FIDM Museum Blog

Oscar dressing

In the early years of the Academy Awards, celebrities didn't always dress themselves in the latest glamorous fashions. In 1935, Claudette Colbert wore a simple traveling suit to accept the Best Actress Award for It Happened One Night. Colbert didn't expect to win, so was already on-board a New York bound train as the ceremony began. The train was held at the station and Colbert was rushed to the ceremony to accept her award. That same year, Bette Davis wore an "afternoon frock" to the Academy Awards and was criticized by the press and studio executives for her lack of glamour. During the early 1940s, Ingrid Bergman proudly wore the same black dress to the Academy Awards two years in a row!

Rudi Gernreich mini dress

Minidress
Rudi Gernreich
1967-68
Bequest of the Rudi Gernreich Estate
G85.331.1

Rudi Gernreich is probably best known for his most provocative creations, such as the monokini or this military ensemble. Though Gernreich was definitely interested in pushing fashion boundaries, some of his more light-hearted designs indicate an interest in non-Western dress. A specific focus on Asia reveals itself in the kabuki, kimono and Japanese schoolgirl dresses, all of which are loosely abstracted versions of garments worn in Japan. Gernreich also produced collections based on Chinese opera costumes and traditional garments of Thailand.

Refashion

As a concept, fashion is based on the appeal of the new. Every season, silhouettes, colors and shapes are re-combined in an effort to create garments of such great appeal that you will replace (or at least supplement) your existing wardrobe. With the appearance of inexpensive, mass-market retailers that stock their racks with "fast fashions", it has become even easier to fill your closet with garments that resemble the latest runway offerings. Though the savvy shopper is often encouraged to pursue quality over quantity, it is far too easy for many shoppers to believe that new clothes = a new me.

In recent years, consumers and creators of fashion have begun to look at the issue of fashion consumption with a more critical eye. Some creators and producers of fashion struggle with what sustainability and eco-fashion can mean on a practical level through altering production methods or utilizing eco-friendly textiles. Many consumers have taken the issue into their own hands by purchasing only second-hand garments or sewing their own clothes. Others engage in wardrobe refashioning or remixing, a concept which promotes rethinking your closet by recombining or altering those garments you already own.

Refashioning or altering garments to update their style or function is not a new concept. Until the mid-to-late 20th century, most garments were costly enough that they were worn until no longer functional, passed on to someone else or refashioned. In the FIDM Museum collection, we have several examples of garments that have been reimagined to suit the changing needs of the wearer.

Day dress
1853-54
Gift of the Helen Larsen Estate
S2001.31.18A-C

Balenciaga

Popular conceptions of 1950s dress usually fixate on the defined waist and full skirt of Christian Dior's New Look. Though this silhouette dominated fashion for much of the decade, in 1957 a new shape appeared. Called the sack or chemise, this new dress skimmed and enveloped the body instead of enforcing an hourglass silhouette. Presented by both Christian Dior and Balenciaga, credit (and blame) for the innovation went to Balenciaga. Variations on the chemise soon appeared, including this belted Empire-waist version designed by Balenciaga.

Chemise dress
Balenciaga
1959-1963
Transfer from the Museum at FIT
Gift of the Estate of Anita Loos Emerson
S2004.291.15A-D

High Style: Betsy Bloomingdale and the Haute Couture video!

For those of you who asked for more video after watching The Couture Process, you are in luck today! The FIDM Video Gallery, where you will find various FIDM related videos, currently features a short segment titled "Opening Party: Betsy Bloomingdale Exhibition." The video features footage of the exhibition opening along with a short section of the documentary featured in High Style: Betsy Bloomingdale and the Haute Couture.

Copies of the catalog are still available, so if you'd like a copy, visit the FIDM Museum Shop. The catalog features beautiful images, including this image of a 1962 James Galanos day suit.

