Analogue Chic

Archive for the ‘Textile Addiction’ Category

Check out these fashion and textiles exhibits on the West Coast!

At the DeYoung Museum of Fine Arts

To Dye For

July 31, 2010 – January 9, 2011

Textiles and apparel featuring all types of resist-dyeing methods, from ancient to modern.

 

 

At the Museum of Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising

The Art of Television and Costume Design

July 27, 2010 – September 4, 2010

Emmy-award winning costumes and a Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland special exhibit.

Also check out The Annette Green Perfume Museum on the 2nd Floor

 

Via CANBlog

 

Also be sure to check out my other list of fashion exhibits in the US and Europe this summer, here! 

Have you visited any of these exhibits? Tell us what you thought and send in your photos!  Leave a comment below, or email me, Allie {at} AnalogueChic {dot} com.

 

New listing under Fashion Exhibits to See This Summer:

And while fashion exhibitions can be challenging to the imagination—how often have you been to a museum where it seems like they’ve just hung a bunch of dresses on mannequins?—this show comes alive with the help of legendary fashion photographs taken by the likes of Cecil Beaton and Richard Avedon.

Woah.

Quote and images via Racked.

Hello there,

‘Twas just a garden in the rain…

A misty-moisty morning to visit the wedding dress exhibit and flower show at the Danbury Museum on Saturday.  Lovely plants and beautiful dresses, unfortunately served to highlight how badly the Museum needs better exhibit space.  So donate generously!

You can read my write-up, with photos, over at The Mercurial.

[Updated June 15]

It’s more than just "here’s a bunch of clothing from our collection"– it’s a really illustrative survey of what women from this little part of Connecticut were wearing on their wedding day.

I’ve been informed by Museum staff that, with the Flower Show completed, some dresses will be coming out of the glass cases and onto dress forms, with some other items also going on display.  I was just cringing looking at some of those heavy dresses on hangers, and the trains folded up in the case.  It will be great for visitors to get a little closer to the details.

Having been involved with several small museums in Connecticut, I completely understand the limitations of funding on everything from roof repairs to paperclips.  The Museum is quite proud of the recent renovations to the central building, Huntington Hall.  I’m sure it’s a vast improvement on its previous setting.  On a personal note, I just have to say the style of the building is quite a visual jolt when you see it surrounded by the historical buildings and garden.  A building with flexible exhibit space, with climate control and adaptable lighting, on one floor, and offices, etc. on a separate floor, in a more harmonious style on the exterior, would be an ideal starting point for tours of the rest of the buildings.

So again, visit often, and donate generously!

Image via Wedding Dress Gallery

Also, as part of a series of wedding-themed events at the Museum this year, a wedding cake tasting and contest will be held August 14, as a fundraiser for the Museum.  16 bakers will compete on the merits of taste and decoration for a $250 cash prize, with judging by the event attendees.  Champagne will be served, and musical entertainment will be on hand.  Any bakers interested in competing should contact the Museum, (203) 743-5200.

Danbury Museum and Historical Society

43 Main Street, Danbury, CT

Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 4 pm

Phone: (203) 743-5200

Email: info@danburymuseum.org

{Woah, 3 posts this week!  Can you tell I’m on sabbatical from wage-slavery? }

A couple of great  links from my new blog-discovery, ethniciti by interior designer Bill Sands. Both these references are helping to fuel my longstanding intrigue-bordering-obsession with Mali.

Malian fiber arts at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco

Aboubakar Fofana, Malian-French fabric artist (sorry, his site is currently French only)

If you’re traveling this summer, check out one of these fashion-related exhibits in the US and Europe.  If you know of any others, drop me a line, and I’ll add them here.  [Updated 6/6; 6/17; 7/12]

NYC

Metropolitan Museum, Costume Institute

May 5, 2010–August 15, 2010

American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity

[...] the first Costume Institute exhibition drawn from the newly established Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Met. It explores developing perceptions of the modern American woman from 1890 to 1940 and how they have affected the way American women are seen today. Focusing on archetypes of American femininity through dress, the exhibition reveals how the American woman initiated style revolutions that mirrored her social, political, and sexual emancipation. "Gibson Girls," "Bohemians," and "Screen Sirens," among others, helped lay the foundation for today’s American woman.

Metropolitan Museum, Howard Gilman Gallery

June 8, 2010 – October 17, 2010

Hipsters, Hustlers, and Handball Players: Leon Levinstein’s New York Photographs, 1950–1980

Born in West Virginia in 1910, Levinstein moved to New York in 1946 and spent the next thirty-five years obsessively photographing strangers on the streets of his adopted home. Early in his career, Levinstein was quoted in Photography Annual 1955: "In my photographs I want to look at life—at the commonplace things as if I just turned a corner and ran into them for the first time." With daring and dedication to his subject, Levinstein captured the denizens of New York City at extremely close range. He used his superb sense of composition to frame the faces, flesh, poses, and movements of his fellow city dwellers in their myriad guises: sunbathers, young couples, children, businessmen, beggars, prostitutes, proselytizers, society ladies, and characters of all stripes.

