic 1930s shape became established.

The juxtaposition of fascism and fashion might seem frivolous, but Night and Day is earnest in that it takes style as the lens through which we can understand anew an era impossible to disassociate from the World War that followed.

It was also preceded by the stock market crash of 1929, meaning that looking good night and day was often a triumph of ingenuity over adversity and only the wealthy few could be effortlessly if guiltily elegant.

Even for them, the gaiety of the 1920s flappers gave way to more sedate and chaste cuts, just as in architecture the extravagance of art nouveau had already been pared back to the geometric flair of Art Deco, named after the international exhibition Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris in 1925.

Another piece of style trivia we learn, or possibly are reminded of, is that the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, when gold discs were found sewn to the young king’s clothing, led to a vogue for sequins and sparkle that endured into the 1930s.

At the dazzling summit of the social pyramid was Princess Elizabeth, captured by Cecil Beaton in a froth of net and diamante, decorously seated in her palace.

For mere mortals, glamour had to be contrived from domestic skills honed from reading women’s magazines, full of helpful tips. At the same time, department stores were also becoming established, allowing customers to browse unattended through racks of off-the-peg clothes bearing price tags and forcing shop assistants, previously accustomed to the personal service of the tailor-made, into new work practices. Today’s echo is the growth of online shopping, check-out robots and the collapse of the high street.

The shift away from the chic boutique also coincided with the advent of cheaper, patterned fabrics and synthetic materials rather than the embroidered silks and velvets that had gone before.

They provided the attire for the thousands upon thousands living in the new semi-detached suburban housing that shot up in the 1930s, replacing crumbling slums.

At the other end of the social scale, society photographer Cecil Beaton was signing the lease on his country home in Ashcombe, Wiltshire, where he would entertain his leisured guests and host fancy dress parties.

One of his outfits was a “rabbit coat”, worn at his “fête champêtre” in 1937. It has been recreated with egg shells and flamboyant felt flowers and guards the entrance – or is it the exit? – to a selection of 30 of Beaton’s 1930s fashion portraits. The original was made by stage costumier Madame Karinska and had accompanying breeches embroidered with beetles.

Most of the portraits he shot take as their theme the glamorous and make-believe. They include his famous 1936 photograph of Marlene Dietrich, which captures the strength of her jaw-line, echoed by the brim of her hat and continued by the sweeping gesture of her hands.

We also have a triptych “Charwoman to Dowager” on the art of retouching, showing how he slimmed down and rejuvenated his subject.

The two worlds – glamour and desolation – collide in his portrait of Vicomtesse Marie-Laure de Noailles, artist and patron, as she huddles in her fur coat among the ruins of the Paris Exhibition.

Her sorrowful expression may have been genuine, but is also stylised. One rare natural-looking shot is of actress, writer, model Iris Tree and another “bright, young thing” Nicolas Nabokov, who holds her tightly while she looks radiantly happy.

They stand out for their apparent disregard of formality in an exhibition that emphasises the pride of overcoming difficulty and keeping up appearances.

Another selection of portraits by Dorothy Wilding, Madame Yevonde and Paul Tanqueray, leading studio photographers in London, provides further testimony to the golden age of the glamour shot.

Vivien Leigh is luminous in a sapphire blue dress offset by a vase of tiger lilies. Even Washing Day, an advertisement for British Celanese fabrics, is a dreamy haze of soft colours against a summer sky.

Returning to the present, the similarities – and differences – are striking. Today’s women do not accept that their place is in the home. Still, however, they emulate the film stars. The difference now is that they want the brands they wear not makeshift equivalents. A decade after our own financial crisis, we have lost the 1930s willingness to find satisfaction from cutting our coat according to our cloth. The nagging sense left by this socially-aware exhibition – from which the evening gowns, plunging at the back, however elegant cannot divert us – is that the divisions between the have and have-nots, borne out in how they dress, are marked today, as they were in the 1930s, and anger is fermenting.

1930s evening dress, taken from the upcoming exhibition Night and Day 1930s Fashion & Photographs. Photograph by Bethany Crutchfield. Copyright Fashion and Textile Museum (3) (4).