Day Suit
James Galanos for Amelia Gray
1962
77.116.10A-D
Button detail 77.116.10A-D

Coco Chanel

Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel (1883-1971) distinguished her design aesthetic through a strict insistence on comfortable, lightweight garments and a pared-down silhouette. Chanel's interest in simplicity is seen in her earliest millinery designs from the 1910s, which relied on a single, dramatic embellishment for decoration rather than the "assemblage of materials" then in vogue.¹ This interest in "less is more" also demonstrated itself in her earliest garment designs, ready-made suits and dresses often made from inexpensive wool jersey. These garments, almost the exact opposite of popular feminine fashions, launched Chanel's career. Throughout her career, Chanel adhered to the basic principle of crafting soft, lightweight fabrics into functional (yet luxurious) garments.

Though Chanel produced a variety of garment types throughout her career, one that reappeared over and over was the suit. Borrowing from menswear, Chanel created a feminine suit which offered ease of movement and capitalized on the implication of power inherent in the masculine suit. The basic, stripped down silhouette remained consistent, but the textiles changed with the times. It became a classic and functions today as shorthand for the designer herself.

Two-piece suit
Chanel
Spring 1964
Transfer from the Museum at FIT
S2004.291.24AB

Holly's Harp

Los Angeles based designer Holly Harp (1939-1995) began her fashion career in the late 1960s, designing theatrical, psychedelic clothing for iconic performers such as Janis Joplin and Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane. Harp's early designs were in tune with the catch-all aesthetic of late 1960s hippie fashions, and her garments quickly gained a reputation for "being wild and wonderful, feathers and fringe."¹ A maxi-dress worn by the singer-songwriter Dory Previn was typical of Harp's aesthetic. Constructed of an old table cloth, green doily and a piece of vintage satin, it was described as a "clothing mosaic."² In 1968, Harp opened Holly's Harp, a small boutique on the Sunset Strip where she sold both her ready-made and custom-designed garments.

Within a few years, Harp's designs had taken on a very different character. Instead of merely incorporating bits and pieces of the past by using vintage textiles, Harp started designing slinky, overtly sexy dresses and separates that referenced the glamour of Old Hollywood. Using silk textiles such as jersey, crepe and chiffon, Harp created what she called " fantasy-oriented...mood clothes."³ These mood clothes often referenced 1930s evening wear, as in the Holly's Harp bias-cut dress seen here.

Evening dress
Holly's Harp
c. 1978
Gift of Gloria Strasburger
99.655.3

Twiggy

The girl herself is the extravaganza that makes the look of the sixties.¹

Twiggy exploded onto the scene in 1966 though pure happenstance. While getting a haircut at the London salon Leonard of Mayfair, 16 year old Twiggy (then known as Leslie Hornby) was persuaded to try a short, boyish hairstyle. A promotional photo of the resulting haircut was displayed at the salon. Within a few days, a fashion editor for the British newspaper Daily Express spotted the photo and asked for the name of the young woman pictured. Twiggy met with the editor, who had a few more photos taken. A few weeks later, Twiggy's father opened a copy of the Daily Express to see his daughter named the "Face of 66."

In comparison to other models, Twiggy was tiny. Her short haircut and the doll-like black eyelashes she painted under her eyes reinforced an impression of childlike androgyny. This girlish self presentation perfectly suited the clothing of 1966, which focused on garments that deemphasized the female body. Photographs of Twiggy show her in childlike poses, such as on a child-size tricycle or throwing herself at the camera, arms outstretched. During interviews, Twiggy further reinforced her youthfulness by frequently responding to questions with "I dunno" and by fidgeting like a child.

Despite her apparent naivete, Twiggy knew that her celebrity wouldn't last forever. To capitalize on her stature, Twiggy (apparently at the suggestion of her father) started Twiggy Enterprises, which licensed her image to numerous manufacturers. Though a clothing line designed by Twiggy was a financial flop, Twiggy merchandise was lucrative. False-eye lashes, notebooks, pens, paper dolls, lunch boxes, wigs, dress-up kits and hosiery are only some of the Twiggy licensed items marketed to her fans in 1967-68.

