The
exhibition was opened in the new Anna Wintour Costume Institute at the Museum,
and what better way to debut a new space, than by having a plethora of
beautiful gowns and exquisite tailoring.
Charles
James was an Anglo-American dress, described as America’s first couturier, and
his work in the 1940s and 1950s was sought after by prominent society ladies
and high profile figures.
Not
having had any formal training, his work came from his eye for creating
beautifully sculptured pieces from unconventional pattern cutting.
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The
exhibition took place in several locations in the museum and although you had
to navigate through several museum halls to get there, it was worth it for each
room had its own bonuses.
The exhibition
was set up so that the garments had accompanying videos playing on screens at
the side of either individual gowns or clusters of garments. These videos were what really brought the
exhibition to life, as there was a short animation of each piece, taking you
through the process of how it was made.
It was a much cleverer and clearer way of showing this as you could see
the finished garment deconstructed into flat pattern pieces which once they
were all displayed, were then reformed back into the garment in the order in
which they would have been sewn. You
could understand the amazing innovation and genius of Charles James in being
able to see how these odd-shaped patterns (for the most part) fitted together
in extraordinary ways and produced perfectly fitting gowns and coats and
suits. The latter were exhibited
together, so each set of videos related to a small collection, but with the
gowns, each one was set up for a more in-depth examination.
The
gowns were of more complex construction, and each gown was set up with its own
camera, which scanned its length and a video was projected of the image
building up. Once this was done, the 3-D
image of the entire gown was shown which was then deconstructed so that each
stage of creation could be seen. It was
amazing to see the more complicated processes in creating these pieces, and
seeing how the addition of weights and boning creating line and shape (all
unseen beneath the finished dress). Photographs
of the dresses being worn by the rich and famous taken by Cecil Beaton were
also displayed.
One
of the most beautifully constructed dresses was the Clover Leaf gown, with a
beautiful lace embellishment that covered the skirt and reach up and around the
bodice. A detailed examination of how
the shape was conceived and executed could be seen and the work that had gone
into the creation of such a splendid gown, considered by James as the
culmination of his career, could be marvelled at.
For
anyone interested in pattern cutting and dressmaking, the exhibition was like
the Mother Ship calling you home.
Accompanied by a weighty coffee table book which I will review tomorrow you could take in the splendour of fashion of a bygone era and immerse
yourself in how wonderful clothes can be.
All photographs
reproduced with kind permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
