The Politics of Mannequins, Part III – Mannequins in Art
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010Until the article I recently read, mannequins in their practical form held little interest for me; however mannequins in art have always attracted me, most likely due to my obsession with fashion coupled with my fascination with unsettling representations of people (and who doesn’t love to be unsettled?). Incorporating mannequins — invented to market and [...]
The Politics of Mannequins, part II
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010Picking up from where I left off last week, I’m going to address mannequins’ evolution in the second half of the 20th century.
The revolutionary ’60s came as a shock to the world, the American youth rebelling against the traditions of their conservative parents who desired normalcy and stability after the chaos of WWII. The FDA’s [...]
The Politics of Mannequins, part I
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010I happened to run across an old issue of Hue, FIT’s alumni magazine, and read a surprisingly interesting article on “The Life and Times of Mannequins” by Alex Joseph. Though I have not previously studied dress forms in depth, I have been mistaken for a mannequin (I spaced out in a flu-induced frozen position while [...]
Cleopatra & Egyptian Fashion in Film
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010Fashion inevitably looks to history to interpret and re-interpret previous fashion trends. At the recent SAG Awards, I noticed 2 Egyptian-influenced dresses, worn by Toni Collette and Nicole Kidman:
As I’m never content to stay in the current era for long, let’s go back 100 years to trace a century of Egyptomania….
The Egyptian style has been [...]
Paper as Textile
Friday, January 22nd, 2010I stumbled upon the contest Cheap-ChicWeddings.com sponsored for the most impressive wedding gowns made of — wait for it — toilet paper! Yes, this humble stuff is the focus of an annual challenge to use as the sole fabric of a wedding dress. I’m always interested to learn how technology affects textiles and by extension, [...]
Anatomical Fashion & Lady Gaga
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010As friends and family already know, I love me some anatomical charts, grotesque dissections of the intricate layers of the human body, old-timey skeletons and medical charts of muscle groups and the nervous system, etc. It appeals to my love of dissection in general, I think: peeling away layers of a body — or a [...]
Sandra Backlund: Knit Designer Extraordinaire
Monday, December 21st, 2009I recently happened upon a photo of Tilda Swinton, that delicious quirky fashion muse to Viktor & Rolf, wearing an intense layered dress whose filigreed crocheted bodice resembled a crocheted corset, and whose skirt dissolved into something resembling bulky sweaters piled on a floor (click for closeup):
A knitter and crocheter myself, it has always frustrated [...]
Silk Stockings & Russian Communism
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009Over the summer I watched about half an hour of Silk Stockings (1957), a cheesy musical remake of the Greta Garbo classic Ninotchka (1939) where the cool, efficient, and distinctly anti-fashion Soviet agent Cyd Charisse falls in love with (capitalist) Fred Astaire’s flamboyant American producer character while on a government mission in couture capital Paris. [...]
School Dress Codes Target Gender
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009After reading the New York Times article “Can a Boy Wear a Skirt to School?,” exasperation and a wee bit of fury rumbled in my belly. As presented by Jan Hoffman, increasing numbers of school children are pushing the boundaries of so-called acceptable attire by cross dressing– a term used quite loosely here. “Cross dressing” [...]
The Original Vamps: Silent, Deadly, & Stylish
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009Occasionally fancying myself an exotic woman of mystery too, I have a special place in my heart for that early 20th century icon, The Vamp. When my friend (whose intelligent and fun horror blog And Now the Screaming Starts this is cross-posted on) suggested I write about them, I welcomed the opportunity to revisit some [...]