One of New York’s young marrieds” wears dress and jewellery by Lord & Taylor. Photo by Ruzzie Green. The New York Woman, September 9, 1936. Private collection.

Anna May Wong, photograph by Paul Tanqueray, 1933, courtesy of a Private Collection.

Cover of The New York Woman, September 9, 1936. Private collection.

Cover of The New York Woman, September 23, 1936. Private collection.

Daisy Fellowes, wearing her commissioned ‘Collier Hindou’ or ‘Tutti Frutti’ Cartier necklace, photograph by Cecil Beaton, 1937, courtesy of The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive, Sotheby’s.

Elinor Glyn with her two cats Candide and Zadig, photograph by Paul Tanqueray, 1931, courtesy of a Private Collection.

Elsa Schiaparelli, photograph by Cecil Beaton, 1936, courtesy of The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive, Sotheby’s.

Ethen Mannin in front of Jazz background designed by Paul Tanqueray and painted by Ida Davis. Photograph by Paul Tanqueray, 1930, courtesy of a Private Collection (1).

Figure skater Sonja Henie in One in a Million for Motion Picture Magazine. Photograph by Gene Kornman. October, 1936. Private collection.

Genevieve Phillips wearing a sheer evening gown. Still taken from My Weakness 1933 Courtesy of Old Visuals Everett Collection Mary Evans.

Jay Thorpe, New York collection gown. December, 1939. Private collection.

Jean Harlow photographed by Ted Allen, 1936. Courtesy of a Private Collection.

Lady Bridget Poulett. Photograph by Paul Tanqueray, 1932. Courtesy of a Private Collection. Copyright Paul Tanqueray Estate.

Margaret Duchess of Argyll, photograph by Paul Tanqueray, 1934, courtesy of a Private Collection.

Michele Morgan photographed by Ernest Bachrach, crica 1939. Private collection.

Model wears pure silk crepe tunic by Saks Fifth Avenue. The New York Woman, September 23, 1936. Private collection.

Model wears three-piece suit in Bretton Tweed, by Lois Mattox Miller for The New York Woman. The New York Woman, September 23, 1936. Private collection.

Primrose Salt, Debutante of the Year, shown with the fashionable Eton crop hairstyle, photograph by Paul Tanqueray, 1933, courtesy of a Private Collection.

Ruby Keeler finds bicycling a great sport, 1934. Image by Scotty Welbourne. Courtesy of the Terence pepper Collection.

1930s day dress, taken from the upcoming exhibition Night and Day 1930s Fashion & Photographs. Photograph by Bethany Crutchfield. Copyright Fashion and Textile Museum (1).

1930s evening dress and bolero, taken from the upcoming exhibition Night and Day 1930s Fashion & Photographs. Photograph by Bethany Crutchfield. Copyright Fashion and Textile Museum (3).

The power of creativity: combining art and fashion in Florence, by Carla Scarano.

July 3, 2018 by Carla Scarano • exhibitions, fashion, year 2018 • Tags: Carla Scarano, exhibitions, fashion •

The power of creativity: combining art and fashion in Florence

Tracce: dialoghi ad arte
Traces: dialoguing with art
Museum of Costume and Fashion, Palazzo Pitti
19/12/2017 – 31/12/2018

Gucci Garden Galleria
Piazza della Signoria, Palazzo della Mercanzia

L’Italia a Hollywood
Italy in Hollywood
Museo Ferragamo
Palazzo Spini Feroni
24/05/2018 – 10/03/2019

Florence has plenty of art masterpieces and so many world renowned museums and churches to visit that it is hard to find the time to see something different when you are there. Textiles and fashion are the other strong trademarks of the city whose fortunes are linked to commerce and banking since the Middle Ages. They funded art and fuelled fashion afterwards as well as continuing its artistic commitment by displaying incredible creative talent.

