Costume Australia

COSTUME AUSTRALIA NEWSLETTER OF MUSEUMS AUSTRALIA COSTUME SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP 2009

3 Dressed for the Occasion On 9th May 1901, twelve thousand people made their way to the Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens to witness the opening of the first Federal Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia by the heir to the British throne, His Royal Highness the Duke of Cornwall and York.

4 Hussein Chalayan QUESTION: Has the exhibition designed in a special way? Does it follow a particular structure, thematic or chronological? Is there a specific curatorial approach and if so, how is it reflected in the exhibition?

8 Looking Inside Out at the Costume Museum of Canada Through the many changes our museum has experienced in its 26-year history, our continued mandate has been to celebrate fashion, culture, and history.

12 Camoflaogue: from Combat to Couture The military textile pattern known as camouflage is a fashion classic. Routinely declared a trend for any given season, camouflage has retained an ambiguous nature throughout the last seventy-five years; it serves to declare yet deceive, identify yet conceal.

17 The Virtual Shoe Museum I‘m Liza Snook, director and founder of the Virtual Shoe Museum (online from 14th of Feb. 2006), 18 Lace encounters at the Powerhouse Museum Close encounters with museum objects are rare in these days of tight security and armoured glass. So a visit to the Lace Study Centre at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney is a real treat.

24 Dresstudy, a History of KCI, an Attempt of Fashion Studies Clothing is one of indispensable things in our everyday life.

26 New Zealand’s costume and textiles association grew out of a desire to share some of the information, research and collaborations that were known to be happening around historic and contemporary dress in fields from conservation to art.

27 This autumn Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen will be exploring the boundaries of fashion.

EDITORIAL

SIG NEWS Welcome to an exciting issue for 2009 where art, science, architecture, history and technology are all interwoven through a variety of articles. Our editor; Amy Silver has been busy sourcing content from around the globe to bring you insights in to the British fashion scene in an interview with Hussein Chalayan and his distinctive ‘convertible’ fashion silhouettes. Across to Canada to look from the inside out at the Museum of Canada’s costume collection, highlighting patternmaking and structural elements of garment construction. Along with our usual features in costume and textiles happenings both globally and locally, there is also a celebration of camouflage, a sneak peak at the KCI’s history (Kyoto Costume Institute) and closer to home: ‘Lace Encounters at the Powerhouse Museum’ in Sydney by Lindie Ward.

Although ‘things’ may seem a little quiet, behind the scenes, the focus has been on the future of the Costume SIG, where the question we are left pondering is: ‘Where to from here?’

This question and others have come about since our AGM back in May this year. Unfortunately, only four members of the Committee attended along with a guest. Despite this, the AGM was held where we discussed our options of survival. Additionally, no nominations were received for office bearing positions on the Committee and to keep the SIG going we need new nominations from members to serve on the Committee. A new round of nomination forms and posting of positions will be circulated to members very soon and I encourage you or member you know, to consider becoming involved. It is with greater numbers and a variety of input that can bring some life into our humble SIG. We are unique and a voice for those involved one way or another in Costume and Textiles.

Finally, AGM minutes, Convenor’s and Treasurer’s Reports are included in this issue for your reference. I also encourage you to consider the points of discussion in the minutes and take the time to complete the survey enclosed. Forward your thoughts to us for tabling at the next Committee meeting. Date, time and venue to be advised.

Thinking caps on and watch this space!

Nina Shadforth (acting) Convenor, Costume SIG

Costume Australia is produced by the Costume Special Interest Group of Museums Australia. The Group was established in 1998 with the following objectives: - Promote the importance and understanding of costume - To provide a network for both metropolitan and regional members to discuss issues relating to collection theory and practice.