Read the rest of this entry »

For centuries, it was easy to identify an upper-class woman by the amount of fabric she was wearing– yards and yards of it.  This has implications from art history to the hijab debate in Islam.  Nowadays, the opposite may be true ("It’s better to be cold and stylish, than to be warm and frumpy.").  But there is still a class of women, even in our modern democratic society, whose role it is to be fertile and look attractive for their husbands.  I’m talking about you, Fairfield County.

Here are two artists who deal with women (and men) and fabric. (Also see Shadi Ghadirian.)

Elene Usdin, Femmes d’Interieur series

In this series of pictures on “Femmes d’intérieur”, I want to play with the codes, to re-arrange them, giving a cushion or a chair or a pair of shoes the same attention as the subject. It’s my way of depersonalizing the woman, of turning her into (perhaps what she always was): the object, the woman-object. Upending things in effect poses the question: what is the social status of a woman? The reference to “great classics” of painting is a good way to illustrate how a woman is corseted by her rank and the social position of her husband or her own family.

To speak of just one of these photographs : the portrait of “Georges”, is the one of (Georges) Sand, the writer, who in her own era deconstructed the codes corseting women. I have chosen to repaint the famous portrait of her by Charpentier which shows Sand with an amused smile.
In my vision, she is inviting the viewer to sit down on her, she is the woman-chair. But attention: on the armrest there lurks an aggressive barracuda which reverses the notion of the submissive woman. A kick in the nose to what society once expected of women. And today, is their independence so much more meaningful?

Quotes via Elene Usdin.

Andre Wagner, Black Holes series

I was unable to find any artist statement or curator’s description of this series.  Many different intended meanings could be read into the series title… Optimistically, my interpretation is that this series is a commentary on the tendency of people in the West to view people of other, non-Western cultures, even people of non-European descent living in the West, as one simplified image, identified by their foreign clothing, rather than as individuals.

It appears he has digitally erased the flesh of his subjects as well as the background, leaving disembodied clothing, although you can still see wisps of hair peeking from the pallu of the girl on the left in the first photo.

All images copyright to their respective creators.

Via PSFK.

Thank goodness. I first saw one of his paintings at the Met, and my first reaction was, wow, that background looks like African prints! And it was.

Image (c) Kehinde Wiley, via Newsweek.

PSFK: How did you choose which designs to use?

KW: I went to the streets. I was in Africa with my friends, and we went out into the markets and looked at reams and reams of fabric- later figuring out which photo, which portrait worked best with what- it was really a hands on and sort of intuitive experience. There’s no concise system for it,  it was more of an ineffable process. A visceral decision about what had the right look and feel for what we were doing.

I wish he were more specific about what cities or regions he was in, because textiles are so tied to the local culture – there is really no such thing as an "African" fabric.

I’m not such a fan of his portraits, actually – I’ve never been a big modern art fan.  But I am definitely a huge fan of making art accessible to everyone, especially those who are typically not among the elite of arts patrons.

KW:There is actually a lot of conceptual overlap between the two projects. My work is about engaging the  contemporary  global street-whether it’s Harlem or Columbo, Sri Lanka. And many people say it’s  hip hop , many people say it’s a global cultural urgency which is driven by a sort of African essence- I don’t know what it is- but to engage with popular culture is something that I’m excited about. I mean, in the 21st century artists occupy many different states- and it is my job to do whatever it is I do as  well as possible.  To view the world through my eyes and make my vision resonate with the viewer.

(I thought I had previously done a post on Yinka Shonibare, but I guess not.  Anyway, I love his work – it’s the perfect combination of critique, sarcasm, rococo fashion, traditional textiles, and colonialism – it’s like we have the same brain. Google him.)

Quotes via PSFK.

I love this print story, called Dream Machine by Swash, for the Spring/ Summer 2010 collection.

It strongly reminds me of the pantaloon-ballon from Baron Munchausen…  It makes me very happy!

via CyanaTrendland

There is a formal dress shop on Main Street in Danbury, and while the dresses aren’t my taste, I enjoy the prop styling in their windows.  Earlier this week, I walked by on my way home and the sun was hitting the scroll decals on the windows, and casting a shadow on the white dresses they have out, creating this big, graphic pattern.  I didn’t have my camera with me that day, and then had to wait another day for clear skies, and today I tried some shots.  My timing wasn’t exactly the same, so the scroll patterns aren’t in the same placement as when I first framed the shots, but I think I got a couple of not-too-shabby pictures, and the black & white filter helps a lot.