Paris Details
Monday, January 14, 2013
Inspiration for Dress #353
This is the fence that inspired Dress #353 on my 365 Creative Dresses project.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Paris. Fashion. The Impressionists.
Paris. Fashion. Art. The current
exhibit at the Musee d’Orsay in
Paris is a celebration of fashion as painted by the Impressionists. A grand selection
of Impressionist masterpieces plus clothing from Palais Garnier and Musee des
Artes Decoratif and other fashion
museums come together for one of the best exhibits in years at D’Orsay. Of
course, I’m extremely interested in fashion (My Year-Long Creative
Project) and the Impressionists captured day-to-day fashion in the last
half of the 19th century. Degas, Monet, Manet, Caillebotte, Renior, Cassatt, and
others are well represented. In my opinion, James Tissot and his masterworks steal
the show. His painting show the fabrics
and the fashions in a manner that makes you feel that you could reach out and
fondle the fabric.
Garments of the era are displayed next to the works. It
strikes me immediately that these women were quite short, and oh, my goodness,
what tiny waists they had. I realize they were strapped into corsets and made
the best (or least) of what they had. I’m sure the corsets were not nearly as
comfortable as today’s Spanx.
In one case, the
dress worn by the model (Prospérie, wife of the artist) for In The Greenhouse (1881) is displayed. Albert Bartholomé painted the portrait of
his wife in the polka dot dress in 1881. After her death in 1887, he abandoned
painting, took up sculpture and
preserved the dress, almost as a relic.
I especially enjoyed the detail on the gowns. Whereas I may
have benefit of technology in sewing machines and computerized embroidery
machines, the detail work on these gowns
was all done by hand: pom-poms, lace,
soutache, beading, fringe, ribbons, pleats and even tiny yo-yos. Lovely
details! Appliqués. Embroidery. Oh, my. There was not one dress that I
didn’t see something that could be interpreted and used on a modern dress. Several items inspired me to think that if I
changed this a little, and did that, I could make a whatever, and wear it now.
My favorite garments? Prospérie Bartholomé’s
gown. James Tissot’ s pleated white dress with yellow ribbons, (the same dress
in two different works), the colorful shawl shown with a tan dress, the
summery stripes on sheer cotton, several more of the polka dots, and most of
all, a tan dress with black soutache trim.
The exhibit is open here from now until the 20th of
January, 2013. If you love fashion and the
Impressionists, make every effort to see this show. The exhibtion will travel to the Met and to Chicago in 2012. However, if you do come to
Paris, let me know, and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee or a glass of wine
to hear your impressions of the show. In the meantime, many of the details and the
inspirations I took away with me will show up on my little dresses.
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