Dance into Spring to Mr. Burrows’s Color-Block Beat at MCNY

Posted on April 26, 2013 by MsSusanB

Studio 54 dance wear by Stephen Burrows.

To experience an all-out burst of color, walk through the doors of the Museum of the City of New York and visit the paparazzi-worthy tribute to a 1970s design legend, Stephen Burrows: When Fashion Danced. You’ll get to know the man who styled Liza, Cher, Diana, Farrah, and so many icons of the 1970s with bright, beautiful, glamorous draped designs were made to whirl around the dance floor.

Vogue issues throughout the 1970s were filled with cavorting models sporting color-blocked coats, dresses, sweaters, and evening wear and lettuce-edged jersey wrap tops, cocktail dresses, and pant suits by King of Qiana, Stephen Burrows. When he burst upon the scene in the late Sixties, Geraldine Stutz installed him in her ground-breaking “street of shops” that she created at Henri Beldel, when it was still on 57th Street. If you don’t know Stephen’s work, a stroll through the first floor of MCNY will set you straight about who actually created the draped metallic disco top emblematic of Studio 54.

It’s the first retrospective dedicated to this stylish creative powerhouse, with ensembles drawn from the Burrows archive, FIT, the Metropolitan, and MCNY’s own treasure trove, and you’ll have until July 8 to see it.

Stephen gave us the draped metallic disco top and so much more.

The opening night party drew fashion royalty, and when we visited, Michael Kors was levitating with excitement, seeing the work that inspired so many to drape, piece, and glamorize with eye-popping colors. Check out the looks on the Flickr feed.

Don’t miss the major piece of fashion history hiding in one corner of the show: At a time when American fashion was viewed by Europeans as second rate, Burrows and Blass, Calvin, Oscar, and Halston were invited to follow the French at the still-talked-about 1973 benefit fashion show at Versailles. You’ll witness how Stephen and the NYC crew battled it out on the stage against YSL, Cardin, Ungaro, Givenchy, and Dior.

Spoiler alert: Stephen and his American crew won. Historic is an understatement.

Shoe Obsession or War at FIT

Posted on April 6, 2013 by MsSusanB

Eyelash Heel pump by Roger Vivier (Bruno Frisoni) (2012-2013). Courtesy of Roger Vivier/Photo by Stephane Garrigues

Eyelash Heel pump by Roger Vivier (Bruno Frisoni) (2012). Courtesy of Roger Vivier/Photo by Stephane Garrigues

The design gauntlet has been thrown down. The Museum at FIT’s lower-level exhibit, Shoe Obsession, pits establishment high-heel designers against upstart shoe artists in a no-holes-barred visual extravaganza that footwear lovers will savor.

There’s really no winner or loser. It’s all an impossible-to-take-in treasure trove. Take a look at FIT’s Flickr site, which gives you a taste, but doesn’t even tell half the story. There are 150 pairs of shoes on display, all fighting for your attention as to which is the best, highest, most outlandish, to-be-seen-in, and impossible-to-wear shoe creation.

Noritaka Tatehana’s Lady Pointe shoes designed for Lady Gaga (2012)

The show, sponsored by Saks Fifth Avenue, focuses on 21^st century shoe design, seeming to claim that bags are over and that shoes are “it”. If stats tell the story, FIT says that the average American woman today has over 20 pairs of shoes – double the average of the late 1990s.

The glass vitrines present all the artistry beautifully. When we visited, admirers were circling each slowly to view the exquisite, fanciful creations from all angles. The center aisle features selections from several private shoe collections, including a few from McQueen muse Daphne Guiness.

You’ll see over-the-top works by incumbants Vivier, Prada, Blahnik, and Gucci right next to glass houses showcasing the upstarts, as in our photo here: Center front is Mariela’s actual glass slipper, which no one can actually wear. Above it and to the right, are Tea Petrovic’s prototypes inspired by futuristic sculptor Naum Gabo and the soaring architecture of Calatrava. On the left, Janina Alleyne’s menacing Exoskeleton shoe actually has been created by a 3D printer.

Go and make your own choice about what you would take home if you could.

There’s no video to accompany this incredible show (just a book), so enjoy the trailer for the documentary God Save My Shoes, which FIT had running in its 27th Street entrance:

FIT Grad Students Give Everyone the Boot

Posted on April 1, 2013 by MsSusanB

Curvy, red-lined leather “it” boot of 1900 by Jack Jacobus Ltd. Austrian fashion, gift of the V&A.

As part of FIT’s program in Fashion and Textiles Studies, the grad students have mounted a gem of a show about fashionable footwear — Boots: The Height of Fashion, running just a few days more.