Committee of Management: Convenor Nina Shadforth Vice President Susannah Martin Treasurer James Nolen Secretary Elizabeth Anya-Petrivna Members of Committee: Felicity Martin Juliette Peers Amy Silver Contact details: Special Interest Group Costume C/o Museums Australia (Victoria) PO Box 385 Carlton South VIC 3053 Telephone (03) 8341 7344 Cover image: Hussein Chalayan, Readings, Spring Summer 2008, Photograph by Chris Moore Please email news and articles to: amysilver1@gmail.com ISSN 1446-8603

Design Amy Silver Costume Australia disclaims responsibility for statements of fact and opinions

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Dressed for theOccasion Charlotte Smith

On 9th May 1901, twelve thousand people made their way to the Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens to witness the opening of the first Federal Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia by the heir to the British throne, His Royal Highness the Duke of Cornwall and York.

Due to the recent death of Queen Victoria, royal etiquette demanded that all guests wore sombre colours such as black, white, grey or purple to the ceremony. This decree did not prevent the event from being a glittering affair. An extensive account of what select female guests were wearing was published in The Argus on 10th May. Evidence abounds that the ladies of Melbourne were au courant in their tastes, and an array of rich fabrics, trims, and decoration was on display: French gown of pale grey cloth, embroidered all over with grey silk and chenille in a scroll design of lilies, with open-work insertions of white lace between the leaves, the bodice having a draping of duchess point on one side, picture hat of palest Parma panne, trimmed with gauze and velvet roses in black and varying shades of purple…Very delicate shade of grey voile, made over accordion-pleated white silk. The dress had a bold floral design cut round skirt and across the bodice showing underdress of silk, the flowers being bordered lightly with steel, vest of folded chiffon and lace; smart hat, having two distinct brims in heliotrope glace, turned back from the face with bunches of flowers.

Among the 3000 Victorian women invited to the opening at the Exhibition Building was Mrs Sabina Peipers; she accompanied her father, the Consul for the German Empire, Wilhelm Alexander Brahe. Seated in the first few rows of the east nave, W.A. Brahe and Mrs Peipers were at the heart of the celebrations. Though her outfit was not described in the papers, Mrs Peipers would have glittered in the black net and silk satin dress she had made for the occasion. The full length dress has ¾ length sleeves, a V neckline trimmed with black silk velvet ribbons, and a fishtail train. The base garment of black silk satin is lined with black wool crepe. A transparent outer garment of black silk net—heavily embroidered with green and grey floss silk, gold coloured metal threads in a leaf and flower pattern and metallic glass beads—rests over the silk satin.

As is evident from the description above and the image accompanying this piece, the dress has some elements that reflect stylistic tastes of a later period: notably the V neckline, the slim columnar form, and the asymmetrical embellishment on the skirt. As this dress was donated to Museum Victoria with a very strong provenance, we have concluded that Mrs Peipers had it remodelled around 1910-1914 to reflect changing fashions; an indication that this was a very special object.

Sabina Peipers’ dress is on display in Melbourne Story at Melbourne Museum.

Charlotte Smith is Senior Curator, Public Life & Institutions at Museum Victoria

Photographer John Broomfield Source Museum Victoria COSTUME AUSTRALIA

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Hussein Chalayan

Interview with Donna Loveday, Head of Exhibitions, Design Museum London

QUESTION: Has the exhibition designed in a special way? Does it follow a particular structure, thematic or chronological? Is there a specific curatorial approach and if so, how is it reflected in the exhibition?

LOVEDAY: The Design Museum’s exhibition will be the first comprehensive presentation of Chalayan’s work in the UK. It will span fifteen years of experimental projects such as Afterwords (Autumn/Winter 2000) presenting the notion of ‘wearable, portable architecture’ in which furniture transforms itself into garments; Airborne (Autumn/Winter 2007) bringing the latest LED technology to fashion design with a spectacular white dress consisting of crystals and over fifteen thousand flickering LED lights; Before Minus Now (Spring/Summer 2000) featuring a dress made of materials used in aircraft construction and which changes shape by remote control and Readings (Spring/Summer 2008) in which a dress comprising over two hundred moving lasers presents an extraordinary spectacle of light. The exhibition will present a series of immersive and dynamic environments which will explore how his work crosses between different disciplines.

It will also draw out the big issues which interest Chalayan and which subsequently influence his collections, and are constantly referenced within them, such as multi-culturalism, displacement and migration.

