Thread for Thought

I just read a fun list on Flavorwire of their 10 favorite fashionable literary characters. Allow me to summarize:

1. Lily Bart in Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth
2. Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray
3. Holly Golightly in Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s
4. Orlando in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando
5. Scarlett O’Hara in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind
6. Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
7. Dorian Gray in Gustave Flaubert’s The Picture of Dorian Gray
8. Rupert Psmith in the novels of P.G. Wodehouse
9. Lady Brett Ashley in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises
10. Darling Daintyfoot in Jean Genet’s Our Lady of the Flowers

A wonderful property of literature and other art forms is that textiles — fragile under the best of circumstances — may be preserved in alternate mediums. Greek, Roman, and Ancient Egyptian statues may be studied for information on what people wore in eras almost impossible to find fragmented remains of clothes, much less full ensembles, as can paintings and literature. Though literature removes the visual aspect of fashion, it can supplement readers with information not gleaned from sculptures and pictures: how fabric moved; how heavy and cumbersome (or light and airy) it was; what necessary undergarments created the ultimate silhouettes. Most valuable, perhaps, is that literature is able to synthesize the mise en scène of a particular country, era, class, time of day, and personal circumstance, explicitly emphasizing the relationship of fashion with these other variables. Though not impossible, conveying this complex set of relationships is more challenging in fine arts, where the visual language may be forced to reduce information to simplified symbols, to be absorbed and interpreted by a viewer in a moment.

Within a written narrative, an author has space to develop characters and settings: personality, gender roles (how constrictive / seductive women’s gowns were communicates volumes), class (fabrics vary according to a person’s wealth), aspirations (class deception is commonly exploited with the use of clothes), sexual preference (homosexuals are often marked as such by a flamboyance of appearance that’s slightly out of step with current fashion)…. Though fashion historians often concentrate on the nitty-gritty details of garment descriptions — which is absolutely valuable — this information should contribute to the overall character development and plot structure of a novel as well. In the hands of a competent writer, dress details will not distract a non-fashion reader, but only add depth to what is already taking place.

The course of events in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, for example — war, displacement, poverty, the helpless role of women — lead directly and naturally to the memorable scene where Scarlett converts her destroyed mansion’s drapes into a fashionable dress and hat with which to impress and seduce Rhett Butler (thereby securing new wealth). (The dress from the original film, by the way, is in dire need of restoring.)

Scarlett O'Hara in drape dress, Gone with the Wind

This dress has become so iconic that costume designer Bob Mackie specifically spoofed it, within Carol Burnett’s 1976 general farce “Went with the Wind” (which I strongly encourage you to watch in its entirety):

Carol Burnett Show, Went with the Wind

As I hope you can see, Mackie left the curtain rod in, used drape ties with tassels for a belt, and left the contrasting fringe exactly where it would’ve been on the curtain, drawing attention to Scarlett’s desperation and deception sooner rather than later — taking Margaret Mitchell’s initial use of fashion one step further.

Presenters will be dissecting the relationship between fashion and literature in an upcoming Drexel University conference (at which I will be presenting): Fashion in Fiction: The Dark Side of Fashion. If you will be in Philadelphia October 8-10, please drop me a line (see my Profile for email address)!

Feel free to add your own best-dressed characters in fiction in the Comments….

Further Reading:

• Fashion in Fiction: Text and Clothing in Literature, Film and Television, edited by Peter McNeil, Vicki Karaminas, and Catherine Cole
• Fashion and Fiction: Dress in Art and Literature in Stuart England by Aileen Ribeiro

A recent NYTimes article on the latest Levi jeans ad campaign featuring not dead-eyed models in awkward sexualized positions, but real-life residents of Braddock, PA caught my eye. A continuation of last year’s “Go Forth” ad campaign, this one uses actual inhabitants of Braddock to show real workers in their natural habitat: a town that has been particularly hard-hit by the recession. Here’s the accompanying commercial:

Though not all the ads are quite so literal in their depiction of rural workers as the one that heads this post (namely men with heavy tools with expanses of sky and/or land), the campaign appears to be trying to tap into the history of Levi’s as the jeans of 1870s Western frontiersmen and merge it with the tough lives of contemporary men and women who are struggling with their own era’s economic hardships. “People don’t think there are frontiers anymore,” says the young narrator wistfully, “they can’t see how frontiers are all around us.”

While it is true that Levi’s jeans have been a staple of the blue collar working man for more than a century, the idea of capitalizing on the somewhat romanticized images of poverty still strikes me as manipulative in a distinctly American way. Americans in particular, I think, are obsessed with making the casual and ordinary glamorous. Ever since the American Revolution, Americans have reveled in our self-perceived scrappiness, adventurousness, tough sportiness and casualness. Though Hollywood has always proved we can glam it up when we want to, much of the history of American fashion has been just a little more simple, a little more pared down, a little more casual. Consider quintessential American Ben Franklin (1706-1790) who eschewed the powdered wigs far earlier than popular fashion, allowing his own thinning, greyish locks to hang limply:

Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Siffred Duplessis, 1778

Compare to a French contemporary of Ben’s, whose jacket fabric has a sheen suggesting it’s silk, in addition to the meticulously coiffed and powdered wig (he was only 42 at the time of this portrait):

Abbe Charles Bossut by Pierre Pasquier, 1772

John Singleton Copley (1738 – 1815) turned the art world on its head when he painted a formal portrait of Paul Revere, not in a heroic equestrian pose indicative of his famous midnight ride which was just a year earlier, but in the distinctly informal attire of his trade as a silversmith (no jacket!), and complete with his tools and a project. You can see how this is even more dressed-down than Franklin:

Paul Revere by John Singleton Copley, 1776

This very much reminds me of Irving Penn’s series “Small Trades” from the 1950s, where he photographed blue collar men and women dress in their work clothes and usually with a prop to indicate their particular trades. He executed these photos just as he did with so many fashion models and celebrities, in front of his standard mottled backdrop that was particularly striking in that it removed the people from their natural working environments. Suffice it to say, I adore this series. Penn portrays each subject so respectfully, with such dignity — in some cases, downright majestically, as a monarch’s portrait might be taken, and thus elevating their perceived importance. Here are a couple in denim overallls, staple of the laborer:

Lineman by Irving Penn, 1951

Bricklayer by Irving Penn, 1950

Contrast those photos now, to the recent collections of Ralph Lauren and Jean Paul Gaultier. It was obvious that fashion designers were incorporating the “worst recession since the Great Depression” that peppered the news into their Spring 2010 collections. Though I didn’t love the clothes themselves, I thought the ideas presented were interesting. Ralph Lauren regularly taps into Americana tropes and exploits America’s fascination with juxtaposing markers of the working class with upper-end, designer fashion motifs. Below is an ensemble of silk satin that mimics denim in its cut and color; next to it is an interesting metallic satin gown that, from the waist up, resembles overalls, and from the waist down, standard 1930s drapey eveningwear, mashing up the highly functional Great Depression farmers’ “uniform” with the distinctly impractical gowns from the silver screen:

I’ll admit there was some legitimate discomfort at the collection — Robin Givhan wrote “The sight of a freshly scrubbed model sashaying in distressed overalls and glittering evening sandals was akin to watching some indulged young party girl go slumming for the day. It was the kind of ensemble Naomi Campbell might have worn when she was forced to mop floors in jail after an altercation with her housekeeper.”  But there was, of course, the blatant disconnect in Hollywood’s representations of Americans during the original Depression, and while I certainly wouldn’t buy designer jeans and cotton shirts meant to look like they’d been sun-bleached and worn threadbare, I appreciated the commentary on the economic/social gap that still exists in America in supposedly straightened circumstances.  The 1930s were known for their escapist screwball comedies, often featuring impeccably dressed society folks who seemed blissfully untouched by any economical discomfort. Satins and metallics were used liberally in women’s gowns, conveying wealth and glittering brilliantly on the black and white celluloid; stars like Ginger Rogers and Jean Harlow were almost exclusively seen in highly wrinkleable, impractical fabrics and impossibly slinky styles like these below, though almost no one outside Hollywood could afford such luxuries:

Jean Harlow and Clark Gable in Saratoga, 1937

And below you can see how the light reflects off satin in movement — divine! Ginger Rogers’ dress even has a bit of an overall-esque racer back, hinting at a sportiness/athleticism as the Ralph Lauren dress hinted at manual labor:

All this to say, working class attire has been fetishized for centuries. Sometimes for philosophical beliefs, sometimes for political reasons, and sometimes for pure aesthetics. I don’t think Levi’s latest ad campaign is nearly as risky as they thought, but however profitable it turns out to be for them, I hope some money from the ads is circulating in and around Braddock.

