FIDM Museum Blog

Top five posts of 2011--“The Art of Dressing Has Never Been Manifested with So Much Brilliancy”: Fashion and the Paris Exposition of 1900

 

 

The most popular post of 2011 is truly deserving of this honor! Associate Curator Christina Johnson's investigation into a a 1900 gown in our collection and its relationship to the Paris Exposition of 1900 is a joy to read.

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Did you know that working at a museum requires ace detective skills? In this blog post, Associate Curator Christina Johnson describes her research on a evening gown in our collection. This research, aka sleuthing, led to a wealth of knowledge about the gown itself, its wearer and the context in which it was created.

Evening gown
1900
2005.842.22
Gift of Madge Baker
FIDM Museum Collection

My research began with the evening gown you see above, donated to the FIDM Museum in 2005. The gown is part of a collection of about 25 garments and accessories dating from the 1890s to the 1940s worn by Ida Irwin Jones and her daughter Katharine. The items were donated by Katharine’s daughter, Madge Baker. The original wearer of this evening gown must have been Ida who would have been about 28 years old at the time.

Top five posts of 2011--Day ensemble, 1870-72

 

Our third most popular post of 2011 features a striking green and black day ensemble from the early 1870s. If you've been following our countdown, this ensemble may look familiar. That's because yesterday's post on 1880s bustles included a link to this post. In coloration, it is reminiscent of our Madame Olympe reception gown.

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Day ensemble
Silk taffeta
1870-72
Gift of Anne Stampfer
94.661.1A-D

About 1868, the crinoline silhouette went out of style. The smooth, distinctly bell-like shape of the crinoline supported skirt began to change form, with the fullness moving towards the back of the shirt. This new skirt shape required a different kind of understructure: the bustle. Essentially a cage crinoline cut in half, the bustle supported the back of the skirt, while leaving the front unsupported. In the early years of the 1870s, the bustle usually extended from the waist to about the mid-calf. A c. 1871 bustle of cotton with metal boning can be found here. The bustle was fashionable until about 1875, when it went out of style as skirts were fitted closer to both the front and back of the body. Beginning about 1883, the bustle enjoyed another round of popularity until finally going entirely out of fashion about 1890.

Top five posts of 2011--Lucile

 

As 2011 comes to a close, we wanted to take a look back at our most popular blog posts of the year. For the next five days, we'll repost the top posts of the year, beginning at number five. Our fifth most popular post features London-born couturier Lucile. Originally published in February, this entry includes a pink Lucile confection, c. 1917.

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As a child, Lucile Sutherland (1863-1935) designed and sewed clothing for both herself and her sister Elinor. Years later, Lucile's hobby would become the foundation of an internationally successful business. After the dissolution of her first marriage in 1888, Lucile was left with no means of supporting herself and her young daughter. Lacking any other professionally viable skills, Lucile turned to dressmaking. At first, Lucile worked as a society dressmaker in London under her married name, Mrs. James Wallace. Her business expanded rapidly and by 1894, she operated under the name Maison Lucile, eventually incorporating as Lucile Ltd. in 1903. By this time, Lucile's reputation was international. In 1907, the American edition of Pearson's Magazine encouraged all American travelers to visit Lucile Ltd. when in London, as the proprietress was "pleased to open wide her doors to all Americans--even if they have no intention of purchasing."¹ Within a few years, Lucile would open international branches of her store to fulfil the demand for her designs. Lucile Ltd. New York opened in 1910, followed by a Paris store in 1911 and a Chicago store in 1915.

Lucile
c. 1917
Gift of Anonymous Donor
91.40.5

Johann Hummel court suit, c. 1810-14

 

Since our FABULOUS! exhibition opened in September, we've featured selected exhibition highlights on our blog. As FABULOUS! closes tomorrow, this post will be our final installment in the series. Want to revisit favorite pieces from the exhibition? Click here for a complete listing of FABULOUS! blog posts.

This final FABULOUS! post features a stunning early 19th century court suit with a fascinating provenance. Consisting of a jacket and breeches of aubergine silk velvet decorated with silk and metallic embroidery and a cream silk faille vest, this court suit would be a highlight of our collection with or without a known provenance. But its excellent condition and documented provenance make it even more historically important. Created late in the reign of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (r. 1804-1814/15) by handloom weavers and master embroiders, its uncut voided velvet with gold, silver, rhinestone, and sequin decoration is truly regal. It was donated to the FIDM Museum in 2008 by the family of Johann Hummel's great-great grandson, Michael Hummel. We featured a glimpse of this court suit on our blog in 2009, a few months after it was donated.

Court suit
Uncut voided silk velvet, silk faille, silk embroidery floss, gold & silver embroidery purl & frieze, rhinestone & metal sequins
c. 1810-14
Paris, France
Gift of Yvonne Hummel
2008.947.2A-C

1890s cabinet card and cape

 

Cabinet card
1896-1898
Give of Steven Porterfield
2009.897.27

Whoa! What happened to this cabinet card?!? Browsing through our collections management database, I was struck by the unusual orientation of this image, not to mention the sitter's striking hat and cape. I checked with our resident photography expert and she informed me that novelty photo presentations were quite common by the late 1890s. Then, as now, savvy businesspeople used novelty to beguile their customers. A photo with this orientation would have been displayed in a photo album or in a diamond shaped frame. The relatively large size of a cabinet card, usually 4 ½” by 7”, meant that facial features and other details were easily distinguishable from a distance. This made them popular for table-top or wall display, though they were also stored in family albums.

