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Set off in
style with the glitz, glitter, and glamour of the baubles and
bangles and beads of
Van Cleef &
Arpels
at the Cooper-Hewitt. Some 350 pieces of jewelry are
scattered around the downstairs most attractively—some glittering
from within modern bulbous shapes of glass (the jewels far less
fragile than their cases), other art deco pieces (that were deco
before deco) sparkling beneath a forest of silver leaves that
shimmer and rustle.
The Walska
brooch pendant, New York, 1971
The jewellery
of maharanis, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor -- all sumptuous
splendor and unabashedly so (and yes, the self-promotion is quite
brazen in this VC&A-financed exhibition). Cuffs,
necklaces, bracelets, earrings, minaudières at their best when
both detailed and dramatic. Don’t question the mystery of the
setting –- this is about the transformative power of jewelry that
is itself capable of changing into other things: necklaces that
zip and become bracelets; the marvelous bird (above) where the wings
become earrings, the tail a brooch, and the pendant detaches to be
worn separately; butterflies that hold within their gossamer colorful
beauty the memories of different lives and foreign places and this
along with the Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese influences give the
entire scintillating show an air of mystery and international
opulence. Be dazzled!
Coat made
for Gloria Swanson, Sonia Delaunay, 1923-24
Move on to
the world of dynamic, rhythmic color upstairs at
Color
Moves: Art & Fashion by Sonia Delaunay.
Here it’s all about the calm contemplation of the possibilities of
pigment (the crowds are gawking the jewels below). Born
Sonia Terk in an Ukraine village, the abstract painter renowned
for her sense of color moved to Paris in 1905. She later
married the painter Robert Delaunay and the couple were
particularly influenced by Michel-Eugène Chevreul’s work on color
theory and the concept of simultaneity -- the idea that the color
perceived is influenced by adjacent colors. An
abstract art that Delaunay adapted to fabrics, clothing, and
interiors. Boldly colored dresses, chicly-patterned diving
caps and bathing suits -- a modern sensibility that is almost
tribal in its strong lines and flat planes of color. Color as a
precursor to form and movement, color as everything here.
Hers is in essence a combinatory art—the juxtapositions of flat
pure colors into abstract patterns, repeating floral motifs,
geometries....
Alexander
McQueen, Spring/Summer 2001
Overdress of panels from a nineteenth-century Japanese silk
screen; underdress of oyster shells
And then,
finally, there’s the mad extravaganza of the must-see show of the
moment: Alexander
McQueen: Savage Beauty
at the Met. We thought 'savage' a most appropriate word to
describe the fabulously gothic and macabre sensibility that
pervades this retrospective. But everywhere Beast, and only
fleeting glimpses of disfigured Beauty. The titles of his
collection are not subtle:
Jack the
Ripper Stalks His Victims, Highland Rape. McQueen on
McQueen:
“There’s
something . . . kind of Edgar Allan Poe, kind of deep and kind of
melancholic about my collections.”
If he was initially about drape and cut with his Savile Row
training perhaps other instincts took over. McQueen's
legacy is all about spectacle, a certain theatrical drama.
His historical and cultural influences were diverse, ranged from
the Japanese to Flemish painters, and his is an art of culling the
particularly grotesque from his varied sources. The
mannequins are masked or have their hair hiding their faces (in
shame or because they had nothing to say we couldn't quite tell
but then surmised it was all about evoking a certain sense of the
freakishly fashionable and this they do so well). McQueen
manages to make some of it quite lovely
despite himself -- a tartan dress with jet beads and cream silk
tulle, a row of dresses in brown that are almost poetic in
sensibility (a dress from the Scanners collection of brown
and ivory silk with metal sequins, a jute dress with an underskirt
of gold organza, an overdress of panels from a nineteenth-century
Japanese silk screen with an underdress of oyster shells (above).
But, always, it is all about the ensemble as a creation, some mad
work of art -- the body beneath mere prop. What does one
care if the length might be unflatteringly long, or if the jute feels
like sackcloth against the skin -- this is all about celebrating the
fantastical imagination and legacy of the mad costumer (and yes,
the exhibition is made possible by Alexander McQueen™ ).
See:
Set in Style,
the Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels, Cooper Hewitt Museum
See:
Color
Moves: Art & Fashion by Sonia Delaunay
See:
Alexander
McQueen: Savage Beauty, Metropolitan Museum of
*Since the
crowds have been showing up in droves take advantage of the
special
viewing hours
or try
to sneak away on a weekday afternoon....
Tags: fashion
art
museums
color pattern
jewelry
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Peony
brooch, 1937
Gold, platinum, diamonds, Mystery Set rubies
La Tour
Rouge,
Robert Delaunay, 1911
Oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago.
Dress of
black leather; collar of red pheasant feathers and resin vulture
skulls, for Givenchy, 1997-98
McQueen on
being MacAbre:
“[In this collection] my idea was this mad scientist who cut all
these women up and mixed them all back together.” |