The museum’s side gallery tells an interesting story about how boots went from practical to glam, and from guy wear to girl fashion, beginning with some thought-provoking high-buttoned “look at me” boots from 1900, following on to the boot-clad flappers, and taking us straight through boot history to the heyday of the Warhol factory.

The students have rummaged through the FIT collection to show us their picks to demonstrate “boots as a second skin” (David Evins, Charles Jourdan, and silk Louboutins), the rebel look, fashion-tribe style, and over-the-top luxury.

Fantasy-meets-luxury suede and shearling creation by Manolo Blanik (1997, UK). Gift of Ruffo.

Among our favorites are the 1922 Ball Brand flapper galoshes and everything from the collection of Warhol superstar Baby Jane Holzer – 1963 Davide Beatle boots, 1969 Guccis, and 1971 embroidered boots from The Chelsea Cobbler.

The students also gave us a behind-the-scenes look with two cases about boot conservation. One case features pairs of boots (baby boots and high-buttoned shoes) with one shoe “conserved” and the other in its deteriorating state. The second case shows how the museum is preserving those famous “second skin” David Evins polyurethane leggings from 1960s, which sadly have broken down due to the atmosphere and light.

Although the following video is not associated with the show, it certainly shows that form-fitting high-style boots did not originate with Mr. Evins. Enjoy:

Second-skin Louboutin satin boots (1994-95 Fall collection)

Met Uses Dress to Deconstruct Matisse’s Creative Process

Posted on March 13, 2013 by MsSusanB

Finished product and earlier stage of Matisse’s The Large Blue Dress (1937). Source: Philadelphia Museum of Art. © 2012 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

After walking through gallery after gallery of spectacular Matisse works, it’s a little shocking to turn enter Gallery 6 and see the actual skirt that his model wore to inspire one of his most loved works. Maybe it’s not so shocking, considering how much he loved textiles.

This surprise is just one part of a fascinating eight-gallery blockbuster that deconstructs the master’s creative process – the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s show Matisse: In Search of True Painting.

The show features nearly 50 works from Matisse’s career, chosen especially to reveal his thoughts behind selecting the colors, shapes, and patterns that we know so well. They’ve brought together versions of the same work and hung them next to one another. The Met’s website has views of each gallery.

The Gallery 2 view shows how the Met has displayed some of Matisse’s 1906 experiments. Check out this video narrated by curator Rebecca Rabinow:

Since Matisse liked to have visual reference points, by the 1930s he began more formal documentation of the various stages of each work. His famous Large Blue Dress painting (1937), lent by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, not only features photos of the painting’s stages but the actual blue dress made and worn by the model, Lydia Delectorskaya. Let the curator tell you more about it:

Take a look at some of the selected highlights of the show on the web, but get over to see it all in person to experience fully the power of Matisse’s color and light in a unique, exceptional, and illuminating context.

Sarongs in Winter

Posted on February 25, 2013 by MsSusanB

Installation view of woman’s cotton sarong incorporating Chinese-style cranes, probably from the workshop of Mrs. Wilemse (1890-1910). Central Java, Indonesia

It’s the smallest show right now at The Met. It doesn’t even have its own web site. If you’re on the way to see Matisse on the First Floor, pause to take a close-up look at some marvels of the textile collection and imagine you’re on the faraway Indonesian island of Java in the micro-show, Resistance and Splendor in Javanese Textiles.

The curators have framed a collection of textile masterworks from that exotic corner of the world, mostly sarongs. If you read the label copy, the series of textiles embellished in the resist-dye technique evoke quite a bit of the recent history of Indonesia.

Everyone knows batik, but you may not know that it was cultivated as an export by the Dutch in colonial times on Java (formerly Dutch East Indies). Or that there were workshops whose fabric designs were as identifiable in 1890s Java as 1990s Versace prints are to us.

Small detail of wrapper in Hokokau style (early-mid 1940s). Traditional motifs on diagonal with European-style flowers.

As demand grew throughout the 20^th century, designs changed, adhering to tastes of foreign buyers, even while the resist-dye masters kept mashing in the iconography of ancient Javenese royalty. As the curators mention, it’s particularly poignant that some of the most intricate, beautiful resist-dye textiles were made under the difficult WWII Japanese occupation of Indonesia. Apparently cotton shortages allowed the master craftsmen to spend more time perfecting elaborate techniques.

The intricacy, dynamism, and history of this textile display is something you really need to see up close. Thank you, Ratti Textile Center vault.

How to Collect Exotic Oversized Jewelry

Posted on February 22, 2013 by MsSusanB

Teke style cordiform pendant (Turkmenistan, mid- to late 19th c.), silver, fire-gilded and chased with niello inlay, decorative wire, and table-cut carnelians

Take a peek at the accessories that two intrepid travelers spent years collecting in Central Asia and Iran – oversized jewelry that was so big they had to display it on a wall. Now that Marshall and Marilyn Wolf have donated their collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Met has given it the star treatment, way up in that tiny magical Gallery 458 in the Islamic Art wing (which just welcomed its 1 millionth visitor a few weeks ago).

