While summer’s Chanel couture captivated Sam , I came face to face with the house’s 2009 couture collection last night at the opening of Voici Paris! Haute Couture.
Hubert de Givenchy, Cocktail ensemble: dress and coat, Paris Fall Collection 1960. Worn by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). From the Gemeentemuseum The Hague.
This spring, the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague presents Voici Paris! Haute Couture, a dazzling collection of haute couture, offering a unique and up-close glance into the world of this ultimate branch of fashion, its designers and its history. Thanks to the museum’s Press Department, I had the honor of a front row experience:
Although the evening’s dresscode, “couture (haute or neo)”, had send me into a sartorial tantrum earlier, my all black ensemble with high-waisted bow skirt and pompom slingbacks endows me with a sense of, let’s say pseudo couture, among the pièces de résistance by names such as Lanvin and Dior. Either way, the glorious haute couture instantly humbles my disproportionate sartorial self-concern, and I move into a mood of thankful relief.
As I make my way through the exhibition, I travel in space and time, stepping from one dream into the other. From a feeling of nostalgia over highly feminine fifties dresses by Chanel and others, I continue my reverie and end up on the roofs of Paris surrounded by contemporary visions by the likes of Armani, Saab and Galliano. As I move from gallery to gallery, the journey through the sublime of fashion goes on and on through a kaleidoscope of designers, themes and eras. The individual aesthetic of each designer or era resonates through every part of the exhibition design, from the mannequins to the benches; I become immersed in the experience.
While traversing through the rooms, I discover that the exhibition does not only look at the most obvious glamour of haute couture. Among some encounters with lesser known names and more avant-garde designers, the exhibition manages to stir my nationalist sensibilities with a spectacle of Dutch couturiers and contemporary designers in a highly quirky setting of clotheslines/high voltage cables. Moreover, the exhibition’s attention to Chinese couturier, Ma Ke, forms an intellectual antidote to the intoxication of fast and disposable mass-produced fashion.
It is exactly this laborious aspect of fashion I miss in the exhibition. As Fong-Leng, icon of Dutch couture, commented in her speech earlier that evening, the process starts with the choice of material. Both couture and mass-produced fashion are highly laborious endeavours, albeit in completely disparate ways. I believe a public awareness of process, whether couture or mass-produced, can lead to a more conscious embrace of fashion and a healthier fashion industry. I feel the exhibition could have played a role there.
Nevertheless, I don’t want to bother you too much with my lecture ;) it does not make the experience any less sublime! The Gemeentemuseum has one of the largest fashion and costume collections of Europe. Plus, the museum recently acquired a piece from Maison Dior especially for this exhibition (take a peek at this March’s edition of Glamour). Don't miss out on this unique opportunity. So go see Paris in the Hague and experience this truly wonderful exhibition!
Voici Paris! Haute Couture
By Madelief Hohé (curator) and Maarten Spruyt (exhibition designer)
Gemeentemuseum The HagueFebruary 20, 2010 – June 6, 2010
G.
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