Further Reading:

• “Small Trades,” Irving Penn
  

After seeing Gisele Bundchen’s latest Vogue shoot entitled “Call of Duty” in various military-inspired ensembles, my conflicted feelings about the sexifying of war gear swung hard and fast in the “that’s not cool” direction. Huffington Post presents these images with significantly less conflict: “let us know which is Gisele’s fiercest moment.” I should mention that this was shot for Vogue Korea no less — presumably South Korea, but a country locked in heated, no-end-in-sight military animosity with its former countrymen. (Insular, distinctly militaristic North Korea now has the highest percentage of military personnel per capita of any nation in the world with approximately 1 enlisted soldier for every 25 citizens.) I mean, I wonder if anyone involved in this Vogue fashion shoot experienced any irony whatsoever. Photographed by Nino Muñoz, clothes are from Balmain, Alexander Wang, Chloé and others in Call of Duty (in case you didn’t get the soldier reference from the images alone). Some choice selections follow.

Gisele is so parched from her desert swim that she must provocatively douse herself with her canteen:

The practical cargo shorts paired with the distinctly impractical shorty army-issued t-shirt and stiletto-heeled combat booties are almost laughable:

This one has clean lines and uniform (as opposed to combat) tailoring that generally appeal to me, but it’s still disturbingly devoid of irony or socio-political critique:

Now, shall we look at some historical moments when military uniforms crossed over into day wear?  Frederick Law Olmsted (1822 – 1903) noted that after the Mexican War (1846 – 48) “a great deal of military clothing was sold at auction in New Orleans, and much of it was bought by planters at a low price, and given to their negroes, who were greatly pleased with it.” Not only did military uniforms carry the associations of literal warfare, but they had the compounded layer of becoming sloppy seconds for African American slaves. Later, the surplus army clothing of the Civil War (1861 – 65) was adopted by Western frontiersmen: functional heavy coats and trousers, double-breasted pullover shirts, boots, and individually crimped hats were appealing to those living a rugged civilian lifestyle. And many men who served in WWII found many articles of clothing designed for warfare (i.e. khaki pants) to be comfortable, practical, and even stylish. War generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, George Patton, and Douglas MacArthur became fashion icons of sorts, and the sensible “Eisenhower jacket” was adopted by men and women for its formal practicality:

In the years immediately following WWII, record numbers of veterans entered colleges (in 1946, 75% of entering Harvard students were former G.I.s), bringing with them the comfortable and practical khaki pants, fitted tailored shirts, and casual military jackets. With America’s current casual collegiate styles this might not seem noteworthy, but pre-WWII college students typically dressed in suits and ties, emulating the businessmen many aspired to become, and the casual military look was a sharp digression.

But the natural dissemination of actual army/navy clothes into regular society is a far cry from the fashion industry appropriating military as a trendy look (see Style.com “Marching Orders” trend). In one aberrant season of Rudi Gernreich (1922-1985), better known for his whimsical ’60s graphic mini dresses and topless swimsuit, his 1970 resort collection was distinctly military inspired. His muse and model Peggy Moffitt actually brandished a rifle in a different shot, as did the models on the live runway (and this is one of the tamer looks):

Generally embracing a mod-meets-hippie look, Gernreich showed this controversial collection just months after the Kent State shootings and during the dragging Vietnam War (1955 – 75). During a 1985 retrospective presentation at the Smithsonian Institute, Gernreich commented, “I did the military look in the late 1960s because some designers were making Scarlett O’Hara clothes, which I thought was an insult to women when they were becoming totally equal to men.” I’m the first to admit military-influenced styles of WWII acted as a gender equalizer (see my other posts on War), but Gernreich’s feminist message was lost and this is an inherent problem with glorifying military clothes: there is too much damn violence in the world for it ever to be appropriate without implied commentary (making it shorter/tighter/sexier does not count unless you’re trying to say “war is sexy”).

On the one hand, I have residual fondness for pairing fancy bling with camo — I think it can call attention to the inherent disconnect between wealth, individuality, style, and the conforming, functional purpose of military uniforms that are mostly worn by the young, underprivileged, and uneducated racial minorities. On the other hand, glamorizing the military — especially when one’s own country is in a dragging, controversial war — seems problematic. As a designer (or a photographer, or a model), how do you make this distinction? I am all about playful fun in fashion, but glamorizing bigotry and government-sanctioned violence is distasteful at best and irresponsible at worst. Practical innovations that have come from military issued uniforms should absolutely be adopted by the general public: deep cargo pockets and trench coats are utilitarian and stylish. But making sexually provocative military clothes is not conceptually provocative.

There is some interesting art incorporating fashion and the military. Peter Gronquist’s show entitled “Firearms and Fashion” included weapon objets d’artes with fashion house labels, alluding to a complicit (if vague) relationship between corporate fashion and violence. Below is a Burberry rifle from the collection:

Bringing back the Korean military thread, I saw a powerful piece last summer of Do-Ho Suh’s entitled “Uni-Forms: Self-Portrait/s: My 39 Years” from 2006:

This is a sartorial timeline of Suh’s mandatory life in the South Korean army, from the disturbingly tiny boy’s crested jacket to the full-grown man’s camo and khakis.

Martha Rosler is known for collaging images of the Vietnam battlefield and magazine clippings from the home front including fashion models, washing machines, living room sofas, Playboy nudes, etc. Here is a more recent 2006 work using Iraqi/Afghani footage with a superimposed fashion model who appears to be turning away from the confrontation:

Though the model doesn’t actually wear military gear, it does point to an irresponsible relationship between the fashion world (and the public that so eagerly consumes it) and concurrent warfare.

So readers, do you think it’s ever ok to sexify military wear, and if so, in what context?

Further Reading:

• NYTimes article on “Houlihan” M*A*S*H cargo pants (especially funny, since M*A*S*H was a deeply anti-war film and TV series)
• Precision Targets and the Militarization of Everyday Life from Threadbared

Recommend this post:

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Until 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 sell fashion ideas — into non-consumerist functions is another aspect of mannequin art I find appealing.

Artists James Rosenquist (1933-), Jasper Johns (1930-), Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008), and Andy Warhol (1928-1987) were all window display artists in their early careers, in addition to (previously mentioned) author L. Frank Baum (1856-1919), so it should be no surprise that there’s a significant amount of crossover between “high art” works incorporating the lowly, functional mannequin, and “low art” window displays incorporating fine art. Modern art provided inspiration for window designers such as Robert Currie (1948-1993) and Candy Pratts-Price (1950-), who injected surrealist elements of violence, sex, and macabre humor into their 1970s windows. Artists like Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) and Andy Warhol and industrial designers like Donald Deskey (1894-1989) and Henry Dreyfuss (1904-1972) also played major roles in transmitting 20th-century movements such as minimalism and pop art to the audience on the street. Barneys’ famous windows, overseen by eccentric Simon Doonan (1954-), have incorporated works by Cindy Sherman and Barbara Kruger (1945-) and often reference pop culture, as in this 2009 display with traditional female mannequin bodies topped with (arguably lowbrow) Mad Magazine’s “Spy vs. Spy” characature heads to show off trenchcoats:

The window below attracted much criticism in 2009 for Barneys, though I personally think there’s something amazing about conveying such extreme movement — mimicking gangster movies — in a frozen tableau:

The Pucci Mannequin company (mentioned before) collaborated with many “high art” artists. Ruben Toledo (1960-) collaborated with Pucci on a “Shapes” series of mannequins for the fashion collection of Ruben’s wife, Isabel (1961-):

"Birdie": Height: 5'10", Bust: 38", Waist: 32", Hips: 44"

As you can see, the dimensions of these forms are atypical for mannequins which traditionally mimic the body type idealized at the time of production. By contrast, “Birdie” is curvy, hippy, and even has a little belly. Though she probably resembles the bodies of living, breathing women more accurately than traditional spindly mannequins, she looks startlingly disproportionate because we’re not used to seeing “real woman” proportions glorified in mannequins. (The obvious follow-up question should be: why?) Designed to be functional displays, I think these work as controversial art in their own right. Most artists who use mannequins do not attempt to be realistic, though.