Twiggy tights
Trimfit
1967
Gift of Stephanie Kline Morehouse
2004.148.5

Bonnie Cashin

Lots of designers start from scratch every six months or so, moving with the trends. Not Bonnie Cashin. Every season she adds a little to what has gone before--some new colors, an experimental shape. Nothing invalidates her previous season's clothes.¹

In her search for the "simple, elegant solution" to dressing, American designer Bonnie Cashin (1907-2000) developed a singular vision focused on practical wardrobes for busy, active women.² With an emphasis on uncluttered, clean lines, easy fit and functional details such as large pockets, Cashin's garments were designed with practicality, comfort and warmth in mind. Despite this quest for comfort, many of Cashin's creations were modern before their time.

Born in California, Cashin spent her early years working in a series of dressmaking establishments owned by her mother, Eunice. The skills Cashin acquired at her mother's side led to successive positions as a theatrical costumer, both in Los Angeles and New York. By 1937, Cashin's costume designs had brought her to the attention of Carmel Snow, the legendary editor of Harper's Bazaar. With Snow's assistance, Cashin became the head designer for Adler and Adler, a New York based coat and suit manufacturer. Cashin designed for Adler and Adler until 1942, when she returned to California as a contracted costume designer for Twentieth Century Fox. Cashin remained at Twentieth Century Fox until 1948. During her tenure at the studio, she costumed at least 30 films, including Anna and the King of Siam, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and The Snake Pit.

Cashin returned to New York City in 1949 and opened Bonnie Cashin Designs Inc. in 1952. From this point on, Cashin's aesthetic solidified into that which we recognize today: uncomplicated clothing for women on the go, fabricated in unusual materials. Cashin is perhaps best known for her extensive use of leather and suede, which she used as both trim and textile. Her use of leather and suede came about because of a collaboration between Cashin and Sills & Co., a New York leather goods manufacturer. Working for Sills & Co, Cashin designed garments made entirely of suede and leather and also garments made of wool, canvas or jersey with the smallest amount of leather trim. From 1962, Cashin also worked as the designer for Coach, where she applied the solid metal fasteners that would become associated with her name and the Coach brand.

As an avid traveler, Cashin was deeply interested in a wardrobe that could be adapted to a variety of climates and situations. Thus, she developed a system of layered dressing, which resulted in a modular wardrobe that could be mixed and matched at will. A Cashin "five-layer outfit" from 1970 consisted of knee-length pants worn with boots, layered under a hooded jersey dress, and a leather skirt, all topped by a wool coat. For additional warmth, a wool mantle could be added on top.

The two wool coats pictured here are excellent examples of Cashin's aesthetic. Inspired by the two-dimensional qualities of Asian garments such as the kimono, this style of unfitted coat was called the "Noh" coat. Roomy and warm, Noh coats were intended to be worn over other garments as part of Cashin's layered wardrobe.

Coat
Attributed to Bonnie Cashin
c. 1965
Museum Purchase
2005.5.25

Detail of 2005.5.25

Looking closely at the image above, you'll notice velvet ribbons interwoven with the wool yarn. This textile was designed by Scottish textile designer Bernat Klein, who introduced "ribbon tweed" in 1964. Klein's novel weave was a sensation and appeared on runways and in fashion editorials throughout the mid 1960s. Beginning in 1964, Cashin worked as the designer for the Scottish company Ballantyne of Peebles. This position required Cashin to spend at least part of each year living in Scotland, where she probably encountered Klein and his textiles. This coat was featured in a 2006 article on Bernat Klein and his textile designs in the Costume Society of America publication Dress.

