The timelessness of fashion

La fin de l’été, et plus encore des vacances raisonne dans nos coeurs et dans nos têtes. Il est temps de se remettre au travail, et sur les rails pour une nouvelle année qui démarre, là, maintenant, tout de suite… Mais avant de tourner complètement la page faisons un point culture mode. Je vais vous parlez de deux expos, aussi originales l’une que l’autre.

La première nommée «　le XVIIIe au goût du jour　» a lieu au Trianon de Versailles et accueille des robes de créateurs et de couturiers afin de montrer l’influence du siècle des lumières sur la mode contemporaine. Les plus chanceux pourront donc admirer, dans un cadre très Marie-Antoinette by Sofia Coppola, des robes (d’archives et non crées pour l’occasion) de Vivienne Westwood, Karl Lagerfeld, Dior, Balmain, Lacroix, McQueen… et ce jusqu’au 8 octobre! Alors dépêchez vous! Et pour toutes celles qui n’auront pas la chance d’aller voir l’exposition, vous pourrez vous rabattre sur le site du Trianon de Versailles:
http://www.chateauversailles.fr/les-actualites-du-domaine/evenements/evenements/expositions/le-xviiie-au-gout-du-jourOu sur Vogue.fr pour voir toutes les robes exposées!

AZZEDINE ALAIA

BALENCIAGA PAR NICOLAS GHESQUIERE

DIOR



DIOR



LACROIX

BALMAIN

THIERRY MUGLER

VIVIENNE WESTWOOD

YOHJI YAMAMOTO

La seconde concerne Alexander McQueen et a eu lieu durant tout l’été au Metropolitan Museum de NY et a réunit plus de 660 000 visiteurs au MET de New York durant l’été. L’exposition «　Beauté Sauvage　» où l’on pouvait admirer le précieux et talentueux travail du créateur britannique a suscité un réel engouement et a permis à un plus large public de s’infiltrer pour quelques instants dans son monde de créativité artistique, accordant toujours beaucoup d’importance à la nature et tout ce que cela entraine, le romantisme, la vie, la mort… bref l’âme McQueen resplendissait et respirait dans le cadre somptueux du Metropolitan Museum de NY.

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We all know it’s the end of summer, of vacations but I wanted to look back and focus on two exhibitions, about fashion dealing with timelessness:

The first one, called «　 Le XVIIIe siècle au goût du jour　» takes place at the Trianon in Versailles where Marie Antoinette used to live.
Some clothes, dresses, are presented to see the influence of that century on the work of fashion designers. There are some dresses by Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Dior, Christian Lacroix, Pierre Blamain, Yohji Yamamoto… until October 8th! So hurry up!
But if you can’t come to Paris to see the exhibition you can admire some of the dresses on the website Vogue.fr.

The second exhibition took place in NY, at the Metropolitan Museum during all summer and it was about Alexander McQueen‘s work in fashion. It was called «　Savage beauty　».I’ve picked some pictures on the Met website, and some sentences that M. McQueen had pronounced to describe the clothes he had created:

 1) “My friend George and I were walking on the beach in Norfolk, and there were thousands of [razor-clam] shells. They were so beautiful, I thought I had to do something with them. So, we decided to make [a dress] out of them. . . . The shells had outlived their usefulness on the beach, so we put them to another use on a dress. Then Erin [O’Conner] came out and trashed the dress, so their usefulness was over once again. Kind of like fashion, really.” 

2) Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims“The inspiration behind the hair came from Victorian times when prostitutes would sell theirs for kits of hair locks, which were bought by people to give to their lovers. I used it as my signature label with locks of hair in Perspex. In the early collections, it was my own hair.”

3) “I like to think of myself as a plastic surgeon with a knife.”
“With me, metamorphosis is a bit like plastic surgery, but less drastic. I try to have the same effect with my clothes. But ultimately I do this to transform mentalities more than the body. I try and modify fashion like a scientist by offering what is relevant to today and what will continue to be so tomorrow.”

 4) Dante:“I spent a long time learning how to construct clothes, which is important to do before you can deconstruct them.”

 “It is important to look at death because it is a part of life. It is a sad thing, melancholy but romantic at the same time. It is the end of a cycle—everything has to end. The cycle of life is positive because it gives room for new things.”

5) The Horn of Plenty: 6) “People find my things sometimes aggressive. But I don’t see it as aggressive. I see it as romantic, dealing with a dark side of personality.” 

7) Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious:“This collection was inspired by Tim Burton. It started off dark and then got more romantic as it went along.”
“Life to me is a bit of a [Brothers] Grimm fairytale.”

 8) “[The finale of this collection] was inspired by an installation by artist Rebecca Horn of two shotguns firing blood-red paint at each other.”

“It was really carefully choreographed. It took a week to program the robots.” “Scotland for me is a harsh, cold and bitter place. It was even worse when my great, great grandfather used to live there. . . . The reason I’m patriotic about Scotland is because I think it’s been dealt a really hard hand. It’s marketed the world over as . . . haggis . . . bagpipes. But no one ever puts anything back into it.”

9) Widows of Culloden: “When I design, I try to sell an image of a woman that I have in [my] mind, a concept that changes dramatically each season.”
“[In this collection] she was a feral creature living in the tree. When she decided to descend to earth, she transformed into a princess.”

10) The girl who lived in the tree: “[This collection] was a shout against English designers . . . doing flamboyant Scottish clothes. My father’s family originates from the Isle of Skye, and I’d studied the history of the Scottish upheavals and the Clearances. People were so unintelligent they thought this was about women being raped—yet Highland Rape was about England’s rape of Scotland.”

11) Highland Rape 12) “I want to be honest about the world that we live in, and sometimes my political persuasions come through in my work. Fashion can be really racist, looking at the clothes of other cultures as costumes. . . . That’s mundane and it’s old hat. Let’s break down some barriers.”

13) “I like things to be modern and still have a bit of tradition.”