The exhibition Tracce: dialoghi ad arte (Traces: dialoguing with art) at the Museum of Costume and Fashion, Palazzo Pitti, aims to set up a dialogue between modern art, artist-stylist and couturiers from 1930s until today. The attention is on not-so-well known Italian artists and on the innovative and creative methods adopted by the fashion designers inevitably influenced by and connected with the art of their time. The link is not always straightforward and could be better explained in some of the captions, but the outfits exhibited are certainly pieces of art in the use of innovative techniques, in the precious textiles and their astonishing beauty. Art has different languages and undoubtedly fashion is one of them.

Costumes, accessories, paintings and sculptures interact in the exhibition, reflecting their images in mirrors that allow the viewer to admire the pieces from different angles. The title of the exhibition means to delineate the interaction between different arts, the bridge they trace and the traces they leave in the criss-crossing of ideas and aesthetic concepts. The items are displayed in a chronological order starting from the 50s hinting to exotic culture with the kimono style summer dress by Lanvin, reflecting the search for sophisticated alternatives to the simple models of the time. In the next room the ‘Gorgons’ by Domenico Trentacoste, originally adornments for a chimney breast, gaze ironically on the variety of flowered textiles, such as Gianfranco Ferre’s (Dior couture) dress, an organza evening gown that demystifies the horror of the Gorgons’ myth, their touch beautifies rather than changing into stone.

Gianfranco Ferre’s dresses are also connected with Romano Campagnoli’s ‘Animale Marino’ (sea creature), both dresses and painting invent new shapes, modelling their innovative patterns on possible ideas of being human and non-human. This parallel between fine art and fashion is also clear in Mila Schön’s embroideries, looking like engravings, recalling the metal work by Bruno Benelli, ‘Diaphragms’, logic and elegance stress a regained essentiality in the 70s. Other important highlights are Roberto Capucci’s evening gown and Yohji Yamamoto’s jacket and skirt, linked to Alimondo Ciampi’s Ophelia, and Giorgio Armani’s sequined evening gown similar to the shimmering painting of venetian gondolas and fireworks by Guido Marussig. The uniqueness of their design floating in an almost unconscious dream redesigning subjects and perspectives.

The exhibition shows and explains convincingly the interaction between fine art and fashion mainly highlighting the quality and preciousness of the high-couture outfits. The paintings and sculptures are sometimes left in the foreground, maybe intentionally, far from the viewer and without enough explanatory captions. Perhaps a clearer link to the fine art works and the costumes would enhance even more this rich and enriching exhibition. Tracce will be on until the end of 2018 but with a rotation of different costumes and paintings from the storage of the Museum of Costume and Fashion and from the Museum of Modern Art of Palazzo Pitti maintaining the same concepts.

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Gucci Garden Galleria in Piazza della Signoria in Florence is the other unmissable fashion highlight. It is not a museum in the traditional sense, which surprised me at first as I used to consider Gucci an unchangeable high-brow fashion trademark. On the contrary, with the new creative director Alessandro Michele, the museum has been conceived as a Galleria (gallery), a dynamic, shape-shifting space. It merges old and new, tradition and contemporary views, never forgetting where it started from but looking forward to future possibilities as well.

Guccio Gucci was born in Florence from humble origins. He worked in London as a porter and lift-boy learning from experience how the structure of a suitcase should be made. Coming back to Florence he set up his workshop which produced travel bags giving job to artisans and workers, aiming at high quality materials, relying on the skill of Florentine craftsmanship and targeting a cosmopolitan jet-set audience.

The Galleria exhibition is meant to involve the viewer at different levels starting from the new term ‘Guccification’, a confirmation of the importance of the double G, a charismatic monogram interpreted and reworked in ironic reversed visions, like in Trevor Andrew’s graffiti decorating the room or in Jayde Fish’s spaces inspired by Instagram culture. Examples are in the leaping goat branded with Gs, the skull with G eyes or the graffiti ‘tomorrow is now yesterday’; they can be disorienting in a way but mean to include contemporary narratives in Gucci’s traditional landscape expanding the target audience.