Alexander McQueen Peacock Dress

 

Alexander McQueen's famed peacock evening dress, currently on display in FABULOUS!, is a crowd favorite. Visitors routinely beeline straight for the frothy dress, which resides on a rotating platform in the third and final gallery of the exhibition. We commissioned it from the Alexander McQueen atelier in 2010 and it took about 7 months to create. It is one of only three extant versions of the dress. And do you see those shoes? These replica shoes, based on those worn with the peacock dress during its runway presentation, were created by our mountmaker extraordinaire.

Evening dress
Fall/Winter 2008-9
Commissioned 2010
Alexander McQueen
Museum Commission
Funds provided by Karen Coombs-Jordan
2010.5.73

Madeleine Vionnet evening gown

 

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

The first time I saw this Madeleine Vionnet halter evening gown, I had a hard time reconciling it with my knowledge of Vionnet's work. When I think of Vionnet, ingenious construction techniques are first in my mind, not applied decoration. Tucks, pleats, twists, innovative seaming and bias cut fabrics, often applied to gossamer weight chiffon, are both the technical foundations of her work and frequently the sole decorative elements. Don't get me wrong--I like a shiny sequin or glittery rhinestone as much as the next person. But I've always appreciated the deceptive simplicity of Vionnet's work and the way in which her unornamented designs force you to focus on the basic elements of her work: textile and construction.

Blue jeans

 

Blue jeans, almost universally shortened to jeans, are the archetypal garment of the twentieth century. The name itself comes from a textile used to make workwear trousers worn by sailors in sixteenth century Genoa, Italy. An inexpensive and sturdy blend of cotton, wool and linen, it was called Génes after the French name for Genoa. Génes was anglicized to jean when the textile was imported to England, where it was widely used and manufactured. Jean evolved and by the eighteenth century was made entirely of cotton and used primarily for workwear. Pants made from jean fabric were commonly referred to as "jean pants," the origin of the contemporary name.

Somewhat confusingly, today's jeans are actually made from denim, a sturdy cotton twill weave textile. More durable than jean fabric, denim might be an anglicized name for a French textile called serge de nîmes. It has also been suggested that a canny eighteenth century British manufacturer applied a French-sounding name to his indigo dyed cotton textile, hoping to improve its prestige.

Denim and the particular style of pants called jeans, relatively slim, ankle-length trousers worn for work or casual dress, converged in the early 1870s. A Nevada tailor named Jacob Davis designed and made a pair of work pants with riveted pockets. The pants, made from blue denim or cotton duck, sold readily. Davis realized that it would be necessary to protect his riveted pockets with a patent, but couldn't afford the $68 application fee. Davis wrote to Levi Strauss, his San Francisco based textile supplier, with a suggestion that Strauss back the patent. Working together, the two businessman applied for a patent for denim "waist trousers" with riveted pockets. The patent was awarded in 1873, and Levi Strauss & Co. began manufacturing the new product. Davis, the actual inventor of waist trousers, oversaw the Levi Strauss & Co. manufacturing facility.

Cut-off jean shorts
Levi-Strauss & Co.
1975-1995
Gift of Dorothy Washington Sorensen
2010.1110.390

Giorgio di Sant' Angelo, Fall 1969

 

Klimt dress
Giorgio di Sant' Angelo
Fall 1969
Gift of Eleanor Phillips Colt
95.193.2

Like this patchwork evening gown, Giorgio di Sant' Angelo's (1933-89) professional background was an unconventional mix. Born in Florence, Italy, Sant' Angelo was raised on his family's ranch in Argentina. He studied law at an Argentinian university, along with architecture and industrial design in either Italy or Argentina. Sant' Angelo also practiced a variety of artistic disciplines, including ceramics, painting and sculpture. His artistic skill led to short-term study with Picasso and to Sant' Angelo winning a Walt Disney animation apprenticeship at the company's California studios in 1962. Unhappy in Los Angeles, Sant' Angelo decamped for New York after only a few weeks.

A-muse-ing Fashions

 

Today's post was written by our Assistant Registrar Dani Killam. In her post, Dani explores the interplay between fashion designers and artists in two vibrantly colorful pieces from our collection: an Adrian blouse and a Halston dress. The Halston dress featured in this post is currently on exhibit in FABULOUS! and both are featured in the exhibition catalogue.

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Though created 27 years apart, our Gilbert Adrian (1903-1959) blouse and Roy Halston (1932-1990) dress share a common theme prevalent within fashion design during the twentieth century. Adrian’s blouse showcases Salvador Dalí’s (1904-1989) shattered rock motif, while Halston’s garment is covered with Andy Warhol’s 1964 Flowers print. These two pieces from the FIDM Museum collection exemplify the symbiotic relationship and transformation of inspirational role from fashion to art, and art to fashion.

In preceding centuries artists were intrigued by the fashions they observed, absorbing details and angles of sartorial wonder that we in the museum field greatly benefit from today. The significance of such relations between artist and fashion may best be represented by French painter Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721). The box pleats located at the center back of a dress à la française later became known as “Watteau pleats” due to the artist’s multiple representations of this fashionable construction. In Watteau's painting The Two Cousins, the the artist's namesake pleat is clearly portrayed. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Franz-Xaver Winterhalter, James Tissot, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, and Edouard Manet are only a few of many artists who also produced artwork portraying dress as their main focal point. Clearly, fashion has a long history of inspiring art.

Blouse
Spring/Summer 1947
Gilbert Adrian, Designer
Salvador Dalí, Textile Artist
Enka rayon
Museum Purchase
2008.25.10