Hans Bellmer (1902 – 1975) anonymously published an amazing “Doll Project” (a.k.a. “die puppe“) book in 1934 consisting of photos of a crippled-looking, armless, peg-legged young female mannequin posed in 10 tableaux. Because of the high contrast shadows and close-cropped frame, my mind wavers between seeing a decrepit doll and believing it’s an unfortunate triple amputee, perhaps in a war-torn country (and in fact the Doll Project was a direct criticism of the growing Nazi oppression and violence Bellmer observed):

Bellmer’s later work became more abstract and involved arranging increasingly mutated human forms in progressively unconventional poses (often focusing on female genitalia, which store mannequins still only attempt in nipple realism — see my earlier segment for more on this). Ultimately forced to flee Nazi Germany, he was welcomed by the Parisian Surrealists who appreciated his odd style (bless them!).

The Doll, 1935-37

Cindy Sherman (1954-), known for her literally transforming self portraiture, has also experimented wildly with mannequins and dolls in her photographs. Though the joints of her mannequins are pronounced, calling attention to their inanimate-ness, they are often outfitted with exaggerated or hyper-realistic sexual and reproductive organs, wrinkles and body hair, as store mannequins deliberately omit. Sherman calls attention to our simultaneous discomfort and obsession with self-image: the ravages of age, our preoccupation with hair removal, and our uneasiness with blurred gender lines, as in “Untitled #250″ (1992):

Store mannequins are created to be sexy — sex sells, after all — but Sherman pushes this concept to depict dolls in explicitly erotic situations that are somehow distinctly un-sexy, also calling to mind a doll’s (unadvertised) function as a child’s tool to explore sexuality. The doll in “Untitled Film Still #255″ (1992) has been outfitted with realistic (if hairless) genitalia and is surrounded by ordinary household objects (hairbrush, rope) that, in the context of the doll’s doggy-style position, become S&M objects of torture and pleasure:

Helmut Newton has collaborated with mannequin manufacturers since the 1960s to create “twins” for live models, used with or instead of live models. Interestingly, he features many women with visible imperfections like scars which humanize them, while gashes at joints betray mannequins. He draws your attention to the falseness of the fashion industry, the ridiculous standards of beauty, but he revels in it too.

Violetta (below) confronts her doppelgänger, even while she mimics the imposter’s oddly positioned arm. Who (or what) is more useful in the fashion industry, flesh or fiberglass?

The two Violetta's in bed, Paris, 1991

Newton experimented with the roles of mannequins and flesh-and-blood models, often pairing realistic dummies and women together (as above) or posing mannequins in public spaces and models in interior settings to create subtle disorientation. He frequently places human models in stiff, awkward positions as though their bodies had limited range of motion like mannequins (or more morbidly, like cadavers):

Thierry Mugler ensemble, Monaco, 1998

In “Store Dummies I” (French Vogue, 1976), two incredibly realistic dress forms are posed in a Sapphic moment of seduction, one on a marble slab (morgue reference?) and the other in a state of frozen dishabille:

I love how Newton pokes fun at the fashion industry, places lifeless forms in vulgar poses to sell clothes, drawing an uncomfortable parallel between glamor mannequins, vapid models, and outright sex dolls. And speaking of sex dolls….

I must mention sculptor Allen Jones (1937-), whom I discovered while browsing in an amazing art-and-literature bookstore in Montmartre several years ago. Jones is infamous for his pieces depicting forniphilia — where sexual (S&M) objectification is manifested in a submissive partner acting as a piece of furniture. Jones substitutes human submissives acting as inanimate objects with inanimate mannequins depicting human submissives acting as inanimate objects (got that?). These women (more voluptuous than standard mannequins, closer to blow up doll proportions) are sex objects and domestic objects at once, two roles (three if we’re including being an “object”) women have struggled to define themselves outside of:

"Chair," "Table," and "Hatstand," 1969

I must also point out the rug, indicative of the era and also deliciously vulgar in its associations with bear skin glamor shots and art historical connotations of pubic hair.

Predictably Jones’ creations have been deemed misogynistic by many. He has humorously responded, “I was reflecting on and commenting on exactly the same situation that was the source of the feminist movement. It was unfortunate for me that I produced the perfect image for them to show how women were being objectified.” Gotta love the self-aware man!

If Jones’ pieces look vaguely familiar, it’s probably because Stanley Kubric attempted to mimic them in the infamous Korova Milk Bar for his distopian A Clockwork Orange (1971), after Jones refused to work for free. Kubric’s versions are stripped of their fetish gear and props (cushions and glass tabletop) and are monochromatic white, establishing a visual relationship with the white-clad gang of the film and with classical marble sculpture:

Early Surrealist painter Giorgio De Chirico (1888 – 1978) made a similar comparison many decades earlier, between stone busts and more animate (if more abstract), jointed, mannequin-like figures. “Il Ritornante” (1918) depicts a drowsy marble bust with realistic facial hair and a dummy composed of mismatched scrap materials. It’s unclear if one of the figures is actually animated and has created the other, but regardless, a strong connection is made between the structure of the room itself and the bodies: one is a caryatid-like supportive column and the other appears to be made of ribbed sheet metal, wooden blocks, and T-square rulers. The flattened perspective makes it even more difficult to distinguish the human forms in the foreground from the cluttered tower of planks and door in the background, visually uniting the human-ish forms with the room’s architecture:

In “The Disquieting Muses” from the same year, De Chirico turned the column fluting into drapes of himation robes, topped with dress form knobs that resemble disproportionate heads. Again, there are buildings in the background and a more fully realized Grecian-like statue that has a similarly blank, oval head, blurring lines between the structures of buildings, statues, mannequins and humans:

Fellow Surrealist and Dadaist Man Ray (1890-1976) experimented with mannequins in photography around the same time. His father had fittingly worked in the New York garment industry and as a tailor, his mother was a seamstress. Times critic Sarah Rosenberg recently wrote, “Dada artists used mannequin parts… as a reflection of consumer culture and war trauma.” The mannequin below appears to be ensconced in a tangled wire bubble reminiscent of barbed wire, with a ridiculous fake mustache (disguise?) and a protective metal corset. It’s not hard to draw comparisons to Man Ray’s persecuted Russian Jewish immigrant history, which he went to great lengths to conceal even after achieving success.

Mannequin designed by Joan Miro, sculpture by Man Ray, 1938

“Mannequin with a bird cage over her head” (1938-66) is a similarly posed naked mannequin that has been gagged, her entire head and shoulders caged, some tiny arm-like appendages reaching out of one side. Places where “private” hair grows — armpits, crotch — have been decorated with whimsical flowers and feathers. It’s sinister and silly at once:

As mannequins have been anatomically perfected and increasingly incorporated into the public sphere via window displays, they have also been utilized by artists other than designers and window dressers. Humans are obsessed with self-representation: in 2-dimensional portraiture, 3-dimensional dummies, and even moving mechanical droids. Even while we understand they’re inanimate objects, when mutated, manipulated, or uncannily accurate, they have tremendous power to attract and repel (I’ll wager some readers were disturbed by at least one image I included). Like few other functional objects, they have the inherent ability to act as commentary on beauty standards, surgical manipulation, sexual taboos, persecution, and the very relationship of reality to its distorted image. Some day I’ll have my own mannequin collection, to dangle from my ceilings and to dress up and undress and to play with, but in the meantime, I’ll content myself with powerful images like these.