The treasure hunt proposed at the beginning of the tour (spotting the iconic Sylvie bag through the exhibition) intends to highlight in a ludic way the importance of combining past and present well aware that the past needs to be re-shaped but cannot be erased without losing identity. It is a serious commitment to high quality work imagining new possibilities through innovative techniques and the power of creativity.

For this reason, emblematic pieces from the archives (which count twenty-five thousand items) are displayed side by side with contemporary creations. The bamboo bag of the 60s or the web stripe (blue-red-blue or green-red-green), the stirrup and the horse bit, emblems on shoes and dresses, are present together with t-shirts, faux furs and bomber jackets.

The floral rooms of ‘De Rerum Natura’ testify the decodification of the natural world defined in the exquisite realistic patterns of beetles, insects and flowers in the foulards created by Alessandra Cornero for Grace Kelly, alluding to the Garden of Eden as well as to the enchanted world of fairy-tales, which is both beautiful and fearful, natural and artificial. Valuable python skin coats from the archives are on display as well, showing the skilful use of precious material, which was often provided by the clients themselves, as it is the case of the suitcase made from elephant skin. However, Gucci will not manufacture or produce furs from January 2019 and the skins used in its products are from animals already slaughtered for the food industry, an eco-friendly program that adds an ethic angle to the company.

One of the most intriguing pieces is Björk’s dress realised in collaboration with Alessandro Michele for her video The Gate (2017). The outfit is a paramount element of the performance, an angelic creation in PVC lurex organza, crêpe de Chine and silk jersey that took five hundred and fifty hours of work and was inspired by the 11^th canto of Paradiso from the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, especially the section dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi. The association is not casual as Björk’s song is about overcoming the pain caused by the end of an intense relationship and the transformation of this suffering into irradiating love. It is a sublimation of love reminding of the ideas of the neo-platonic circle of Marsilio Ficino, popular during Quattrocento in Florence. The light emanating from the chest of the dress also refers to the digital world and to eroticism in a social network digital reality where human and non-human are sometimes non distinguishable.

A more traditional view is expressed in Michele Obama’s dress with a map of the values of marriage printed on the fabric and in Alessandro Michele’s red blouse with ribbon, which was worn by a male model subverting the nowadays too obvious concept of gender division and proposing an androgynous multiple vision, inclusive in its exclusiveness.

A video concludes this incredible experience; it has no beginning or ending and represents the labours of Hercules. Actors from Faenza perform in a gym fighting with leather dummies that have no face features, no hands, no legs and no gender connotation. It is the unending struggle of human with the rough material, which is an other but is also inside us; humans shape and re-shape it in a constant empowering re-creation.

The shop has an interesting section for not-so-wealthy clients, like myself, with books, cards, matches, candles, tote bags and t-shirts at reasonable prices. They are all inspired by Gucci design as well as characters from ordinary Florentine life (Isabella Cotier’s t-shirts). Another way to translate iconic Gucci elements into a language that can reach a wider audience. Such a new vision definitely deserves a visit.

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L’Italia a Hollywood (Italy in Hollywood) at Salvatore Ferragamo Museum is a thematic exhibition that explores the presence of Italians in California from 1915 onwards with a particular attention to the years when Ferragamo arrived and worked at Hollywood as the shoemaker of the stars.

The exhibition displays film clips and photos of the time as well as art works and explanatory captions, sometimes too long but interesting. A clear thread links Ferragamo’s fortune to other famous Italians who became successful in the US, focusing on four main figures: Rudolph Valentino, Lina Cavalieri, Tina Modotti and Enrico Caruso.

Millions of Italians emigrated to the US between the end of the 19^th and the beginning of 20^th century. It was the most numerous ethnic group of emigrants who mostly worked in agriculture or as fishermen, miners, builders, street sweepers and barbers. Some of them became bankers or enterprisers like Ferragamo himself. The famous shoe designer came from humble origins. He was born in Bonito (Irpinia region in southern Italy) and emigrated in the US in 1916. He started making boots for Westerns and opened a Hollywood boot shop on Hollywood boulevard. His shoes were comfortable and beautifully designed, and were owned by the most famous film stars of the time, like Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson and Joan Crawford. They appreciated not only the shoes’ beauty and original design, but also their good quality and perfect fit. Ferragamo eventually came back to Italy and set up his workshop in Florence employing seven hundred and fifty shoemakers.

