On Art

...skewed on the bias, which made clothes hang in elegant folds and allowed for the supple movements of a good figure One can only marvel at a mind that could solve all the inherent engineering problems posed by such a technique, not to mention her ability to construct bodices that barely covered unbras-stered breasts without losing control of them Sur geners, Vionnet is said to have been uncopvable, but here is a metaphor for the Depression I will never again be able to look at the satin decolletages m old Harlow movies without thinkma of her Overlapping this innovator was Scfnaparelli, whose work is in its unattractiveness equally characteristic of its time Particulaily prominent in the late '30s, she was admired for her sense of proportion, her use of startling color?shocking pink" was her invention—and her sense of fun Except for a handsome evening coat made of a material patterned by different sized squares quartered in prime colors and edged with a chain stitch, her creations are as disturbing as those of the artists from whom she derived much of her inspiration The kooky side of Surrealism is very evident, as typified by Dali, who designed some of her fabrics, and Cocteau, who drew ornaments for her A gray sheath is made "amusing" by colossal leg-o'-mutton sleeves, six pockets that resemble hunks of rococo pink and gold china cling to the torso of a black coat, and so on Clever trimmings and notions were her thing, a noteworthy example, not shown here, was a lamb chop clamped to one of her silly little hats She appears to have been designing for drag queens At the same time, she was a pioneer in the use of synthetic fibers—if that can be considered a plus—and she made good use of the zipper THE SHOW'S visitors, themselves a fashion footnote, stimulated thoughts about developments since World War II It takes a specialist to pronounce Pans dead, yet any shopper can see that the willingness of its designers to peddle their names so promiscuously is not a good sign In any case, fashion seems to have done little since the '40s but recapitulate the past, except perhaps for Courreges' short tumcs worn with boots His contribution to the '60s was most unjustly eclipsed by the vulgarity of Mary Quant and her miniskirt Today, it looks as if nobody can make up his mind even about what period to revive, and, as design correspondents have observed, women (and men) appear to be incapable of dressing coherently Fifth Avenue, for instance, offers nothing other than a collection of novelties and accessories—mostly counterculture inspirations—in search of a basic form to attach themselves to Delusions of individuality that border on the paranoid now seem to be the main fashion drive, resulting m a strange conjunction of chaos and uniformity Among the interesting combinations seen in the audience at the Met were a cape worn with sneakers, several leather jackets adorned with chains, their thrust weakened somewhat by the carrying of umbrellas, and a particularly striking outfit comprising a floor-length coat in maroon with matching tam-o'shanter worn over braided hair (the kicker was a pair of white summer sandals) What everyone was getting out of the show remains a mystery to me, unless they were finding other disparate elements to add to their sartorial confusion The most disinterested viewer could not fail to see how dependent the past geniuses of design were on a vast labor force with matchless skills and remarkable eyesight Aside from the myriad seed pearls and sequins—some of them not much larger than a letter in this typeface —the workmanship is worthy of a Pharaoh's burial robes Consequently, the prediction of Bill Blass, a contemporary designer, that the collection will have "the most shattering effect on fashion," is perplexing Even if enough craftsmen capable of these arts could still be found, there would remain the problem of fabrics For the modern textile industry prefers synthetic fibers that can better sustain the beating administered by high-powered machines capable of turmng out large bolts at great speed And the beauty of the clothes in this show stems not only from their skilled handwork but from their use of materials of natural origin, without which they would be nothing...