What do you consider as Chalayan’s distinctive contribution to fashion? Are there any traits unique in his work? I am thinking of his innovative use of technology or new materials.

How would you describe his style. It is sometimes described as “future miminalism”.

Hussein Chalayan has established himself at the forefront of contemporary fashion, he is renowned for his innovative use of materials, meticulous pattern cutting and progressive attitude to new technology.He is motivated by ideas drawn from 4

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disciplines not readily associated with fashion. His pioneering work crosses between architecture, design, philosophy, anthropology, science and technology and the exhibition is intended to show how these different worlds relate to each other, how everything is interconnected which is the most exciting concept for Chalayan and which subsequently informs his collections. His work is a reaction to events that happen in the world - in history, anthropology, science, technology - it represents a merging of all these worlds which is what makes his work unique. Chalayan’s conceptual presentations demonstrate his unique ability to combine beautiful and wearable clothes for today with an intriguing vision of the future.

How has his work developed over the years? What do you consider some of the best moments of his creative course?

Chalayan is constantly renewing himself which keeps his work innovative and exciting. He has taken up consultancies, exhibited work in museums and galleries and made short films. His experimentation with new materials and technologies has taken his work in new directions involving the use of LED and lasers. He has recently taken up the Creative Directorship of Puma and will divide his time between designing for his own collection and working on ideas for Puma – his interest in technology and ideas not readily associated with fashion will sit comfortably with Puma.

How strong an aspect is the concept of utility in his work?

How would you explain the use of architecture in his work.

Can you mention a couple of examples.

Chalayan is an architect, artist, filmmaker, designer – the boundaries between these diverse roles often blur - an ideas person who forges unexpected alliances between clothing, imagery, built structures and technology. The point of

Hussein Chalayan Spring, Summer 2007 Photograph by Chris Moore COSTUME AUSTRALIA

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Hussein C Afterwar Photograph by departure from conventional fashion is his use of clothing as a site of exploration, as expressions of concepts, rather than as garments with only functionality in mind – Afterwords (A/W 2000) is a perfect example. The collection was created at a time when alarming pictures from Kosovo were flooding the world. Afterwords focused on having to flee one’s home in times of war. To Chalayan, born in the Turkish part of Cyprus, these current events referenced his own past, the time of conflict between the Turkish and the Greek populations in Cyprus. The subsequent Turkish intervention resulted in a division of the island in 1974. With this collection, he blurred the boundaries between the traditional function of clothes and furniture, which he presented as ‘wearable architecture’ that you can take with you when having to flee in times of war.

It is about travelling light, having to leave one’s home in time of war and to take all one’s possessions. The dislocation and the rootlesseness of enforced migrancy were reinforced by the sparse set of the living room, the transformation of the furniture into portable possessions and the harsh Bulgarian singing that accompanied it. The show was presented in

a stark, white setting with chairs and a round 1950s-style coffee table. Behind the set, viewers could vaguely see a Bulgarian female choir through a semi-transparent screen, but clearly visible on a monitor in the living room. Following the appearance of a family – father, mother, grandmother and children - models dressed in simple underslips removed the covers from the chairs and wore them as a dress. The chairs themselves folded up to become suitcases and the coffee table was turned into a skirt with the result that eventually the room remained empty and lifeless. In the collection, a table becomes a skirt and chair covers turn into dresses, while the chair frames fold up into suitcases. Clothing, like architecture, becoming flexible membranes and responding to its environment. Fashion as a kind of portable architecture.

What, in your opinion, are some of the major influences on his work.

Chalayan is inspired by so many different areas - architecture,

Chalayan rds, 2000 y Chris Moore art, film. An important element in his work is the influence of various cultures, primarily West-European and Turkish often resulting in a genuine encounter between Western and nonWestern elements – it is a political and social commitment which sets Chalayan apart from his fellow designers. He shows a particular interest in cultural identity, nation states, migration and nomadism. His work is heavily influenced by his cultural background and as a Turkish Cypriot and the experience of moving from one island to another. He feels that the more isolated you are from the rest of the world, the more curious and the more creative you become. Most people who come from a region don’t always recognise the value of where they come from until they leave. You are then able to reflect objectively and want to celebrate those attributes. London creates the facility to reflect on his background from a distance. Displacement is a recurring theme in Chalayan’s work.