The presence of Italians in California was paramount in art, architecture and in the birth of American film. Italians were present with the Citadel Pavilion created by Marcello Piacentini at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco (1915), which celebrated the opening of Panama Canal and the reconstruction of the city after the 1906 earthquake. The Citadel proposed ‘a corner of Italy’ inspired by Quattrocento and Renaissance architecture with several art works on display. It was a great success. Italians won prizes, the Mediterranean style was reproduced in Californian houses and Futurist painters, like Balla and Soffici, became famous in the US. Though the character of the Italian immigrant was often stereotyped as instinctive, passional and sentimental, their creativity, inexhaustible imagination and versatility were appreciated as well. An almost natural tendency to re-create themselves was the key to success.

The central room of the exhibition reproduces Ferragamo’s Hollywood boot shop according to the descriptions given by American press articles of the time, including the sofa where you can sit and take your selfie. The display shows stylish shoes worn by film stars like Valentino’s riding boots, Swanson’s calfskin pumps with bow, then sandals, Oxford, snakeskin T-strap shoes and even linen shoes. It is a remarkable display that well matches with the new collection you can find in the shop upstairs; they are artistic creations of the highest quality.

The exhibition then focuses on the four main figures highlighting their personality with film clips and photographs. They all came from humble origins and made their fortune thanks to their artistic talent that combined theatrical skills, personal interpretation of their roles and creative power.

Rudolph Valentino was the first Latin lover figure. He had villain roles at first because of his dark looks, then debuted as a passionate tango dancer in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), which made him a success. He was handsome, of course, but also very talented, unpredictable in his interpretations mixing kissing and biting, tenderness and violence, passion and sadness.

Tina Modotti and Lina Cavalieri were two astonishingly beautiful actresses who worked in theatre and cinema. Cavalieri was the most famous one and was considered the most beautiful woman of her time. She was also an Opera singer who performed in Paris and in the US. Tina Modotti was more a Bohemian character in contact with Mexican militancy and artists like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

The great tenor Enrico Caruso is celebrated as well, his songs accompanying visitors through the exhibition. He sang more than seven hundred times at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and sold millions of records. His performances combined technical perfection with superb vocal interpretation, which make his concerts unforgettable.

The exhibition connects with modern and contemporary times in the intriguing series of ceramic plates, Tema e Variazioni (Theme and Variations, 1952) by Piero and Barbara Fornasetti. It is a variation of portraits of woman in several plates (http://www.fornasetti.com/collection/tema-e-variazioni-category/temaevariazioni ) showing her face bottled, effaced, doubled on breasts, crowned, owl-like, on a crotch, with her tongue sticking out and with a fake nose. A though-provoking interpretation of the roles of woman in society that connects very well with the two Italian actresses, Cavalieri and Modotti, celebrated in the same room.

Two contemporary Italian artists are highlighted in the exhibition involved in the project Two Young Italians in Hollywood. They are the photographer Manfredi Gioacchini, whose black and white photos perfectly capture the personality of the subject, and Yuri Ancarani, who filmed Zuma beach, west of Malibu, a famous filming site in the 60s and 90s. This site is now a pilgrimage for people to go and take selfies and videos to then upload on social network. Ancarani observes the shift in the use of this beautiful site.

Italy in Hollywood is an engrossing exhibition that deftly explains and celebrates how Italians, mostly arriving in the US in poor conditions, improved and succeeded thanks to their tenacity, versatility and inexhaustible creative talents.

Graffiti, Guccification by Trevor Andrews.

red blouse with ribbon_Alessandro Michele.

re-designed Sylvie bag_Alessandro Michele.

Gucci's shop, Isabella Cotier's t-shirts

staff in gardeners overall_Jayde Fish space.

Humans and Nature

May 8, 2018 by Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • design, exhibitions, fashion, year 2018 • Tags: Carla Scarano, design, exhibitions, fashion • 0 Comments

Carla Scarano looks at two V&A exhibitions exploring interactions between human beings and the natural world More →

T-Shirt: Cult-Culture-Subversion. Review by Barbara Lewis.

