FIDM Museum Blog

Embroidered evening wedge shoes, late 1930s

 

The modern wedge shoe was developed by Italian shoe maker Salvatore Ferragamo (1898-1960) during the 1930s. Starting in the 1920s, Ferragamo designed stylish, trend-setting shoes for Greta Garbo, Paulette Goddard, Claudette Colbert, Clare Boothe Luce, the Duchess of Windsor and many other women. His footwear was often beautiful and unusual, but he strongly believed that good fit was the most important element of any shoe. In his quest for comfort, Ferragamo studied anatomy and constructed individual foot molds for regular customers. When making high heel shoes, Ferragamo provided firm support by embedding steel shanks in the arch. After Italy's invasion of Ethiopia (Abyssinia) in 1935, the League of Nations imposed economic sanctions on Italy, making it difficult for Ferragamo to obtain steel. This shortage forced Ferragamo to begin crafting shoes from other materials, including springy, supportive cork. This new material became the basis of Ferragamo's famous wedge or wedgie shoe.

Wedge sandals
1938-40
Satin, leather
Gift of Anonymous Donor
2005.10.3AB

Fashion Birthday: Elsa Schiaparelli

Happy birthday to Elsa Schiaparelli!

Born in Rome on September 10, 1890, Schiaparelli would be 123 years old today. One of the twentieth-century’s most revered fashion designs, her work is admired for its wit and creativity. Schiaparelli’s career in fashion began through necessity. Divorced and living in Paris with her young daughter, Schiaparelli had to find a way to support herself. Via an American friend, Schiaparelli found employment as the designer for the short-lived Maison Lambal. When this house closed, the emerging designer launched her own line. Schiaparelli’s first collection in 1927 featured one show-stopper: a black and white sweater with a trompe l'oeil bow at the neck. Featured in Vogue, the sweater was copied by mass-market retailers in the United States and Europe. Over a decade after her first success with trompe l'oeil, Schiaparelli returned to the technique, using it to embellish this luminous evening jacket.

Evening jacket
Fall/Winter 1939-40
Elsa Schiaparelli
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by Barbara Bundy and Bloomingdale's
2010.5.24

Before the outbreak of World War II, Elsa Schiaparelli's last collection introduced her slim "Cigarette Silhouette."¹ The collection featured long-line day and evening jackets with long, tight-fitting sleeves and narrow, floor-length skirts. This evening jacket is made of men's necktie silk in Schiaparelli's notorious "Shocking Pink," woven with white, black, and bright green pinstripes; the latter color was dubbed "phosphorescent" by fashion reporters, a reference to the acid green glow of radioactive materials.² Morning glories—symbolic of death and resurrection, and of anxiety and hope during this time of impending war—were stitched in variegated, blue, red, and gold metallic flosses by the famed embroidery house Lesage. They appear to climb up the pinstripes, an example of the trompe l'oeil wit often found in Schiaparelli's work.

1 "Actresses Model Autumn Fashions" New York Times (September 19, 1939), 11.
2 Pope, Virginia. "Paris Sees 'Family Album' Styles Modernized for Women of Today" New York Times (August 3, 1939), 16

 

Out & About: Fred Astaire's tuxedo on exhibit at the RISD Museum

In today's post, FIDM Museum Registrar Meghan Grossman Hansen describes the process of preparing objects for transport to exhibitions at other institutions. FIDM Museum has an active loan program, and we often have 1 or more objects on exhibit at museums near or far. Beginning April 28, see a tuxedo worn by Fred Astaire in Artist/Rebel/Dandy: Men of Fashion at the RISD Museum in Providence, Rhode Island.

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We are always excited to see the FIDM Museum collection travel. Most recently, we sent Fred Astaire's tuxedo to join many other dapper gentlemen in Artist/Rebel/Dandy: Men of Fashion, an exhibition at the RISD Museum (April 28 - August 18, 2013). Featuring more than 200 objects, this exhibit traces the history and persona of the dandy, with a focus on well-known fashionable men.

Fred Astaire was very particular about his wardrobe, with strong preferences about cuffs, jacket length, stripe width, and other minute details. He once claimed that he took each new suit to the tailor "at least half a dozen times."¹ For Artist/Rebel/Dandy, we loaned the RISD Museum a 1930s tuxedo, waistcoat, and bow tie worn by Astaire. The wool crepe tuxedo was made by Anderson & Sheppard Ltd., a Savile Row tailor still in existence today.

Fred Astaire’s tuxedo on exhibit at the RISD Museum, loan courtesy of the FIDM Museum, City of Los Angeles, Department of Recreation and Parks (L88.1.31AB). Photograph by Erik Gould, courtesy of the RISD Museum.

 

Chanel day dress, c. 1937

Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel's (1883-1971) reputation is staked primarily on her exploration of menswear-inspired suits and her promotion of the understated little black dress. Though these creations are an important part of her aesthetic, her designs didn't always exude a strict less-is-more philosophy. Many of Chanel's evening wear designs, particularly during the 1920s and 1930s, glittered with embellishment. She also designed feminine, romantic day wear like the c. 1937 afternoon dress pictured here.