Additional resources:

• “Mannequins: Fantasy Figures of High Fashion” by Emily and Per Ola d ‘Aulaire, Smithsonian Magazine , April 1991
• Fashion Windows “Historical Overview of Mannequins“
• The Show Window periodical magazine, edited by L. Frank Baum

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I 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 waiting for a friend when another customer hilariously reached out to inspect my garment), and I’m also drawn to the creepiness I think is inherent in mannequins… and so I’ll pretend my recent reading list and newfound interest qualifies me to inform you about the history of stationary models.

The Dutch word manneken literally means “little man,” though most mannequins were and are technically female forms. As the history of dress dates to ancient times, so does the history of dress forms; a wooden torso was found near a clothing chest in King Tut’s tomb, dating to approximately 1350B.C.:

Thousands of years later, European monarchs produced “fashion dolls” as examples of national style — Charles IV of France sent one to Richard II of England in 1396 as part of a peace negotiations. And Henry IV of France (1553 – 1610) dispatched miniature, elegantly attired dolls to his fiancée, Marie de’ Medici of Florence. Caroline Weber goes into amazing detail about the deliberate Frenchification of Austria-born Marie Antoinette in her book, similarly to update her on French trends and therefore facilitate her connection to her stylish adopted land and people. Monarch aside, these miniature models were used to spread the latest trends across countries throughout the 1700s. But it would take technological advancements to move the dress form from private doll to public display item.

English fashion doll, 1755-1760

The mid-19th century inventions of electricity-fueled incandescent light bulbs and plate glass enabled merchants to create window displays to advertise their goods. Add the ease and speed of manufacturing ready-to-wear clothes afforded by the invention of the sewing machine, and it becomes obvious why the mannequin became a standard display prop at this time, surpassing its initial dressmaker’s functionality. The department store established itself in the American way of life by 1910, and these larger businesses had more money to invest in expensive mannequins which would ideally help them move the quantities of merchandise they needed to. Facial expression and body language became increasingly important (ancient and pre-Victorian forms were often headless) as window dressers like L. Frank Baum (known for his masterpiece The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900) used them to create arresting vignettes on their mini stages. “Window gazing” became a popular pastime for potential customers, eventually morphing into the familiar “window shopping.” Dressmaker suppliers like Gems Wax Models (est. 1885) and Siegel and Stockman of Paris experimented with articulated legs, arms and wooden hands with bendable digits in an effort to more closely mimic human activities, if stiffly. The latter company even began to produce sitting figures, bicyclists and representations of celebrated athletes at the end of the 19th century (see my post on Bicycles and Athletic Fashion). Sometimes with glass eyes, realistic teeth and human hair, attempts to make early mannequins more lifelike ultimately resulted in creepiness. Iron feet stabilized their teetering skeletons but contributed to unwieldy heft — they could weigh up to 300 pounds.

iron-footed mannequin

Skin-mimicking wax had the downside of melting under hot electric lights and cracking in cold winters. Subsequent mannequins constructed of plastic and papier mâché were more durable, lightweight, and flexible, making them easier to imbue with lifelike gestures.

Compare this 1909 storefront…

Auerbach's department store window display with mannequins, 1909

to one from 10 years later. Note the increased interaction between mannequins, the more sophisticated, narrative scene:

1918 window display

The 1929 stock market crash garnered invention in many ways. In the teens and early 1920s mannequin facial expressions became more animated, perhaps a reaction to silent films. Khol-rimmed eyes, bee-stung lips and razor-thin eyebrows that gained acceptance and popularity on the silver screen were transcribed onto new mannequins. Made with papier-mâché, the new material shed off about 100 pounds, coincidentally embracing the more slender female form, often with Mannerist-like elongated necks:

Art Deco mannequin head

In 1925, Siegel & Stockman, Paris startled the display industry with abstract mannequins in 1925 that mimicked the clean lines of Art Deco. Siegel himself said “The old mannequin, too realistic to respond to the abstract form assumed the architecture and decoration, could no longer fit into the window display with its effective and sober luxury as it is now conceived. This basic conviction prompted me to make an appeal to a new form of expression in order to bring about a timely rejuvenation and modernization.”

Siegel-Stockman streamlined mannequin (modern)

Author Nicole Parrot observed the “elegant and snooty” look of the 1920s were replaced with the “pert and gamine” look in mannequins during the Depression of the 1930s. An Austrian dollmaker-turned-mannequin manufacturer, Kathe Kruse, devised a metal skeleton that was covered with a skin-like material, enabling a variety of positions. “Cynthia” was a 100-pound model created by Lester Gaba in 1932 who had realistic imperfections like freckles, pigeon toes, and even different sized feet. Gaba posed with Cynthia around New York City for a Life Magazine shoot that humorously demonstrates how lifelike the mannequins had become:

Lester Gaba and Cynthia mannequin, Broadhurst Theater in NY at Madame Bovary, 1939

at the Stork Club, NY 1937

riding transit in NYC, 1937

Gaba repairs shoulder on Cynthia, NY, 1937. He almost looks like a doctor attending to a patient.

Tragically, Cynthia  met her demise when she slipped from a chair in a beauty salon.

The more severe mannequin expressions reflected the unease and hardships of WWII. As a fashion historian I already knew that the dress silhouette in the 1940s became slimmer and less embellished to waste less fabric, due to raw material shortages and wartime rationing. I only recently learned, however, that mannequins themselves were made to be shorter than the 1930s models, with the same goal of conserving precious resources for the war effort. At the war’s conclusion, Mayorga Mannequins introduced “Welcome Home Mannequins” where a man and woman held their hands outstretched towards each other, while a small girl looked expectantly at her father. This narrative was tempered by glamorized Hollywood poses that were also available, but traditional family values (including consumerism) continued to be recreated in storefront vignettes:

1940s Christmas display

This article will be continued shortly in Part II…

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Fashion 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:

Toni Collette, SAG Awards 2010

Nicole Kidman wearing Oscar de la Renta, SAG Awards 2010

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 adopted and interpreted by practically every generation. Cleopatra (69BC – 30BC) has always held special fascination for people. Documented by writers Plutarch and Casius Dio, the lady was “a woman of surpassing beauty, and at that time, when she was in the prime of her youth, she was most striking; she also possessed a most charming voice and knowledge of how to make herself agreeable to every one. Being brilliant to look upon and to listen to, with the power to subjugate every one, even a love-sated man already past his prime, she thought that it would be in keeping with her role to meet Caesar, and she reposed in her beauty all her claims to the throne.” The mythology of her man-seducing ways never gets old; she notoriously bedded Julius Caesar and his successor Mark Antony resulting in a Roman-Egyptian political alliance of unsurpassed breadth, and took her own life in a marvelously morbid manner. Having become an almost mythological creature, she’s been depicted in art ever since. With the dawn of the 20th century’s art form — the moving image — a new crop of Cleopatras have been etched into our collective consciousness. With each Cleopatra film, a new variation of familiar Egyptian themes rears its head. In spite of the common subject, virtually none of these films used historically accurate costumes. As always, the ideal female form, makeup techniques, and hairstyles are more indicative of the decade of film production rather than the period depicted.

