Tooting My Own Horn Part 2

Here are two articles about Modern Master: Lucien Lelong, Couturier 1918-1948. One from the March 3, 2006 issue of Women's Wear Daily in which I and my fellow co-curator are actually quoted. And the other is from the February 2006 issue of Vogue for which we sat with Hamish Bowles for an hour or so. Woot!

Tooting My Own Horn Part 1

One of the reasons I chose the Master's program at FIT over say, NYU, Bard or the Courtauld Institute in London is that in our second year we research and organize an exhibition by ourselves. We do the extensive research, chose objects, ask for obejct loans, design the exhibition, design and write the catalogue, and do our own publicity. Granted we have guidance, primarily through our professor who probably has more energy and dedication than all of us put together and to a much lesser extent the Museum at FIT. But it is the graduate students' show - all 14 of us. We start in May, work through the summer and mount the exhibition the following March. I was chosen as one of the two student curators and needless to say it took over my life for eight months while I juggled three other classes and several part time jobs.

So, the show is finally up, and it looks beautiful. You should see it.

I Heart the 30s

I'm quite partial to the Neo-classical styles of the 1930s. And I, like most people am quite the fan of George Hoyningen-Huené. His wife (or perhaps it was his sister, I forget) had a couture house during the 20s and 30s called Yteb, which was rather successful. But like many couture houses, they did not survive the war.

Horst P. Horst was a student of Hoyningen-Huené and you can totally tell from his early works which are like Hoyningen-Huené lite in some ways. He eventually found his own - at times Surrealistic- style. Some of his photos are just wacky and hilarious and I like to think he was a little off his rocker.

Patou evening dress, 1936. Photo by Horst

Paquin evening dress, 1934. Photo by Hoyningen-Huené


Cloqué silk evening dress. Photo by Horst.

A Little Fashion Algebra

Roger Vivier heel with plumes de faison doré, 1954




















Bruno Frisoni for Roger Vivier heel with guinea fowl feathers, c. 2003/2004























Alexander McQueen, F/W 2006

I've been ruined for new fashion

Getting a Master's degree in fashion history can ruin you for contemporary fashion. I get to examine and sometimes even touch clothing of unimaginable beauty, innovation and exquisite quality the likes of which are rarely seen today even in the haute couture. I also get to see garments in their first incarnation, instead of yet another contemporary design re-hashing (okay copying) designs from the past. I get to see original Vionnet bias-cut satin evening dresses from the 1930s instead of say Ralph Lauren’s re-interpretation of them. And nothing can compare to vintage textiles. The feel or hand of a Balenciaga silk cannot be beat. 1930s silk-chiffon backed velvet? Heaven! I want bed sheets made of it. Quite literally, textiles like those just aren’t made anymore.

But don’t get me wrong, even though I can be a bit of a fashion nerd (um who really lengthened hemlines in the late 1920s first, Lelong or Louiseboulanger?), I love, love, love contemporary fashion. Clothes are: transformative, mysterious, exclusionary, democratizing, fun and a cheerful antidote to New York City’s grey winter days. What a wonderful cultural product clothes are! They represent the zeitgeist and everyone participates just by wearing them!

As a cultural product why is good fashion criticism so meager? Criticism is not the same thing as reportage or trend spotting. Cathy and Suzy sometimes delve into it for a sentence or two, but never go too much in depth. Amy Spindler attempted and I wonder how her career would have progressed should she have lived. I wish The New Yorker still had fashion critics like Lois Long back in the 1920s and 30s or even Kennedy Fraser in the 1970s. It would be nice to have serious articles more than once a year. Shouldn’t fashion be criticized like other cultural disciplines such as art, theatre, film, and even television? I’m not a dour fashion dictator who thinks that fashion has to be so damn serious all the time, because it can be/is often light-hearted and whimsical (hello Elsa Schiaparelli), but placing fashion within its cultural context is important. I want to know more about Galliano’s historicizing fashion spectacles than just that they’re over-the-top and not so successful every go round. Why?!

So in the spirit of figuring out the why’s and the what’s, a blog seemed a good place to start.

Hello.