How would you place him in the context of British fashion?

Does he form part of a distinctive British fashion scene. ( I am thinking of Belgian fashion as an example of a distinctive style or movement in fashion).

In my view, Chalayan occupies a unique position within British fashion. The point of departure from conventional fashion is his use of clothing as a site of exploration, as expressions of concepts, rather than as garments with only functionality in mind.

Chalayan is unique in tackling heavyweight concepts and making them accessible to students as well as to a broader fashion audience. Always questioning, Chalayan is an artist whose work is guided by what happens in the world and by what engages him personally. He draws inspiration from a wide range of disciplines - architecture, design, film, philosophy and anthropology.

Hussein Chalayan January 22 – 17 May 2009 www.designmuseum.org

Looking Inside Out at the Costume Museum of Canada Jennifer Bisch Through the many changes our museum has experienced in its 26-year history, our continued mandate has been to celebrate fashion, culture, and history. Our most significant challenge in upholding this mandate is finding new and inventive ways to convey and share it with the public.

With a dedicated crew of staff and volunteers, we are charged with the ambitious task of setting up and dismantling five to six original exhibits each year, selected from our collection of over 35,000 artifacts. Our current exhibit, Inside Out, is an attempt to literally inverse the way clothing is viewed by focusing upon the cuts, stitches, and designs that lie beneath the surface of all fashion. Allow me to guide you through our gallery…

As a visitor entering our gallery space, you are first confronted with a window filled with paper pattern pieces. This is the backbone of home sewing – a designer’s concept translated into something that can be easily understood and reproduced in the home. Instructions are clearly indicated all over the pattern for ease in construction. However, it has not always been this simple. Moving further toward the gallery, another paper pattern for a ladies’ basque, circa 1885, is unfolded next to an unpicked and inverted basque on a dress form.

The paper pattern is pre-cut with no instructions other than punched holes indicating the placement of tailor tacks, offering little guidance to the dressmaker.

Two men’s tuxedo jackets greet you at the threshold of the large gallery. These have been inverted to show the detailed stitches made by the tailors to fit the jackets comfortably on the men who wore them. Guests are sometimes surprised to hear that not all clothing comes from a pre-existing pattern.

In men’s clothing, bespoke tailoring is a method of creating a garment from scratch that is tailored specifically for a client. One of these tuxedo jackets on display was created by appointment at S.W. Silver & Co. in London, 1900. The other jacket was created by Dan Schwalm, a local Winnipeg tailor, in 1915. Clothing may also be made-to-measure from existing patterns and custom-fit to the client. It was not until 1863 that the graded paper pattern for men’s clothing was created by Ebeneezer Butterick to speed up the garment-making process for tailors and for people sewing their own clothing at home.

Patterns for women’s clothing soon followed suit.

Patternmaking is not the only domain of fashion that has benefited from systemization. Fabric production and garment construction can be extremely labour-intensive without automation to perform any of the steps along the way from fibre to form. In fact, the invention of the powered loom in 1785 was responsible for bringing down the cost of fabric 8

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and opened the door to new methods of garment-cutting that could afford to be less frugal. In the back corner of the gallery space, a series of garments from 1878 to1960 illustrate the use of darting and the removal of fabric to create a desired shape – most often one that conforms to the body’s natural curves. Two dresses from the 1950s also show the contrast between form-fitting darts on the bodice and the fullness of crinoline and pellon-lined skirts, influenced by Dior’s “New Look” of 1947.

Next to this display, you are introduced to a number of garments that have been intricately cut and furnished with boning to create a fitted look that is even more structured than what can be achieved with darting alone. Boning, made of whalebone, steel, or plastic, has a long history of being used to structure and shape both the body and the garment. These pieces on display show the use of boning from 1890 up until 1990 by dressmakers both at home and in houses of couture.