THEDA BARA

The 1917 version of Cleopatra with the marvelously eccentric Theda Bara (see my post on Vamps for more on Theda) demonstrates how aesthetics were ripe for incorporating Egyptian motifs. Though it’s the earliest film I’ll discuss, in many ways it’s the most scandelous, with Bara wearing sheer, gauzy skirts and teeny, ornate bras that barely conceal her naughty bits (this was only legal pre- and post-Hays Production Code, 1934 – 1968). Fashion was just starting to move away from the corseted figure and Theda embraced the freedom in her Nile goddess:

Theda Bara as Cleopatra, 1917

Theda Bara as Cleopatra in transparant dress, 1917

Theda Bara as Cleopatra as firebird, 1917

This last one reminds me of “The Last Sitting” of Marilyn Monroe, photographed by Bert Stern in 1962 (Marilyn is clearly far more playful than Theda):

Marilyn Monroe in the Last Sitting photo by Bert Stern, 1962

The khol-rimmed eyes already popular in the 1910s and 20s were easily adapted to more accurate heavy Egyptian makeup:

Clara Bow in 1920s

In this outfit, the mythology of the Egyptian firebird and immortal Phoenix are translated into a more general symbol of Far East exoticism, the peacock:

Theda Bara as Cleopatra as peacock, 1917

The 1922 discovery of King Tut’s intact tomb of lost treasures rocked the world. The angularity of the Egyptian depictions of their garments played right into the visual fractures of the Futurism and Art Deco movements.

Here is one of my favorite Futurist paintings:

Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase," 1912

Here is an elevator door from the Chrysler Building (built 1929-1930), monument of Art Deco architecture:

Chrysler Building, Egyptian-deco elevator doors

CLAUDETTE COLBERT

By the time Cecil B. DeMille’s Cleopatra (1934) starring Claudette Colbert was made, the bold Art Deco lines of the ’20s were starting to give way to the softer drapes of the ’30s. Coincidentally (or not), the ’30s gave way not to Egyptomania, but to similarly ancient Greek/Roman revival. Designers like Fortuny and Madeleine Vionnet embraced the pleats, draped lines and classical simplicity of the ancient Greeks and Romans.

Fortuny’s famous sheath gown was based on the classical Greek chiton was appropriately named the “Delphos” gown:

Fortuny "Delphos" gown, late 1920s

The crinkly texture is the result of a meticulous, top-secret process Fortuny never revealed — customers would return their gowns directly to the designer for re-pleating when the pleats flattened.

Woman wearing chiton

Colbert’s Cleopatra is a bit more smug, a bit cuter, a bit less vampy than others, as seen in her rather benevolent expressions. The first ensemble is one of the only film costumes I found that actually incorporated pleating:

Claudette Colbert and Henry Wilcoxon

The simple geometry is complimented by the extravagant gold lame skirt here:

Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra on throne

Again, with vaguely exotic peacock imagery:

Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra as peacock

The red lips and drawn on, razor-thin eyebrows were typical of the ’30s:

Marlene Dietrich, 1930s

Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra, 1934

LIZ TAYLOR

Though the movie was a box office flop — at least compared to its exorbitant, record breaking budget — Elizabeth Taylor as the 1963 version of Cleopatra is perhaps the best remembered today. They used the still-young Technicolor technology to great effect in her eye-popping monochrome outfits. While black and white certainly contributes to the bygone times feeling of the other films, color symbolism was important to the Egyptians, and the ’60s were all about psychedelic colors. Taylor’s wigs are probably the most blatant of the 3 Cleopatras — no effort is made to maintain consistent hair length, texture or style. This is actually accurate; wealthy Egyptians had shorn heads and wore wigs to avoid lice and to be cooler (sans wig) in private.

Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra in gold, 1963

Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra in blue

Liz Taylor as Cleopatra in red, 1963

The liquid-liner experiments of the mod 1960s and the geometric Vidal Sassoon hairdos come through in Liz:

Liz Taylor as mod Cleopatra

Peggy Moffitt with Vidal Sassoon haircut, 1960s

The cinched waists of the of the ’50s are still evident (these were always to be in style for the curvaceous Ms. Taylor):

Liz Taylor as Cleopatra in yellow, 1963

Madame Gres (1903-1993) continued the trend of classical Grecian style throughout her career, with unauthentic molded bodices and soft jersey that nonetheless mimiced the draped swags of Greek himations:

himation gown, 1967-85

These films have melded a generic Egyptian look, as recognizable by the general public, with fashions of the periods during which they were created. Critical as I may be in matters regarding historical accuracy, this liberty doesn’t actually bother me. The costume designers needed to convey the allure, sexiness, and unquestionable power Cleopatra commanded with her physical presence to modern audiences, and inaccurate as the garments are, I think all were successfully interpreted through modern lenses to further the plots using visuals viewers would implicitly understand.

We’re about due for another incarnation of Egyptomania, don’t you agree?

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Last week I watched the movie Coraline (2009), directed by the stop-motion animator master Henry Selick who achieved recognition for his collaboration with Tim Burton in The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). I was kind of blown away by his latest effort; it succeeded on many levels, but for the sake of this blog I’ll limit my enthusiasm to the crafty parts.

The loving attention to hand crafts — and needlework in particular — starts immediately with the opening credits which are done in a font that mimics embroidery, complete with visible stitches and deliberate loose threads dangling off the names:

The next 1 ½ minutes of credits include careful closeups  of a doll being undone, unraveled, un-stuffed, taken apart stitch by stitch, and then reassembled (note the creator’s hands are composed of needles themselves):

There’s a lovely shot of a button drawer being pulled out and poured over,

a needle poking through rough cloth (you can see every fibre in 3-D!) and sewing the selected button on,

reusing the limp burlap chassis to meticulously create another doll with variations that make it resemble Coraline, down to her raincoat:

REPETITION. REPETITION.

Just as puppet masters created Coraline puppets in multiples with slight clothing, expression, hair and rumpled variations to make the movie, duplication and cloning are visual motifs within the movie. Coraline’s mother picks out a mass-produced gray school uniform among a rack of identical uniforms,

all the neighbors have collections of identical animals: the burlesque sisters with their Scottie dogs (3 living, many more stuffed on shelves),

and the Amazing Bobinski with his circus mice:

And when Coraline’s parents go missing, she touchingly tucks herself into bed with crudely handmade dolls of them, formed out of pillows with dad’s glasses and mom’s neck brace (a doll making dolls of other dolls):

Looking at the plot, we see this theme of multiplicity is a satisfyingly consistent one: the neighbor kid Wybee’s grandma has a(n evil) twin sister; the entire concept of the Other Mother and Other World with nearly identical houses, and gardens and neighbors echo and compliment each other within the framework of the story. These devices create an eerie mirrored alternate world like those in a Borges story, but also relate to the duplicate film sets (which were actually constructed by set builders, not created digitally), dolls, clothes, etc., behind-the-scenes. The evil twin / menacing other world is not exactly original subject matter for suspense-horror films which often tap into fears of duplicitousness and two-facedness, but I particularly love how the duplication appears in front of the camera and behind it in Coraline.

CRAFTINESS

Crafty, homemade objects are featured prominently. Coraline’s Other Mother cooks homemade meals, creates hand-sewn outfits for her, etc. Coraline (and the viewer, by extension) recognizes these as signs of affection. Interpreted as labors of feminine love at first, they are revealed to be sinister, employed as a trap. When the Other Mother reveals her true physical form as a terrifying spider with needle hands (the same needle hands that seemed to lovingly craft the doll in the film’s opening sequence), it calls to mind the sculptures of Louise Bourgeois. In her “Cell” series, Bourgeois created mini houses out of found objects like discarded doors and grating and filled them with objects related to feminine domestic stereotypes like sewing supplies, clothes, etc.:

Louise Bourgeois, interior of "Cell VII" (1998). Note the eerie hanging undergarments and miniature house.

Another Bourgeois recurring visual motif is spiders, representing her own mother and universal stereotypes of mothers (one is actually entitle “Maman“) and exploring their creepiness and yet comfortable familiarity and harmlessness:

Louise Bourseois, "Spider" (1997). Note the cage / house enveloped by the enormous arachnid, and scraps of fabric clinging to the sides contribute to the mother / domicile theme.

