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The Tissue of Dreams: Paper Patterns in the Tailoring Trade
In the opening chapter of her book A History of the Paper Pattern Industry: The Home Dressmaking Fashion Revolution, curator and scholar Joy Spanabel Emery cites the October 1916 issue of Designer magazine: “There is nothing so cheap & yet so valuable; so common & yet so little realized; so unappreciated & yet so beneficial…
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Emergency Mode: The Wartime Hats of Sally Victor
Promptly at 3pm on December 18, 1941, members of the American fashion press gathered at the legendary Rainbow Room in New York City and patiently awaited their introduction to emergency mode. A fundraiser to benefit the British Ambulance Corps, the event showcased the latest wartime fashions issued to accommodate, “the prospective new way of life…
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Party of the Year: The Met Gala
The first Monday in May marks one of the most anticipated fashion events of the year, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit, otherwise known as the Met Gala. Instituted in 1948 as a fundraiser to support the newly formed Costume Institute (which was created in 1946 following the donation of the holdings of…
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Fancy Dress à Paris!
While reorganizing a selection of miscellaneous engravings recently, we came across a set of plates depicting wonderfully whimsical fancy dress ensembles. The adoption of masks or other elements of disguise for festivals and celebrations is believed to date back to 1710 in London, when theaters and public gardens threw lavish fetes where anonymity reigned, open…
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Fashion Plates: 150 Years of Style
Just released this week, Fashion Plates: 150 Years of Style, which features 200 fashion plates from our collection. Many of these beautiful images, which date between 1778-1928, have not been reproduced since their original date of publication. Thank you to Yale University Press for their unerring support of this project which is currently available as…
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Showgirls, starlets and ingenues in training: Costume Patterns of the 1930s
In the spirit of Halloween, we’ve been sharing some of our favorite costume designs from the collection on our new Instagram feed all week (@fitspecialcollections). We found one of these costume holdings especially fun and wanted to share a little more about it as it also happens to dovetail with the…
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Havana Nights: Eric de Juan designs for Josephine Baker
I’m sure that most of you have heard by now about the extensive renovation of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, which has been recently renamed the Anna Wintour Costume Center. The $40 million renovation encompassed not only the public gallery spaces, but also the department’s highly-specialized library. Last year, we were…
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Galerie des Modes et Costumes Français: 1778-1787
First issued during the reign of Marie Antoinette, the fashion and costume plate series Galerie des Modes et Costumes Français has been called “the most beautiful collection in existence on the fashions of the eighteenth century.” Beginning around 1778, the Parisian print merchants Esnault & Rapilly began issuing this series of engravings at irregular…
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Bare Beauties
During the 1920s, publishers circumvented the laws concerning the publication of nude photos by ostensibly purposing them “FOR ARTISTS ONLY.” “While this magazine is of general interest, particular stress is laid upon the fine arts and crafts; and an especial appeal is made to artists, designers, architects, drawing teachers, photographers, art supervisors, curators of museums,…
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Muriel King and Gone With the Wind
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…