Across the room is a collection of dresses from 1840 to 1970 that demonstrate the use of shirring, smocking, and ruching to create form and decoration. These methods of construction add fabric to the garment to sculpt a desired shape. To the left of this display is a series of four dresses that exhibit unique design simply through fabric cutting, particularly bias cutting. Cutting in this way allows the garment to hug the body’s natural curves in sleek, simple and elegant lines without excessive decoration. This look became popular in the 1920s and 30s largely under the influence of French designer Madeleine Vionnet.

Despite the advances made in garment-making through industrialisation, there is no substitute for a custom-fitted couture garment made by a designer who understands both the properties of different fabrics and the function of the clothing they make. It is our intent that visitors to the

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Inside Out exhibit will not only learn about the construction of clothing, but also the concepts of significant designers that lie within the shape of the things we wear. Drawing attention to designing vision in the centre of the room is a piece from the house of Charles Frederick Worth, who was the first dressmaker in history to make a name for himself as a designer. His attention to cut and fit caught the attention of women of wealth and royalty such that a Worth dress became synonymous with style and class. Displayed inside out, the masterful construction of this dress is visible along with the designer’s label – a new feature on clothing that we have since learned to associate with quality.

Moving to the back of the room, the visitor will encounter a display that deconstructs a woman’s entire outfit from 1880.

Instead of looking at the garments themselves and how they are made, this display dismantles the process of dressing to show how the clothes were actually worn. Moving from left to right, you will see the various undergarments in different stages of dress, the dress as an outer shell, and a collection of accessories that would complete the look. Up until this point in the exhibit, visitors have seen how each garment has a history of production behind it. With this particular display, they can see the inside story of how clothing has been worn as well as how it differs from dress today.

Because many of our guests have some background in sewing and dressmaking, their experiences here are often both educational and nostalgic. It is common for guests to react to the exhibits by relating memories they have with certain styles of clothing. This exhibit in particular has initiated conversations of a slightly different kind. Because dressmaking, for many visitors, was often done as a chore in the home, it can have a commonplace significance. However, when they learn more about the history of patterns and design that lay behind the work they would do behind their sewing machines, they are able to place their memories in a historical context. Some are surprised to learn that home sewing done out of necessity in the 1930s and 40s was actually preceded by a trend in the 1920s of women who sewed their own garments as a luxury.

As human beings, we put our own clothing on display every day when we get dressed before leaving our homes. We may put thought into the items we choose for specific occasions, but we rarely think about the cultural and historical significance of our outfits when we rifle through our closets for something to wear. Mindful of the way we normally look at clothing, the exhibits we display at our museum all have a common purpose – that is, to take something as commonplace as clothing and show just how amazing it actually is.

Jennifer Bisch is the Curatorial Assistant at the Costume Museum of Canada in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Inside Out is her first curatorial venture at the museum.

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Camouflage: From Combat to Couture Sarah Scaturro

“God is camouflage” – Claude Sabbah, Fashion Designer, 2008 1. Introduction The military textile pattern known as camouflage is a fashion classic. Routinely declared a trend for any given season, camouflage has retained an ambiguous nature throughout the last seventy-five years; it serves to declare yet deceive, identify yet conceal. The term “camouflage” initially entered into the fashion lexicon as a theory of concealment applied to the transformative powers of dress, and not a patterned fabric. This bifurcated meaning still exists, although the textile pattern is the theory’s most noticeable and widespread manifestation.

Military-issued camouflaged uniforms represent the suppression of the individual through conformity; concurrently, the optical effects of the pattern force the disintegration of the individual by merging the human form with the background. However, when used by fashion, camouflage announces one’s individualistic presence. In the realm of fashion, this inherent malleability of camouflage to transfigure the body is echoed in its capacity to both distinguish and codify – it is used as a tool of subversion while at the same time emphasizes fashionable conformity.