Compare Bourgeois’ large but protective Spider to Coraline’s Other Mother as a distinctly evil spider who deploys a web not to catch pesky insects but to entrap Coraline herself:

In the final scene of Coraline, domestic bliss is achieved by unifying her family and the previously indifferent neighbors in the act of planting tulips, a pared-down version of domesticity, handiness, and community. They’re not perfect — Coraline’s mother complains about the dirt, Bobinski pulls out tulips bulbs to replace them with beets, and the end result is not the stunning spectacle of the Other World’s garden — but it is a more realistic picture of imperfect homeyness.

Now allow me to lay some incredible fun facts on you about the meticulous crafty creation of this film:

• To construct 1 puppet, 10 individuals had to work 3-4 months.
• About 45 of Coraline’s pajamas were screen painted with printed patterns where every dot had to line up along the seams of every frock in precisely the same place for consistency.
• For the character of Coraline, there were 28 different puppets of varying sizes; the main Coraline puppet stands 9.5 inches high.
• All fabric was hand woven or hand knit to achieve the correct scale.
• The only leather the production could find that was thin enough to make the doll shoes and Mr. Bobinsky’s boots came from antique Victorian gloves.
• Buttons and zippers were also handmade for the film to suit the scale.
• Costumers used pins, surgical tools and tweezers to construct the garments.
• Each of Coraline’s star sweaters took 6 weeks to 6 months to design and knit on knitting needles like toothpicks. (On the website in Coraline’s room there is a film short on miniature knits. It will blow your mind a little.)

HISTORY OF SEWING IN THE HOME

Coraline tapped into the familiarity we have with women performing acts like cooking, cleaning, and sewing: the audience presumably watches the film with knowing amusement as Coraline’s father makes a dinner which resembles the gelatinous, sludgy meals from Better Off Dead (1985). We learn that Coraline’s mother is a good cook but has prioritized professional work and has relegated the dinner chore to the inept (though good-intentioned) father. The Other Mother then lures Coraline with elaborate, beautifully presented meals and a homemade sweater ensemble.

There is a rich history binding women to sewing. “A woman who does not know how to sew is as deficient in her education as a man who cannot write,” Eliza Farrar wrote in The Young Lady’s Friend (1838). Creating, altering and mending the family’s clothing and household textiles were domestic duties that kept most 18th and 19th-century women tethered to their sewing baskets; until the late 19th century nearly all clothing was made in the home. According to Godey’s Lady’s Book, it took about 14 hours to make a man’s dress shirt and at least 10 for a simple dress. A middle-class housewife spent several days a month making and mending her family’s clothes even with the help of a hired seamstress.

Sewing wasn’t all drudgery, though. Needlework served utilitarian purposes in the home, but also allowed women to communicate and assert their individual identities, beliefs, and aspirations with creativity and skill. The anticipation of weddings and births fueled creative energy and inspired impressive handiwork which was often functional — but not always — as in samplers which showcased a woman’s cross-stitching dexterity by forming alphabets in varying typefaces, geometric borders, and picture scenes. Linens, blankets and other handmade textiles made up the bulk of a girl’s hope chest (a.k.a. “marriage chest”), preparing her for her household duties as a wife and serving as advance proof of her sewing skill and worth as a woman and future matriarch.

Early 19th century sewing sampler stitched by Elizabeth Lyle when a young girl. The text in the center reads,"Elizabeth Lyle worked this in the eleventh year of my age. In the morning think what you have to do. And at night ask yourself what you have done."

Sewing circles were commonly formed by women, comprised of neighbors and relatives who would gather at a house and work on their sewing chores together. Women would sometimes swap portions of their own work with their friends who were particularly adept at a specific tasks. This happily merged what could be lonely drudgery with pleasurable socializing and political discussion (though the latter is rarely acknowledged).

"Sewing Circle" by Louis Henry Charles Moeller (1855 - 1930)

Sadly, sewing was often taken for granted as a skill — seamstresses were perceived as unimaginative lackeys who just followed instructions that any person might perform, and not as visionaries who could conceptualize how to take two-dimensional materials and connect them to form three-dimensional structures that envelope a body and yet can be gotten into easily, who possessed the skill to adapt techniques to various textures and weights, to say nothing of the artistic choices of color, style, and fit. Appreciation aside, there was a drastic interruption of this centuries-old tradition in the mid 19th century.

It wasn’t until the House of Worth (founded in 1858) when a man took the reigns of dressmaking, removed it from the home and created a pampered, decadent purchasing experience, that sewing took on any cachet or respect as a profession (see my earlier post on The Tea Gown in Fashion and Art for more on the House of Worth). The Industrial Revolution heralded the invention of the sewing machine (patented by Elias Howe in 1845), cheap labor and the growing factory system, standardization of sizes, and outcropping of distribution methods like apparel and department stores, all of which contributed to an increase in demand of ready-to-wear  garments. This was the beginning of consumers’ expectations for hyper-accelerated turnaround of new styles, necessitating ever-briefer time between designers’ visions, prototype creations, and mass market availability. It could be argued that the sewing machine eased women of much of the time consuming burden of clothing their families, but a contrary view is that the sewing machine snatched a labor of love, pride, and skill from women, not to mention the social community bonding. And though it’s distasteful to many modern women to think of being trapped in their houses all day, it was a small leap from the workrooms of House of Worth to the factories and notoriously dangerous conditions of garment factories (like the infamous Triangle Factory), exploiting the poor. Though sweatshops certainly exist in America today, many more are in developing countries with desperate-and-therefore-cheap labor forces, doubly exploited by consumer-hungry countries abroad and their own government systems which do not protect them with worker’s rights addressing age minimums, hour maximums, safety standards, etc.

Jacob Riis, Necktie workshop in Division Street tenement (1889)

In terms of household implications, the sewing machine was only the first of many labor-saving devices for the home (partially by altering sewing from a home activity to a factory one); washing machines, dryers, dishwashers and vacuum cleaners all made housekeeping easier and cut down the work time required. An important consequence of all this labor saving has been the diminished woman’s role as household manager. This gradual loss of status helped undermine the satisfaction many women formerly found in the homemaking role and encouraged them to seek more demanding employment in other places, as we see Coraline’s mother has chosen her profession over domestic work. In most industrialized countries these days, sewing, needlework, knitting, crocheting, quilting, etc. have been relegated to niche markets (still mostly women) who have self-consciously resurrected the skills for hobby, not generally necessity. This is why we all understand how Coraline is taken in by her Other Mother’s handmade overtures.

I loved Coraline not only because it was a good, creepy story, but because its meticulous production methods showcased the hand-made theme present in the narrative, a far cry from the digitally created worlds of almost all current animation (which can absolutely be well done too). I like, too, how the simple black button icon of Coraline is a symbol of sewing and domestic familiarity twisted beautifully into a tool of sinister manipulation.

Further Reading:

• “The Culture of Sewing: Gender, Consumption and Home Dressmaking” by Barbara Burman
• “History of Sewing” online study guide
• “Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times” by Elizabeth Wayland Barber
• “The Making of Coraline” in Extra Features on Coraline DVD
• “How the Other Half Lives” Jacob Riis photographs of exploited poor Lower East Siders, NY

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Anna Wintour’s involvement with the Metropolitan Museum is reestablished at this time every year with the Met’s renowned Costume Institute gala, and we are again bombarded with pictures of A-list celebrities, socialites and models attending the lush affair. Whether attendees are portrayed in adoring light or to ridicule their outrageous outfits, the glut of coverage across paper publications and the internet succeeds in generating widespread coverage and awareness of the event, invaluable marketing for both the Met and the gala’s loud sponsor, Vogue. These sorts of relationships are so ingrained in our capitalist system that many don’t give Anna Wintour’s involvement in this museum fundraiser a second thought but, for me, it highlights the uneasy balance between cultural institutions and their sponsors. Especially in times of economic hardship, relationships between art centers and their patrons are ever more precarious and therefore precious. Among museums the Met retains one of the most prestigious reputations in the world. But the news that is perhaps the most widely disseminated about the Met every year is not about its new acquisitions, nor its beautiful newly renovated American wing, but the Costume Institute gala, arguably the most hotly anticipated social event — to say nothing of fundraising events — of the year.

