From time to time, we come across beautiful items in our collection that cause us to stop, take note, and delve more into their history.  These dainty and diminutive sketches of Victorian millinery may have been executed by Auguste Félix, or the designs of a milliner of that same name, for the firm Poirier.  Examples are also found in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, but our research reveals little else about Félix or Poirier.

Can anyone help us solve this fashion history mystery? We know you Material Mode readers are crackerjack fashion historians!

Certainly, these images are not the earliest fashion photographs—our department contains examples from La Mode Pratique dating to 1892—but the presentation of garments in these is largely straightforward, in the tradition of the fashion plate, which for centuries had provided illustrations so detailed one’s dressmaker or tailor could recreate the look down to the last button.  Poiret broke new ground in fashion illustration in 1909 with his collaboration with artist Paul Iribe on Les Robes de Paul Poiret, a deluxe album of Poiret’s couture designs.  Iribe’s illustrations concerned themselves less with line-for-line renderings and instead focused on conveying the spirit or mood of the dress, for, in Poiret’s words “A garment is like a good portrait—the expression of a spiritual state and there are robes [dresses] that sing the joy of living as others that herald tragic ends.”

In a similar vein, Steichen’s photographs of Poiret’s designs are moody and atmospheric.  They evoke a certain mode of being and lifestyle, a modern, artistic approach to the presentation of clothing that seeks to obfuscate the inherent commercialism of fashion photography.

Following the rarely-seen spread featured here, Steichen would not make another fashion photograph for another ten years. In 1922, he accepted the invitation of American publishing magnet Condé Nast to join the staff of both Vanity Fair and Vogue, where he replaced another of fashion photography’s legendary forefathers Baron Adolph de Meyer.

Thank you to Antoine and Nicolas of Diktats for hand-delivering this issue to us from Paris!

The women that appeared in these magazines were frequently professional dancers, actresses and showgirls, who were looking to promote a specific production in which they appeared.  While, no doubt, these magazines were enjoyed by a wide variety of readers in their own time, today they serve as exquisite records of the ideal figure of the Art Deco era.

Of special note to fashion historians, this article discussing hemlines, from 1928.

Keren Ben-Horin’s recent post on one of our favorite blogs, ON PINS AND NEEDLES, has inspired us to speak about a little more about the American couturière Muriel King and her work in Hollywood. King established a successful couture house in New York City during the early 1930s—at the height of the Great Depression.  Her clients included some of the best-dressed American socialites including several women of the Morgan and Whitney families.  In the wake of the acclaim she received for her couture designs, Hollywood came calling, and King relocated briefly to California. She designed costumes for several films including Sylvia Scarlett (1935), Stage Door (1937), and Cover Girl (1944), which starred —respectively— Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers and Rita Hayworth.

A little known fact about King’s work in film, however, is that she was under consideration to design the costumes for the 1939 mega-blockbuster, Gone With the Wind.  Ultimately, the job went to Walter Plunkett —Hollywood’s go-to for historic costume dramas —despite the fact that author Margaret Mitchell lobbied hard for King.

The Muriel King sketch collection (x3) held by SPARC contains some beautiful examples of King’s original sketches for the designs she proposed for Gone with the Wind.

The Muppet Show Style Book was created in 1979, three years after the launch of  popular television show, by Jim Henson & Associates, Inc.: “This book of style sheets and character personality descriptions has been compiled to assist licensees in properly depicting the MUPPET SHOW characters.” Drawings in the book delineate matters such as the relative scale of the characters to one another and provide views of the characters from multiple angles.  Further details on each character tells us that Miss Piggy always wears PMS 270 blue eyeshadow, while Janice should always be dressed in a pale blue denim skirt with a green feather belt.

While the holdings of the department contain a wealth of information on fashion, costume and textile design, we also collect materials that support almost every curricula offered at FIT, including toy design.  

SCHMORD-DA-BORD-DA-BORD-A-BORDY!

Profiles of one-hundred and twenty-three prominent 20th and 21st century fashion designers are interspersed with images of the Museum’s holdings of their work.  Steele contributes additional essays on the history of exhibiting fashion in a museum setting as well as a history of the Museum at FIT itself. Additional contributions by MFIT staff Fred Dennis, Jennifer Farley, Colleen Hill, Melissa Marra and Patricia Mears.  The trilingual title is published in English, French and German.

Gerda’s willingness to explore themes of love, mystery and sex were undoubtedly inspired and indulged by her relationship with her husband.  When, one day, a noted actress failed to show up for her portrait sitting, her husband donned a dress and sat for the session in the actress’ absence.  This was the birth of ‘Lili Elbe,’ Einar’s feminine alter-ego that became a serious source of delight and amusement for the couple who often went out in public together dressed as best girlfriends.  The concept of gender began to weigh heavily on Einar, who came to feel he was meant to live openly as a woman, and in 1930, he became one of the first recorded recipients of a gender reassignment surgery.  Although, the King of Denmark annulled Gerda and Lili’s marriage, the two remained quite close until Lili died in 1931, as the result of a failed uterine transplant. Gerda remarried for a short period before returning to Denmark where she died in 1940.