The dazzling show displays the 19^th and 20^th century creations of Turkmen craftsmen, whose ancestors roamed across Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and northeastern Iran.

Although Marshall and Marilyn Wolf collected jewelry and ceremonial objects of four tribal styles, the Met’s show spotlights Teke style from Merv, a Turkmenistan city-oasis that was a major hub along the ancient Silk Road. The collectors fell in love with the dynamic pieces – crowns, pendants, pectorals, armbands, rings, and long, vertical ornaments that flowed down braids on the backs of Central Asian beauties. Recent craftsmen may use glass instead of semiprecious stones and carnelian, but in all the vitrines on the Met’s second floor, you’ll see the real thing.

Installation view with matching silver armlets (bilezik), whip, and double-finger matchmaker’s ring with turquoise and carnelians.

Take a close-up look at the Met’s spectacular collection photos. When you click on an image, the Met also shows you different views and similar objects from its collection.

Take three minutes to hear Marshall and Marilyn Wolf talk about their passion, how and why they began their collection, explain how their gift plugged a hole in the Met’s own holdings, and show more of their truly stunning pieces. Keep an eye on that second-floor gallery for more to come.

Inhale…The MAD Exhibit They Won’t Let You See

Posted on February 19, 2013 by MsSusanB

There’s nothing to see…only to experience…in The Art of Scent 1889-2012 currently at the Museum of Art and Design. Designed by Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, the exhibition space is completely bare, save for gentle depressions pressed into the wall where visitors can lean in and experience fragrances considered masterworks of innovation and complexity.

Thank you to curator Chandler Burr for paying tribute to the artists that created these scents. The earliest is Jicky, created by Guerlain in 1889 when the Eiffel Tower was on the rise, the first designer fragrance to use synthetic components.

Walking through these design innovations is an experience you won’t forget. Can you tell that a 1980s fragrance was inspired by the smell of laundry detergent (the essence of “clean”)? Do you agree with Prada’s 1990s take on the romanticism of the 19^th century? Do you think Untitled by Daniela Andrier for Margiela in 2010 combines “excitement and unease”, as MAD purports?

MAD has many videos to let you in on the process behind the ephemeral. Listen as Jean-Marc Chaillon discusses what it’s like to create something that can’t be touched:

Ever wonder about the work that goes into designing a celebrity fragrance? Listen in on this enlightening and entertaining curator’s panel on the design and structure of olfactory art:

Look Up to See Where Your Grandmother’s Clothes Came From

Posted on February 16, 2013 by MsSusanB

West 35th Street in 1938, looking east between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. Source: NYC Department of Records, Municipal Archives

It can seem a little quiet walking over to Mood these days. Not too long ago, the streets above 34^th Street between Sixth and Eighth Avenues were clogged with push boys, wheeling racks of materials, trims, and fashions among jobbers, contractors, accessory importers, fabric stores, and showrooms. The way it used to be comes alive in the Skyscraper Museum’s show (closing today) Urban Fabric: Building New York’s Garment District.

In its heyday, those 18 blocks just north and west of Macy’s produced 75% of all US women’s and children’s clothes. The exhibit tells the story of how this bustling hive happened. In a nutshell, the old sweatshops in tenement buildings gave way to factory loft spaces in the 1890s around the area where NYU is today. When the big department stores emerged along Sixth Avenue and 23^rd Streets, the lofts came with them. But the congestion proved to be a bit much for the female shoppers, who were disturbed by the throngs of guys loitering about on their lunch breaks, and the retailers took action.

The department stores (like Macy’s and Lord & Taylor) moved above 34^th Street. To prevent the factory lofts from overwhelming them again, the City implemented the first zoning ordinance in America in 1916. The garment makers, closed out of the fancy retail neighborhood, started razing the Tenderloin District on the West Side and erecting architect-designed skyscrapers (like the Fashion Tower on West 36^th) from that point on. About 125 buildings went up on those 18 blocks before the Depression hit.

Here’s a glimpse of what it was like in 1952:

As recently as the 1970s, carts were still being shuttled through the narrow streets, but we know how that story ended. Today, no one even looks up at the entrances, set-backs, lobbies, or embellishments of these once grand hubs where models, marketers, Mad Men, laborers, seamstresses, teamsters, pattern makers, the designers co-mingled.

Interestingly enough, not a single building is landmarked. In fact, the Skyscraper Museum had trouble even finding photographs of the original buildings and had to turn to historic adverts and early brochures on factory electricity.