The 700 invitations are coveted by high society and pop culture icons alike, and the photos are disseminated equally by pop culture websites, blogs, and newspapers. I freely admit that I comb the internet for photos of the chic attendees — more than other galas or award ceremonies even — as there is always a fashion theme relating to the spring costume exhibit that is supposedly being promoted by the event, which I think prompts people to be even more outlandish in their sartorial selections than they might otherwise be, glamorous lives notwithstanding. This year’s “Models as Muse” was a bit weak in terms of gala inspiration (it resulted in many haute micro-mini skirt ensembles), but it did succeed in attracting celebrities who may or may not actually be personally invested in the museum’s mission (specifically the “advance knowledge of works” “in accordance with the highest professional standards”), but whose presence attracts the photographers nonetheless.

Helena Christensen at Met Costume gala, 2009, doing her own shilling for Vogue in Zac Posen dress

Michael Gross concentrates on the questionable relationship between the Met and Vogue in his newly released book “Rogue’s Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money that Made the Metropolitan Museum.” In it, he blames the Met’s collaboration first with Diana Vreeland and then with Anna Wintour to co-host the Costume Institute fundraiser which, he claims, has been twisted into a publicity platform for Vogue and Wintour’s personal vendettas, displacing the Met’s own mission. “The most highly publicized event at the museum has been turned into a magazine and movie-promotion party, where Anna sells herself and movie stars sell their latest projects,” said Gross. “What gets lost in the process is the museum.”

Suspicious as I am of Vogue’s motives (it is clearly in their best interest to invite the beautiful people they’d like to court to be in Vogue’s own pages), I whole heartedly support utilizing an institution’s fashion collection as a revenue generator — which the Costume Institute absolutely is for the Met, raising a significant portion of the museum’s income (the 2008 total of which was $297,790,000). First, as demonstrated by my drive to work on this very blog, I believe there is a wealth of knowledge — social, financial, and political history for starters — to be gleaned from the study of clothes, just waiting to be disseminated in an engaging and articulate manner. I crave museums tackling projects involving costume. Tragically, many institutions small and large (i.e. Merchant House, Brooklyn Museum) have fabulous costume collections that are rarely displayed and even more rarely exhibited in-house due to budget, space, staff, and/or costume history expertise shortages. Second, costume exhibits have been proven to be excellent revenue generators precisely because anything fashion related draws in younger, pop-culture obsessed people who may not otherwise attend museums that have the unfortunate reputation for housing stuffy, inaccessible “high art.” I have no problem whatsoever utilizing fashion exhibitions to tap into this market. Isn’t the goal of museums to market their exhibitions to attract in people, and then actually teach them to look more deeply into a subject they may only have had a superficial understanding of?

The trick is for museums to capitalize on this obsession with glamorous fashion. Obviously, money can and should be raised for the institutions. Museums increasingly struggle for attendees, and in this free market democracy, private investors are relied upon to fund so-called worthy projects more than the government is. With the latest financial crisis, corporate sponsors have become ever more sparse (working for the Development department of a New York museum, I have witnessed this scramble first-hand). In some cases, this has forced museums to hike their admissions (in New York it’s not uncommon for tickets to be $20), which has the unfortunate cyclical consequence of making these exhibitions even less accessible to the general public.

Do these galas confirm the perception, accurate or not, that fashion is inaccessible to the mainstream public? Or worse yet, that the study and presentation of fashion in an historical context is unimportant, has no bearing on “serious” studies, offers no insight into history, and has no greater implication on or by current events? My fear with the Met Costume Institute gala is that Vogue’s self-promotion cannibalizes what could and should be an opportunity to present fashion as an incredible marker of human civilization that varies according to technological breakthroughs in materials, social morays, etc. I’m doubtful these parties accomplish this. And this is due, in part, to the accompanying spring Costume Institute exhibitions that are usually of the blockbuster variety with a lot of flash and glitz, but weak-themed and presented with little-to-no background information drawing from a larger historical context, which in my mind must be the crux of any exhibition, costume or otherwise (I am specifically thinking of the popular but superficial “Chanel” and “Superheroes” exhibitions).

As friends know, there are few things that exasperate me more than a flubbed costume exhibit. The wasted opportunity hits me like a brick in the face: that money could be collected, venue provided, fashion displayed, and the opportunity to use costume as a teaching tool not utilized kills me. Partly because I’ll walk away disappointed for the lack of new information I personally collect, but mostly because I’m all too aware of how superfluous and flighty the majority of the population views fashion, and exhibits that don’t treat the subject academically confirm people’s belief that there is nothing but pretty, outrageous, or at best creative works at play and nothing deeper. This is perhaps a I see the Met’s Costume Institute gala as just such a wasted opportunity to broaden the public’s opinion and understanding of fashion’s relevance and importance.

Museums must weigh the pros and cons of the opportunities corporate money affords them — not just more elaborate exhibits but more advertising to reach wider audiences — versus the control corporate sponsors believe they become entitled to exert (i.e. Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to cut the Brooklyn Museum’s public funding when it exhibited controversial material in the “Sensation” exhibit of 1999). The American Museum of Natural History in New York actually had trouble securing sponsorship for their 2005 Darwin exhibition because (exasperating as it is to me), creationism and the so-called “theory” of evolution continues to be incendiary and corporations were afraid of alienating their own potential supporters, political and financial. (Ironically — or not so? — once funding was secured, the Darwin exhibition was extremely popular.) The Museum made up for this difficulty with its latest corporate partnership.

The movie series Night at the Museum prominently incorporated two Smithsonian museums: the first film (2006) took place in the Museum of Natural History, the second (2009) in the Smithsonian Institute, and it actually contains “Smithsonian” in the title: marketing jackpot! This arrangement gave writers license to incorporate actual Smithsonian-owned ephemera (like Amelia Earhart’s plane, Dorothy’s ruby slippers, etc., used to great comic effect) into the plots, and both museums have enjoyed the reciprocal reaction of an immediate and impressive surge in attendance. I see this as a fair exchange. Like the Museum of Natural History, the Met needs to reassert its power and purpose with Vogue (or another sponsor), because the Costume Institute is more than an exclusive venue, and should be leveraged as such.

Much as I’ve concentrated on current corporate collaborations, the alliance of patron and artist (or art institution) is not a new subject, though it’s taken new forms. The Mérode Altarpice is a triptych by the early Netherlandish painter Robert Campin, c. 1425 – 1430. Though ostensibly a religious painting depicting the popular Annunciation, the commissioning family was painted directly into the religious scene (left panel).  They also guaranteed their identities by their coat of arms seal in the window, and by the presence of a costume (yay costume historians!) typical of a town messenger from Mechelen, where the family was from.

The Merode Altarpice by Robert Campin c.1425 – 1428

As religious paintings waned in popularity, patrons continued to be inserted into works. Fragonard’s “The Swing” (1766) is a delightfully naughty painting  portraying a pink-clad woman (I will refrain from dissecting her ensemble in greater juicy detail, though I’m tempted!) being pushed on a swing by a bishop in the background, while her “hidden” lover in the foreground gazes admiringly up her yawning skirt. John Fleming writes “The identity of the patron is unknown, though he was at one time thought to have been the Baron de Saint-Julien, the Receiver General of the French Clergy, which would have explained the request to include a bishop pushing the swing. This idea as well as that of having himself and his mistress portrayed was evidently dropped by the patron, whoever he may have been.” Fleming points out “the picture was depersonalized and, due to Fragonard’s extremely sensuous imagination, became a universal image of joyous, carefree sexuality,” (my italics) as opposed to a straightforward vanity portrait. Since then, corporate sponsorship has replaced less conspicuous donations as a major funding vehicle for many arts organizations.