The image below features a classic example of the Noh coat in woolly brown and black mohair, trimmed with black leather binding at hem, cuffs and collar. Certainly warm, the coat could be layered over other garments as part of a versatile, layered wardrobe. As fashion critic Bernadine Morris noted in 1968, "women buy Bonnie Cashin's clothes because they are cozy and comfortable, not because they bowl people over. In a day when most fashions seem stamped out by cooky cutters, hers look as if they had been touched by human hands."³

Coat
Bonnie Cashin for Sills & Co.
1953-1957
Gift of Elenore Berman
2004.832.2

Detail of 2004.832.2

1 Morris, Bernadine. "For Bonnie Cashin, It's a Time to Shine" New York Times 5 May 1972: 36.

2 Steele, Valerie. Women of Fashion: Twentieth-Century Designers. New York: Rizzoli, 1991: 143.

3 Morris, Bernadine. "Fashion Catches up to Cashin" New York Times 3 May 1968: 56.

Iverson, Stephanie Day. Practical Dreamer New York: Museum at FIT, 2000.

Would you believe it's paper?

As many of our readers may already know, season 6 of Project Runway was filmed at FIDM! In the most recent episode (season 6, episode 5), the contestants used pages from the Los Angeles Times to create "ripped from the headlines" garments. You can check out their creations here. As mentioned in the episode by Tim Gunn and Los Angeles Times fashion critic Booth Moore, paper garments have a prominent place in fashion history.

In March 1966, Scott Paper Company (now Kimberly-Clark) introduced a disposable paper dress called the "Paper Caper" as a promotional tool. Available via mail-order for $1.25, the sleeveless, A-line mini dress was available in two patterns: red bandana print or black and white Op-Art print. Though intended as an advertising gimmick, the paper dress somehow captured the feeling of the moment and became an instant success. Numerous designers and manufacturers picked up on the trend and produced all manner of paper garments, including jumpsuits, swimsuits, evening gowns and even underwear through 1968, when the fad lost momentum.

Though it seems almost counter-intuitive, the central appeal of the paper dress was its disposability. The paper dress was intended to be worn only a few times and then tossed in the garbage in favor of a new garment. Even if you wanted to wash and re-wear your paper dress, it was not recommended as they tended to disintegrate on contact with water. One advertisement from the Los Angeles Times even proclaimed, "they're guaranteed not to last."¹ Made from a fire-retardant, non-woven fiber called Kaycel, the paper dress also tied in with the overall interest in newly developed, man-made materials that was so prominent in early to mid 1960s fashion. Pushing this aesthetic interest even further were paper dresses that incorporated metallic or plastic elements.  

To some extent, buyers could personalize their paper dresses. With a snip of the scissors, a too long dress could be made shorter, though not longer. Though most paper dresses were printed with very contemporary patterns, some manufacturers sold plain white paper dresses that could be individually decorated. Given the short turnaround in manufacturing time, the paper dress also served as a perfectly blank vehicle for self-promotion or marketing and corporations such as Air India and Time magazine used paper garments as an advertising medium. In November 1966, Andy Warhol decorated a plain paper dress with paper bananas and paint during an event at the Abraham & Straus department store in Brooklyn. Lesser known artists and graphic designers also got into the act, as demonstrated by the "Mystic Eye" paper dress seen below. It was one in a series of 4 "Poster" dresses created by the graphic designer Harry Gordon.

The FIDM Museum has a large collection of paper dresses. In addition to the Harry Gordon dress featured below, we've posted two other paper dresses for your viewing pleasure! How do they compare to the dresses created by the Project Runway crew? We'd love to know what you think!

"Mystic eye" paper dress
Harry Gordon
1968
Museum Purchase
2004.5.35A

Poster Dress packaging insert
1968
2004.5.35D

Checkerboard paper dress
Styled by Sue
c.1967
Gift of Paul Kaufman
2001.404.1

Side view of 2001.404.1

Newsprint paper dress
Wastebasket Boutique
1966-1969
Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Alfred Himelson
97.350.1

1 Would you believe Paper? Advertisement. Los Angeles Times 6 Oct. 1966: WS9.

Palmer, Alexandra. "Paper Clothes: Not Just a Fad." Dress and Popular Culture Ed. Patricia A. Cunningham and Susan Voso Lab. Ohio: Popular Press, 1991. 85-105.