CLOTHING AS ART!

 

Top of the Day is the Alexander McQueen & Damian Hirst Scarves collaboration, butterflies & skulls. Alexander was an avant-garde fashion designer & Damian an artist who pushes the boundary of what art can be. This collaboration is such a delicate beauty & so surprising if you know they work. Please check out the YouTube video below that shows the movement of the fabric on actual people!

We saw Yves St. Laurent's tribute to Piet Mondrian's colorful forms & artwork from 1965. Mondrian's original painting and the inspiration for the dress is Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Grey and Blue from 1921 and is included in the links. Mondrian painted so many similar works, but this is the one that Yves St. Laurent said he used primarily. 

Next we forayed into another Guerra de la Paz piece called Oasis. They created an Eden in found clothing. Whether you saw socks, large scarves or Star Trek tribbles as one of our group mused -- to many a chuckle of recognition, we all wanted to wander in this lush fabric meadow complete with bubbling fabric brook. See the video link for an actual experiential version. 

We took a gander at Grace Kelly's couture wedding gown from 1956. Many websites listed MGM studios as the designer but Helen Rose who won an Academy Award for Vincente Minelli's The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) & Susan Hayward vehicle, I'll Cry for Tomorrow (1955.) 

If you can, please check out the video from brilliant Professor Amanda Hallay -- it's an eleven minute video but worth the watch. It explains other MGM films where the flowers came from & the design of the prayer book that Princess Grace carried during the ceremony and many other wonderful tidbits. Greg added many more photos of the pieces of the dress as well. 

Finally we took a look at auteur designer Eiko Ishioka's Gustav Klimt inspired costume from the film Bram Stoker's Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola. Eiko was a breathtaking designer who drew from modern & classic sources as well as a wide variety of cultural references to create her luminous designs. Included are some of the sources she used. More of her work, true art-in-clothing / clothing-as-art, to come! 

LINKS: 

Guerra de la Paz, Oasis, 2006

Alexander McQueen & Damian Hirst Collaboration

AMAAAZING fashion Prof. Amanda Hallay about Grace Kelly's dress; the detail & the references she gives are incredible. (Longish video) 

Images from the show:

• Alexander McQueen x Damien Hirst. Photo: Sølve Sundsbø -- link --
• Yve St. Laurent, Mondrian Collection, 1965 -- link --
• Yve St. Laurent, Mondrian Collection, 1965 -- link --
• Yve St Laurent -- link --
• Piet Mondrian, Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Grey and Blue, 1921 -- link --
• Piet Mondrian, Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Grey and Blue, 1921 -- link --
• Guerra de la Paz, Oasis, 2006 -- link --
• Grace Kelly Wedding Dress -- link --
• Grace Kelly Wedding dress, 1956 -- link --
• "Juliet cap" to hold veil; pearls, lace & wreath of paper orange blossoms. -- link --
• Seamstresses re-embroider antique Brussels lace on bodice to hide seams; hundreds of seed pearls -- link --
• Veil to show her face; Helen Rose, designer -- link --
• Grace Kelly Wedding Dress, Philadelphia Museum of Art -- link --
• Eiko Ishioka, Bram Stoker's Dracula, 1992 -- link --
• Eiko Ishioka, Klimt inspired gown, Dracula -- link --
• Eiko Ishioka, Klimt & Romanian military influence -- link --
• Eiko Ishioka, Klimt gown -- link --

The Chat:

09:36:06 From Beth & Jerry, Phoenix to Everyone : paintingtogogh.com

09:42:11 From Trish - VA near DC to Everyone : I wish I had a butterfly scarf, too!!

09:44:51 From Kristen Buhlmann to Everyone : Here is Celeste Barber. She gets her husband to take part as well :)

https://www.boredpanda.com/celebrity-instagram-parody-celeste-barber/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

10:02:45 From Beth & Jerry, Phoenix to Everyone : I want to kick this one too!!!!

10:03:17 From Kristen Buhlmann to Everyone : for me the mushrooms are the taller vertical green things with white cap & red dot :)

10:04:01 From Beth & Jerry, Phoenix to Everyone : Kiki - Those look like cactus to me

10:04:23 From Kristen Buhlmann to Everyone : I see that too now Beth!  I khow what you are talking aboot ;)

10:05:42 From Beth & Jerry, Phoenix to Everyone : the laundry room

10:06:49 From Kristen Buhlmann to Everyone : is this Horst P Horst?

10:07:42 From Vera Campbell to Everyone : I am back!!!

10:10:11 From Vera Campbell to Everyone : She is balancing a vase on her head!

10:10:24 From Trish - VA near DC to Everyone : And the light fixture makes her look a bit like she’s wearing a Vegas show girl head dress

10:10:35 From Trish - VA near DC to Everyone : Vera we got it at the same time!

10:12:56 From Vera Campbell to Everyone : The dress is beautiful! Anyone who acted with Gary Cooper is alright with me!

10:26:58 From Trish - VA near DC to Everyone : The breast plate piece makes me think of the Ferrari logo

10:27:41 From Vera Campbell to Everyone : A collar?

10:29:30 From Vera Campbell to Everyone : It looks like a sash like on a Japanese kimono?

10:30:01 From Trish - VA near DC to Everyone : Vera, I agree, an obi.  That was the first thing I thought, too.