...On Art CLOTHES MAKE THE MET BY VIVIEN RAYNOR ONLY WHEN clothes are old do they show up in the enclaves of art, and then usually to demonstrate a nostalgic, histonca] or anthropological point, or to serve as examples of a craft, most often one that has died Besides doing all this, the Metropolitan Museum's The Tens, The Twenties and The Thirties (through March 3) questions the intellectual snobbery that excludes fashion design from the fine arts The very term "fashionable," one of whose meanings is "contemporary," is a pejorative when applied to painting or sculpture Yet the shapes, colors and textures of clothing are an equally important index of the human condition, and the exhibition catalogue offers a definition of fashion that would do as well for art "[It is] a social contract a group agreement as to what the new ideal should be Designers keep proposing something new, but whether the ideas catch on depends on whether the society that counts accepts or rejects them " I find it hard to understand why such a revealing medium of expression is always relegated to the women's pages The current display, subtitled Inventive Clothes, features the work of Poiret (1904-25), Callot (1895-1937), Vionnet (1912-39), Chanel (1915-71), and Sclnaparelh (1928-58)—the dates refer to the years they were active—and consists of theatrically lighted dummies arrayed m representative costumes It is not a staggering visual experience, mainly because old garments out of context always look sad, like animals in zoos But the museum, in conjunction with Diana Vreeland of the Costume Institute, has compensated as best it can with period music and paintings, including a Pene du Bois and a Van Dongen The catalogue—a most satisfactory 50 cents' worth, by the way—also gives a rough idea of what was going on at the time It cites the Wright Brothers and Igor Stravinsky, for instance, as the headliners of the '10s, along with Fauvssm, Cubism and World War I The show begins with the silhouette that replaced the overstuffed hourglass shape of the fin-de-siecle woman This was as radical a change as the neoclassic simplicity that followed the bewigged excesses of the 18th century, and it was accomplished without the help of a revolutionary puige Monstrous hairstyles padded by ' rats' and hats like chafing dishes filled with birds and fruit yielded to small neat heads topped by turban-like millinery adorned with a single aigrette The new outline tended to slant outward, often accented by kimono-hke sleeves, reaching its maximum width at the elbows and waist, then tapermg in to hobble skirts that just cleared the feet People wer-dancmg to ragtime and tango rhythms, colors were getting brighter, and, though there were still traces of the Japanoisene that had affected Toulouse-Lautrec et al, the Arabian Nights atmosphere conjured up by the Ballets Russes reigned For the first time since the early 1800s, women's clothes bore some relation to their figures Poiret is credited with creating the modern, slim female, yet he was not exactly a functional designer A man of exotic tastes, he went in for Tuikish trousers and "minaret" dresses that sometimes involved a lampshade-shaped surcoat over, a long skirt almost too narrow to walk in A creator of theatrical costumes—specifically for Mata Han—he saw "each of his clients as a leading lady in a pageant," with himself as the leading man It was, nevertheless, a beautiful decade and one with a strong sense of new freedoms, especially that of being able to breathe—corsets having been eliminated and the brassiere invented Fashion seems to have been so caught up in the false euphoria brought on by science (this was the heyday of HG Wells) that for once it failed to live up to its reputation for prophecy There is no hint va these perfectly proportioned clothes of imminent catastrophe The convulsions appealed in the styles conceived after World War I, such as cropped hair and cver-nsing hemlines No hard and fast rules have been laid down about the symbolism of fashion, but the English historian James Laver has proposed several tantalizing conncctions, including that between the hardness ot male headgear and the male dominance of society He also suggested that the shorter the skirts the tighter the money The big message of the selections from the '20s, however, is female emancipation Rebecca West recalled that in her youth, before World War I, suffragettes were known by the tousledness of the hair Their postwar beneficiaries, in contrast, wore hair shingled into smooth or marcelled caps The new working woman was dressed by Chanel, whose suits were as devastating in their simplicity as the clothes worn by Chinese workers, if more decorative Her basic loose squarish shape, made up in jersey and soft tweeds, has lasted nearly 60 years and shows no sign of disappearing—at least from the conventional world Chauvinists, incidentally, may assign to her most of the blame for getting women into slacks, shirts and sweaters For originality and a truly sculptural understanding of female anatomy, Vionnet is really the most interesting of all the artists represented in the show Or maybe she just strikes a sympathetic chord now because of the ominously '30s-hke lassitude that afflicts our time Most garments are cut from fabric laid out on the straight, with warp and woof running horizontally and vertically She cut from materia...