Afternoon dress
Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel
c. 1937
Gift of The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising
79.25.5

Ferragamo Tavarnelle lace high heels, mid-1930s

Salvatore Ferragamo
c.1935-36
Permanent Loan, FIDM
2009.25.2AB

Fantasy footwear flourished during the 1930s, and Salvatore Ferragamo (1898-1960) was the leader in crafting shoes from unusual materials. At this time, his luxury output was completely handmade and custom fitted to individual clients--a perfect balance of style and comfort. The uppers on this pair are Tavarnelle needlepoint lace, a Tuscan specialty produced just outside Florence, Italy.¹ Often used in white for decorating undergarments, Ferragamo commissioned a colored version with pink and blue blossoms on a field of brown twigs and green foliage. The pliability of the lace must have delighted the wearer, as it easily allowed her feet to contract and expand in motion, and did not bind her toes tightly like fully-enclosed models.

1 Piacenti, Kirsten Aschengreen, et al. Salvatore Ferragamo: The Art of the Shoe, 1898-1960 (New York: Rizzoli, 1992) 47 & 79.

Bakelite cherry brooch, late 1930s

 

 Cherry and log brooch
c. 1935-1940
Gift of Steven Porterfield
2010.897.49

Can you imagine a world without plastic? Overwhelmingly ubiquitous today, plastic has been in existence for less than 200 years. Prior to the last quarter of the 19th century, when plastic products became commercially available, everything was made from organic materials. Developed in the 1860s, early plastics generally replicated organic materials like tortoiseshell, ivory, wood or coral. Used to make children's toys, combs, cutlery, billiard balls, and many other functional and/or decorative objects, plastics were soon absorbed into the fabric of everyday life.

Fashion Birthday: Madeleine Vionnet

 

French couturier Madeleine Vionnet was born on this day in 1876. Born in Chilleurs-aux-Bois, about 75 miles from Paris, Vionnet was apprenticed to a local dressmaker at age 11. She spent several years in this first apprenticeship, moving to a small design house in Paris when she was 17. She later worked in London for several years, returning to Paris by 1901, where she worked first for Callot Soeurs and later for Doucet. In 1912, Vionnet opened her own salon, but closed the business at the beginning of World War I in 1914. After spending the war years in Italy, Vionnet returned to Paris and re-opened her couture house in 1918.

Though Vionnet began her training in the late 19th century, when artifice and decoration were the foundations of fashion, she developed a startlingly modern, deceptively simple approach to design. Many of her garments were based on simple geometric forms; square, circle or rectangle. The bias cut was integral to her work, and largely eliminated the need for shaping darts. Vionnet disliked corsets, and designed her garments to be worn without this confining undergarment. House models were encouraged to go without undergarments during fittings.

In honor of Vionnet's birthday, we're reposting a late 1930s Madeleine Vionnet evening gown embellished with metallic embroidery. We first posted this gown in October 2011, when the gown was on exhibit in the FABULOUS! exhibition. 

Evening gown
Madeleine Vionnet
c. 1936-1938
Museum Purchase, Funds provided by Mrs. Tonian Hohberg
2008.5.50AB

Boudoir slippers, c. 1939

 

Boudoir slippers
c. 1939
Daniel Green
Gift of Kevin Jones
2008.155.3AB

In the 1937 article, "Mules: The More the Merrier," Vogue claimed that, "all women are slipper collectors."¹ Though this is probably an overstatement, the article indicates that in the late 1930s, slippers were much more than soft and comfy shoes for scuffing around the house. Garnet satin mules for intimate evenings at home, flat black satin slides for hostessing, red flannel canvas flats for pairing with casual slacks or shorts, and rustic fur-lined reindeer moccasins are only a sampling of the slipper styles presented in the Vogue article. Slippers were playful, spanning the gap between sensible daytime footwear and refined evening footwear.

Wiener Werkstatte girl's ensemble

 

Wiener Werkstatte
c. 1930
2005.5.170AB
Museum Purchase

Founded in 1903 by architect Josef Hoffman and artist Kolomon Moser, the Wiener Werkstatte (Vienna Workshop) was a group of artists, designers and craftsman dedicated to combining artistry and function in the design and manufacture of everyday objects. Like the 19th century reformers William Morris and Charles Ashbee, the founders of the Wiener Werkstatte believed that mass-production had diminished, if not entirely eliminated, the aesthetic appeal of everyday objects. The overarching goal of the Wiener Werkstatte was to create a gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art that united architecture, furniture, graphic design, clothing and all other material elements of daily life into a unified and harmonious whole. To this end, Wiener Werkstatte designers reimagined everything from architecture, to furniture, even place settings for the dinner table. By 1928, the Wiener Werkstatte and affiliated designers were producing ceramics, metalwork, bound books, textile patterns, jewelry, lace and other objects. Wiener Werkstatte designs were realized by skilled craftspeople who worked under relatively progressive conditions.

Fred Astaire's dancing shoes

 

Tap Shoes
Worn by Fred Astaire, c. 1930s
Suede, leather & metal taps
Department of Recreation and Parks, City of Los Angeles/FIDM Museum
L88.1.125AB

By the time he first appeared in a Hollywood film in 1933, Fred Astaire was already an experienced and popular performer. Born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1899, Astaire first encountered dance classes as a toddler, when his older sister Adele was enrolled in ballet classes. Their parents believed that Adele might be talented enough for a performance career, so when the children were only 5 and 7, the family moved to New York. The family (still using their original name Austerlitz) had no connections in New York, very little money, and the name of a dance academy recommended by Adele's Omaha dance teacher. Whether by design or happenstance, once the Astaire family settled in New York, Fred and Adele were both enrolled in dance classes. Fred and Adele's teacher felt that the children had some talent, and developed a brother-sister act for the siblings. Changing their last name from Austerlitz to Astaire, the siblings began performing a comedic dance act on the vaudeville circuit.