The Beautiful Era of Fashion as Art

Paris 1913, and the fashion magazine of choice for the city’s bright young things was the Journal des Dames et des Modes. A century on, us lucky Dublin dwellers have the opportunity to see what was so inspiring about this short lived publication. Costumes Parisiens: Fashion Plates from 1912-1914, currently running at The Chester Beatty Library, showcases the exquisite prints that illustrated the magazine during those last years of what was known as the Belle Époque.

Edith Dunn – already a renowned collector of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings before she became the second wife of Chester Beatty – persuaded her future husband to acquire the Journal, among other fashion periodicals.  Many of the almost 150 prints bought by him are now on show in the Library that bears his name and are testament to how these illustrations were the interface between fashion and art. The work of artists including Erte, Georges Lepape, Louis Barbier and Paul Iribe featured prominently in the pages of the Journal, indicating that fashion was an important element of the whole decorative arts movement.

What do these charming prints tell us about how the fashionable women of a century ago dressed?  Back then, the most important accessory for a woman enamoured of haute couture was a wealthy husband, or papa, linked on her arm. According to the Library’s research, the ladies-who-lunched during that pre-war period could spend thousands of pounds per month on the latest fashions. Chester Beatty’s first wife, Ninette, is reckoned to have spent an average of $850 a month in 1910 on the family’s wardrobe, with even the servants decked out in specially designed livery. 

Bakst's costumes for Ballet Russes

As for the garments, the most fashionable silhouette of the Belle Époque was a flowing, draped line which was radically different from the  corseted, restricted style of the late Edwardian era.
Paul Poiret, the first couturier to use draping in his designs, remarked that the exaggerated 'S' shape of the late 19^th century made a woman “look like she was hauling a trailer.”  He took credit that his empire line dresses “freed the bust” and negated the torture of the whalebone corset. 

There are four actual garments on display in the Library's exhibition which show not only that draping (often with small pieces of lead in the hemline to make dresses hang beautifully) but also the intricate beading and embroidery worked into luxury fabrics such as silk and cashmere.   During these years just before the tragedy of the Great War, wealthy women would have changed their clothing three or four times a day. A short black and white film which forms part of the exhibition shows a young woman in her boudoir getting dressed. The grandest occasion was most likely a trip to the opera or ballet,

and the exotic evening fashions paid more than a passing nod to Diagilev’s Ballet Russes which had arrived in Paris to great sensation in 1909. 

Along with Leon Bakst’s costume designs for the ballet, there was also the influence of even farther East, in particular, les Japonais. 

Japanese posters, which had wrapped many of the object d’art shipped in boxes from the East,  had already inspired many of the post-Impressionist artists with a seemingly more simple approach to drawing and painting. The most recognisable inspiration in  fashion terms was the kimono.  Basically constructed from rectangular pieces of embroidered silk or satin, the kimono was not only worn  as an indoor garment in it's original design, but also became the desired shape for what is this writer’s favourite garment of the Belle

Époque – the opera coat.  Because columnar evening dresses were of flimsy silk or muslin, it was necessary to wrap up for an evening out in one of these coats – also known as cocoon coats – which were often fur lined.  That kimono shape of inverted triangle – broader at the shoulder and tapering down to a narrower hem – is also apparent in the fashionable coat shape of winter 2013 (referred to recently in The Guardian’s fashion pages as ovoid), but in a much shorter version.

What hasn’t changed either is that the biggest buyers of haute couture these days remain the extremely wealthy with a loaded husband or father in tow– currently, Saudi wives and princesses. But for anyone with an interest in fashion’s ephemeral history, or just needing to escape the noise and bustle of Christmas shoppers on the city streets, a visit to the Chester Beatty’s Costumes Parisiens is a calm, informative haven.  And totally free.

Costumes Parisiens continues at the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle, Dublin 2 until 30^th March 2014   www.cbl.ie

Colour blocking - summer trend, or art for all ages?

 Style isn’t all waffling on about frocks. Which is why Looking Our Best wants to demonstrate links with what is touted as the big fashion trend of summer, i.e. colour blocking, with two fascinating art exhibitions she visited over the weekend. A kind of brag post, if you will.
Vivid colours are something a lot of women of a certain age are wary of. We generally prefer to see them on generously proportioned canvases rather than our own ample, mid-life bodies. So here comes the art history bit.  There are intrinsic links between fashion and art - although most of us would be taxed to find one between little Cheryl Cole and the Aesthetic Movement of the latter half of the 19^th century.  But the primary colours of her much commented on ensemble of coral top, turquoise waist clinching belt, and violet trousers (worn for her arrival in Los Angeles last month) 

came to mind when LOB visited The Cult of Beauty, a major exhibition currently running (until mid July) in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The labyrinthine interior of the V & A proved a haven away from the torrential rain last Friday – and also kept LOB a safe distance from the summer sales. This exhibition, funnily enough, features the work of artists who also wanted an escape – in this case the ‘ugliness and materialism’ of Victorian England.  It includes many of the paintings of the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which capture the Art for Art’s Sake mission of the Aesthetic Movement. Prominently featured are heavily romanticized portraits of dreamy young women, clothed in jewel coloured dresses of a vaguely medieval style such as in the painting, ‘Laus Veneris’ by Edward Burne-Jones (1868).

Several of the artists went so far as to design flowing gowns, made to be worn without restricting corsets, and which draped luxuriously.  Like Cole and her extended big hair, the pale young models in these pictures have abundant tresses. But again it was colour, as much as quantity, that inspired the painters who became fixated on ethereal redheads such as Lizzie Siddal and Jane Morris. The peacock, with its vivid blue and gold decorative plumage, became a recurring symbol, and can be seen in the wallpapers and textiles of William Morris, and also the signature prints in kimonos and embroidered bags beginning to appear in Liberty. LOB of course can never quite resist the temptation of any gallery shop and the V & A has a blue, pure silk, peacock feather print ‘Hera’ scarf from Liberty as part of the exhibition. 

The Regent Street store itself currently has up to 60% off its classic scarves - but they are still pricey little gems (the cheapest one spotted was £49). 


Back in Dublin on Sunday, LOB had a look at a new exhibition of the work one of her favourite artists. The Art Books of Henri Matisse (running at the Chester Beatty Library until 25^th September) features much of his later works, including illustrations for a limited edition of Ulysses. The etchings, with their simple lines and flowing forms, undoubtedly inspired subsequent fashion illustrators, and also the cut-outs he used when he became to ill to paint or draw. 

 But it’s his signature cobalt blues, along with vivid greens and hot tangerines, that dazzle the viewer. 

For a moment, LOB felt she was standing at the window of a sun soaked villa in Nice, rather than an artificially lit museum in grey, rainy Dublin. “A colorist makes his presence known even in a single charcoal drawing,”  Matisse famously said. For those of us grown-up style-seekers averse to the whims of fashion trends, looking at art which endures, rather than wearing it,  is way plenty in terms of colour blocking this summer.