Today, Wegener’s work has fallen into relative obscurity, despite a small cult following and the inclusion of many of her portraits in French museum collections.  Wegener’s illustrative style was highly expressive and her depictions of women are always spirited, wether they be innocent ingenues or seductive sirens, one can detect a sense of intellect and mischief simmering just below the surface of their delicate demeanor. 

These pochoir plates are from Journal des Dames et des Modes in 1914, and evidence her status as a luminary of the Art Deco period, who deserves the same accolades as her better known contemporaries, such as Barbier, Lepape, Erté, and Paul Iribe.

A series of three fashion illustrations by famed fashion illustrator, and FIT alumni, Antonio Lopez.

This year, 2013, marks the 30th anniversary of The Frances Neady collection of fashion illustration, a unique collection of the works by prominent fashion illustrators from the 1920s to present.  Established in 1983 as a memorial to Frances Neady, professor of fashion illustration for more than forty years at both the Parsons School of Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology, the original nucleus of forty-five drawings has now grown to more than 300 works

Many of the works in the collection continue to be donations by the illustrators themselves—many of whom were former Neady students.  Standouts in the collection include works by Antonio, Bouché, Eric, Tod Draz, and Dorothy Hood among many, many other talented artists of fashion.

One of the hidden gems of the Department of Special Collections and FIT Archives (SPARC) is the large collection of what we like to call ‘books of design and ornament.’  These types of books, which feature patterns and designs suitable for reproduction, date back at least to the middle of the eighteenth century when Thomas Chippendale published his 1754 book of designs for furniture and cabinetry, Gentleman and cabinet-maker’s director:  being a large collection of the most elegant and useful designs of household furniture in the Gothic, Chinese and modern taste.

Throughout history, books like Chippendale’s were intended to serve as sources of inspiration for fellow designers and artisans who used the imagery in the application of their craft.  During the Art Deco period in particular, these books were often created specifically with the textile and wallpaper industries in mind.

All of the images featured here have been rendered by pochoir, a labor-intensive hand-stenciling technique.  Each color appearing in the design represents a single stencil that required meticulous alignment by the coloriste who applied layers of watercolor or gouache to each individual page.  The medium is prized for its lushness and unparalleled vibrancy of color, and because of the inherent time and expense required, pochoir was used to illustrate deluxe publications that were intended for an elite readership.  The technique was in its heyday during the early twentieth century and limited edition artist books and luxury fashion publications of the teens and twenties are two other segments of the publishing world that embraced pochoir.

The medium sadly faded out of use at the end of the twenties; even niche livre de luxe publishing houses were forced to succumb to the pressure of maximizing profits by way of mass-production.  SPARC is home to some of the rarest examples of ‘books of design and ornament’ in the world, including these breathtaking examples from the Art Deco period.

Professionally known as Lucile, Lady Duff-Gordon was one of the era’s great innovators in the business of fashion.  Maison Lucile opened in 1894, and it was not long before the designer’s outspoken, larger-than-life personality and knack for self-promotion captured the attention of the press nearly as often as her designs for romantic chiffon dresses, diaphanous tea gowns, and saucy lingerie.  Lucile was one of the first designers to capitalize on celebrity culture, and a consummate provocateur, she gave her creations innuendo-laden names like “Climax” and “The garden of love;”  she used mirrored runways so that clients seated closest to the stage caught flashes of reflections up models’ skirts.

These somewhat unorthodox tactics were titillating to a new generation of society ladies and showgirls for whom the subject of sex was not entirely taboo.  Lucile’s marriage to her second husband, Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, surely smoothed proper society’s acceptance of her risqué antics, while it is through her sister, the novelist and film producer Elinor Glyn, that Lucile had connections to the stage and screen.  It is said that Glyn coined the term ‘It Girl,’ and Lucile designed the on and off stage wardrobes for ‘It’ actresses, ingénues and the women of the Ziegfeld Follies.

With the financial backing of Duff-Gordon, Maison Lucile went global; as Lucile Ltd. she expanded to New York in 1909, Paris and Chicago in 1911.  In 1916, she pioneered the first diffusion line, partnering with Sears, Roebuck & Co. to create mail order versions of her designs, making her the first couturière to launch a ready-to-wear line.

The Department of Special Collections and FIT Archives is fortunate to act as stewards for one of the largest collections of original Lucile material in the world, including copies of the mail order catalogs for her line offered by Sears, Roebuck & Co.  At the time of their creation in 1916 the mail order looks featured in the gallery below retailed for anywhere from $25 to $45, which adjusted for inflation today would be approximately $500 to $900.