"The Swing" by Fragonard, 1766

So collaborations between moneyed patrons and starving artists has not been uncommon historically, but patrons were not advertising themselves — no revenue was expected from the inclusion of their images in commissioned paintings, unlike corporate sponsors today who slap their logos on every visible posterboard. There can be mutually beneficial relationships — partnerships — established between non-profits and corporations (as with Fragonard and his patron), but it’s vital that those non-profits remember that they need not be beggars bending to the whim of their sponsors. Corporations can offer money, but museums offer  credibility in public relations and marketing return. Children today may very well associate Exxon Mobile with the funding of public television instead of my own foremost memory, the infamous Exxon oil spill of 1989, and the Altria Group, owner of cigarette giant Philip Morris, is not coincidentally one of the most significant donor to the arts in a transparent but successful attempt to gain positive PR-by-association. Perceived cultural good will is important in any era, but essential in times like these when the financial sector and big business are regarded as especially villainous. I don’t condemn corporate backing; I just want curatorial integrity to remain in tact.

Further Reading:

• “Corporate Sponsorship A Growing Area of Arts Concern” AllBusiness.com, October 2000
• “Fashion Victim,” NYTimes.com, May 6, 2005
• “Ethics and the Visual Arts” edited by Elaine A. King, Gail Levin, Allworth Communications, Inc., 2006
• “Establishing Dress History,” Lou Taylor, Manchester University Press, 2004
• “Patronizing the Arts,” Marjorie Garber, Princeton University Press, 2008
• “Night at the Museum Smithsonian’s PR bonanza” NPR.org, May 21, 2009
• “Smithsonian Hopes to Cash in On Stiller Movie” NPR.org, May 21, 2009

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Edouard Halouze's "Le Messager" 1925

Yesterday I attended a lecture at the New York Public Library accompanying their current exhibit “Art Deco Design: Rhythm and Verve.”  There was another lecture on art deco architecture that I attended a few weeks ago, but this one– “Fashions of the Art Deco Era”– was tailored for me.  Paula Baxter, curator of the exhibit and author of one of my absolute favorite fashion blogs, was the speaker.  Though fashion was the focal point, Paula’s (and my) interest in the sartorial arts lies in the socio-political and economic climates surrounding fashion, so much of the information disseminated was not strictly clothes-related, but provided a groundwork for why fashion took such a radical turn in the “teen-aughts,” as Paula delightfully calls them.  This emphasizes the point that nothing is invented or occurs in a vacuum, and all local and often world events exert direct influence upon visual arts, fashion most certainly included.  I will relay my notes here, with perhaps a few tangents of my own.

Art Deco’s lifespan was from 1919 – 1939.  Here is a limited time line overlay:

1914-18 WWI

1920 – 19th Amendment grants women suffrage

1923 – Yankee Stadium built

1924 – Native Americans granted US citizenship

1926 – A. A. Milne writes Winnie the Poo

1927 – The Jazz Singer is the first full length talkie

1927 – Charles Lindbergh flies the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris

1929 – stock market crash heralded the Great Depression

1931 – Empire State Building completed (and struggles to procure tenants)

1930s – electric sewing machines widespread (invented in 1889)

1939-41 – WWII

Louise Brooks' iconic bob c. 1925

The end of WWI marked a shocking new era for the world.  Women’s public roles had increased out of necessity during the war and the overall jublilation of victory translated into a great departure from Edwardian social mores, sexual roles, decorative arts and fashions.  Most are familiar with the neck baring bobbed haircut of the 20s, but Paula noted that it was not just a fad, but a scandal– women had worn long hair for centuries, and cutting a pageboy ‘do was like tattoos are today.  Many adopt the fashion, but just as many scorn the trend as frivolous or scandalous (many parents among the latter group).  As a side note, I sported the Louise Brooks bob (above) for a decade.

In painting and “high” art, the Cubist movement had a tremendous impact upon fashion (the Metropolitan Museum presented the compelling evidence marvelously in their 1998-99 exhibit “Cubism and Fashion” in which paintings from the period were juxtaposed with fashion examples side-by-side).  Inspired by African sculpture, by painters Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906) and Georges Seurat (French, 1859-1891), and by the Fauves, Cubists shattered, analyzed and reassembled the subject matter into abstracted forms.  This aesthetic inspired and was adopted by designers of all kinds– furniture, textile, and fashion, who distilled their own creations to streamlined versions of more ornate, familiar forms of the Edwardian and Victorian ages.  Embellishment and ornamentation was more restrained, and dress patterns were reduced to simple shapes (i.e. squares, circles, cylinders, etc.) that were allowed to drape naturally on the body, rather than restrain it with restrictive tailoring.

Jazz

Increasing acceptability of women playing sports and leading more active lifestyles had great impact on the changing desired physique of the 20s.  Silhouettes from the then-recent Edwardian and Victorian ages were highly curvaceous– if not downright meaty– with emphasis placed on overflowing bosoms, hips, and buttocks.  But the skimpy fashions of the 20s complimented the new emphasis on athletic bodies and narrowed the gap between health and glamour.  (As a side note, Paula said yes, skirts were shorter than they had ever been, but even in 1925 when hemlines were at their shortest, they were still 1″ below the knee.)

Menswear continued the Edwardian penchant for proper, dapper, tailored suits.  The new found athleticism made the ideal male figure sleeker than times past, too.  Paula emphasized that the Duke of Windsor (the temporary Prince of Wales) had a tremendous influence over men’s fashion of his time, disseminating his personal stylistic choices by being the most photographed celebrity of his time.  He popularized cuffed trousers and advocated for the switch to the zipper fly from the buttoned version.  The zipper took its modern form in 1913 from its more finicky 1893 version which had a tremendous impact on the making of clothes and the act of dressing, but I believe it was the Duke’s vocal endorsement of it for easy access to the groin (I’m quite sure that wasn’t his exact argument) that caused a sartorial uproar and resistance before ultimate widespread adoption.

The 20s was when America’s obsession with celebrity fashion and idolization began.  With the talkies of the silver screen, images of stars like Clara Bow, Fred Astaire, and Marlene Dietrich were disseminated across the United States and internationally.  The film studios invested much in their publicity departments which took tremendous pains to create and present their stars in a flattering light, blurring the lines between personal and private life.

The introduction of feasible air transportation with Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis flight (see time line above) continued the craze for all things streamlined and aerodynamic, which, again, was translated by designers and disseminated into everyday objects like martini sets and fashion.  It also marked the beginning of America’s dependence on credit and oil.

After the world became choked by the Great Depression with the dawn of the 30s, hemlines dropped to more conservative lows.  Flared skirts and an emphasis on waists replaced the straight lines of the 20s, though the ideal female figure continued to be relatively flat, hipless, and generally boyish, a puzzling trend of gender ambiguity that continues to this day.

Marlene Dietrich was one of the few who managed to assert her personal style in spite of loud protests from her employers, sporting mannish pantsuits (Hillary’s predecessor!) in addition to more conventional slinky gowns.  It was only because her sex appeal

By the 30s, the widespread usage of the electric sewing machine had resulted in plentiful off-the-rack merchandise.  Madeleine Vionnet was credited with inventing draping on the bias, a technique that enables fabric to hang and stretch more naturally over a body rather than dictate a shape.  She started a fad of elegant gowns that clung to the necessarily slender forms of the wearers, requiring even less additional accessorizing than the flapper dresses of the previous decade.

The menswear silhouette departed similarly from the sleek but narrow to one that emphasized broader shoulders, slim waists, and wider pants legs, a la Clark Gable.  With the approaching of WWII and ever more women entering the workforce, gender lines continued to blur.  Menswear influenced women’s fashion in the 30s with tailoring becoming evermore important to both sexes; women would feminize their skirt suits with ostentatious bows that belied the inherently masculine suits that was appropriate work wear for secretaries, etc.

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