For the full, fascinating story by the curator who unearthed it all, listen to Andrew Dolkart of Columbia University, and watch his slide show:

Interns and staff built a nice model of the buildings lining 37^th Street for the show, and a big thank you to The Skyscraper Museum for (again) putting the history and installation walkthrough on line. Tell your friends, and be sure to look up next time you walk over to Mood.

Thin, Rich, and MAD Embrace of the Middle East

Posted on February 12, 2013 by MsSusanB

Martin Munkácsi photo of Doris in an ensemble that is in the exhibition. Source: Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Historical Archives, Duke University.

Walking into MAD’s soon-to-close exhibit, Doris Duke’s Shangri La: Architecture, Landscape, and Islamic Art, what do you see? An architect’s model of a small palace by the sea, dazzling objects that adorned it, exotic loungewear inspired by faraway ports of call, Vogue-worthy jewelry, and photographs of a young socialite/philanthropist consulting with master craftsmen in busy Iranian and Moroccan workshops off the world’s most ancient streets.

As you examine these bits and pieces of Shangri La and its history, there’s a single vision that emerges – a portrait of a woman who knew about light, color, beauty, form, design, artistry, history, and had the vision, passion, and resources to put it all together in a way that any interior designer, fashionista, curator, and global traveler would envy.

Here’s the story line: In 1935, Doris Duke fell in love, went on a round-the-world honeymoon with James Cromwell, and fell in love again – with the exotic sights, sounds, patterns, textures, and artisanal wonders of the Middle East. Followed everywhere by reporters, she and James sojourned for months through Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, and the Indian subcontinent, marveling at the dazzling historic architecture, sinuous designs, luxurious carpets, lattice metalwork, colorful tile, and bejeweled ornament.

Tim Street-Porter’s photo of Doris’s dining room at Shangri La (2011) Source: DDFIA

She just had to have it, and when she and James landed in Hawaii, she knew that no home in Palm Beach was going to cut it. They bought an ocean-view lot on the Big Island and began constructing a dream house. Her architects hewed to her vision — to create a seaside home into a tribute to the Islamic architecture and design that thrilled her imagination.

They brought artists and designers in from Iran, Syria, India, and Morocco to work on the home, and Doris herself traveled went back to check on progress in the home-country workshops and buy more. Eventually, she amassed one of the largest private collections of Islamic art in the world. Peruse her collecting timeline.

The actual home (now christened Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art) is now open to the public. Take time to explore Shangri La on the virtual tour. It hosts not only a 2,500-item collection, but thought-provoking installations by contemporary artists. (So does the show.) Here’s a video of artist Shahzia Sikander sharing what it felt like to project her light installations on this magical dream house.

For more history, watch the curators’ video. Doris’s vision, taste, and style will be on view at MAD for a few more days, then tour museums across the country.

You’ll never walk through the Islamic Wing at The Met again without thinking, “What would Doris do with this?”

1890s Pleasure Island (Staten) Honored at MCNY

Posted on February 4, 2013 by MsSusanB

Installation view of woolen bathing suit (1905) and images of the 1890s Staten Island shore

Over 100 years ago, the 59-mile square island rising up over New York harbor was the epitome of chic, cool sport – fantastic beaches, sunny farmland through which the well-heeled could enjoy an energetic fox hunt, and where one could witness the latest in tennis and cricket gear, to say nothing of the first tennis tournament in the United States.

It was all happening on Staten Island, playground to the upper, upper middle class, as chronicled in the Museum of the City of New York’s show, From Farm to City: Staten Island, 1661-2012. The shows covers the recent history of bridge-building and suburban development, but among the most fascinating parts of the show are those chronicling how our sometimes-forgotten borough gave the birth to modern sporting culture.

The Dutch bought it all from the Lenape in 1657, and SI thrived for centuries as the food supplier to Manhattan and the home of the overland stage service, operating between Philadelphia and Manhattan.

Alice Austen’s photo of Tennis Clothing (1893). Source: Alice Austen House

But in the late 1870s, the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club became the epicenter of the lawn tennis craze (imported from England via Bermuda), and by the 1890s, the edge of the island had boardwalks and amusements to rival Coney Island.

Victorian sporting culture was well documented by Staten Island photography pioneer Alice Austen, whose photos have been enlarged to wall murals by the curators to convey the sense of fun, sun, and cachet in the exhibition. The historic home where she grew up has recently posted her work online, an incomparable look at everyday life here in the 1890s.

Richmond County Hunt Club in 1895. Source: MCNY

If you want to compare the past with today on Staten Island, MNCY has done a spectacular job of taking its historic maps and putting them into digital overlay of today’s world. Check out this great online resource to view the view in 1750 or 1829 compares to today. Click on the blue dots to see images of what used to be.

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Category Archives: Fashion