April 19, 2018 by Barbara Lewis • design, exhibitions, fashion, year 2018 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, design, exhibitions, fashion •

T-Shirt: Cult-Culture-Subversion
Fashion and Textile Museum, London,
Until May 6.

Of all the things we wear, the T-shirt has the ability to be both humble and exclusive.

To underline the point, the Fashion and Textile Museum’s shop accompanies its exhibition on the T-shirt from the fifth-century, when it was a variant of the tunic, to now, with designer examples on sale for around 100 pounds.

After a display that serves to convince us of just how cool T-shirts can be, we might even buy one, but only if it fits with the message we want to convey because another great thing about T-shirts is that they allow us to wear our hearts on our chests.

While a muscular Marlon Brando made a plain white T-shirt his own, T-shirts are most likely to become a statement when they scream a political message.

One of the arch-proponents of allowing her clothes to do the talking is Katharine Hamnett who greeted Margaret Thatcher wearing the slogan: 58% DON’T WANT PERSHING, in protest at the prime minister’s decision to allow U.S. missiles to be stationed in Britain.

Equally famous are Vivienne Westwood’s contributions, as collected over three decades by one Lee Price, who became hooked after wandering into Westwood’s shop World’s End in King’s Road when he was about 12. He later worked for her and says wearing her T-shirts is the ultimate conversation starter.

But if words are eloquent, pictures can also speak volumes, aided by digital technology that transforms the way images are transferred on to T-shirts.

One of my favourites was the pug-face T-shirt. David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane face equally seems destined to become emblazoned on backs and fronts the world over.

Whether witty, ironic or political, in 21^st-century Britain, a T-shirt has become a self-conscious style choice, though the exhibition also takes us back to more innocent, straightforward times when the original wearers of the T-shirts sporting the characters of The Wizard of Oz were doing no more than wearing the very first promotional T-shirts and expressing their enthusiasm for a favourite film.

The exhibition concludes (unless you count the shop) with a section on last words.

They lay down the challenge of trying to come up with even more compelling ultimate statements, but it is hard to cap “We’re all Doomed”.

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fashion

Tokyo: a bridge between tradition and modernity, by Carla Scarano D’Antonio.

Swinging London: A Lifestyle Revolution. Review by Barbara Lewis.

Swinging London: A Lifestyle Revolution Venue: Fashion and Textile Museum, Bermondsey, London Dates: Until June 2

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams. Review by Carla Scarano.

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams Victoria and Albert Museum Sainsbury Gallery 2 February – 14 July 2019

‘La couture, c’est aussi une forme de sculpture, car la toile garde la mémoire des formes’ Christian Dior (couture is also a kind of sculpture because the fabric keeps the memory of forms)

Night and Day: 1930s Fashion & Photographs. Review by Barbara Lewis.

Night and Day: 1930s Fashion and Photographs, Textile and Design Museum, London, Until January 20.

The power of creativity: combining art and fashion in Florence, by Carla Scarano.

The power of creativity: combining art and fashion in Florence

Humans and Nature

T-Shirt: Cult-Culture-Subversion. Review by Barbara Lewis.

T-Shirt: Cult-Culture-Subversion Fashion and Textile Museum, London, Until May 6.

Categories

Recent Posts

Follow us

Like/Share Post

Swinging London: A Lifestyle Revolution
Venue: Fashion and Textile Museum, Bermondsey, London
Dates: Until June 2

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams
Victoria and Albert Museum
Sainsbury Gallery
2 February – 14 July 2019

‘La couture, c’est aussi une forme de sculpture, car la toile garde la mémoire des formes’
Christian Dior
(couture is also a kind of sculpture because the fabric keeps the memory of forms)

Night and Day: 1930s Fashion and Photographs,
Textile and Design Museum, London,
Until January 20.

T-Shirt: Cult-Culture-Subversion
Fashion and Textile Museum, London,
Until May 6.