The focus of my research is mainly on the American experience of fashionable camouflage, because it is the American Woodland variant issued during the Vietnam War which is most associated with the concept of fashionable camouflage. Just as importantly, camouflage cannot be discussed without acknowledging 12

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its direct link to art – camouflage is, at its essence, an artistic rendering of the natural world. Initially, artists created defensive camouflage schemes during both World Wars, and afterwards they were the first to use the pattern in subversive ways. Art served as camouflage’s point of transference between the military and civilian realms. Other important concepts in the development of camouflage include gender, music, marketing and anti-fashion.

There are essentially three types of military camouflage.

The first is a blending, or assimilating, camouflage that seeks to use color and pattern (like khaki) to melt into the background or mimic other objects in the environment. A second type of camouflage is called disruptive camouflage, which obliterates a recognizable shape into several smaller unrecognizable units by using a high-differential color scheme, similar to a zebra’s stripes. The third type of camouflage is coincident camouflage, which uses both blending and disruptive techniques to merge an object into the background whilst breaking it into several smaller irregular shapes.1 This last type of camouflage is the type we most associate with the pattern applied to uniforms – a pattern containing amorphous shapes in colors matching the natural environment.

2. Art and Disruptive Camouflage Without art, there would be no camouflage. Gertrude Stein stated that she and Pablo Picasso had been taking a walk in Paris when a camouflaged truck passed them. “Picasso amazed looked at it and then cried out, Yes it is we who

made it, that is Cubism.”2 Indeed, by World War I artists had already sought to denature and prevent coherent readings of objects. Camouflage quickly made the leap into the military realm during World War I, when it was applied to battle ships and other war machinery. Its first use is generally attributed to Guirand de Scevola, leader of a French camofleur unit, whose attempts at camouflaging artillery consisted of using natural colors combined with foliage. He claimed to employ Cubist means to denature forms. A more dramatic use of camouflaging principles are the disruptive “Dazzle” schemes painted onto ships in response to the difficulty of hiding a ship on the open sea. Aiming to dislocate or confuse the enemy’s perception of a ship’s speed, direction of travel and distance, Dazzle camouflage often took the form of broken stripes in bold colors and white.

Dazzle became the first type of camouflage exploited by art and fashion. Artists and designers of the early twentieth century did not call their work camouflage, yet the visual principles they employed were the same – the purposeful application of a high-differential graphic pattern composed of blocks of color meant to shatter the singular body into pieces. These designs, which are camouflage-like in theory, overwhelmingly had the same purpose: to enact upon the wearer the perception of dynamism, kinetic movement, and even disintegration.

This use of disruptive camouflage principles is demonstrated clearly by the Futurists. The Futurist Giacomo Balla claimed that his “transformable clothes” were made using “mechanical trimmings, surprises, tricks, [and the] disappearance of [the] individual.”3 While the ultimate goal of the Futurists was to use clothing in a bellicose, destructive and modular way through structure and the strategic application color, it is the disruptive patterns applied to their clothing that link their experiments to military camouflage. Sonia Delaunay was another artist who exploited the disruptive principles of camouflage to achieve a fractured, multi-layered presentation. Delaunay sought to alter fashion not through cut, but by color, and called her garments “simultaneous” clothing.4 She stated that, “In 1913…I wanted to escape fashion, to do something absolutely new and modern. My starting point was the laws of color. A dress, an overcoat, and a star are all fragments of space.”5 Her clothing used vibrant blocks of color to achieve a simultaneous feeling of pleasure, while seemingly propelling the wearer’s body into kinetic motion.

Dazzle-inspired swimsuits, 1919.

From the Collection of Roy Behrens.

Although these literal translations of Dazzle camouflage into clothing occurred right after the end of World War I, the effects of the theory was felt into the 1920s, with the Art Deco designs of couturiers such as Gabrielle Chanel and Lucien Lelong.

Lelong, in particular, conceived an idea called “kinoptics,” in which “diagonal seams, tucks and asymmetrical hemlines” moved “the eye quickly around the body, creating the illusion of slenderness.”8 While his designs did not rupture the body into pieces like the designs of the Futurists, he sought to use similar optical principles to imply a smaller size, effectively “camouflaging” the shape of the body. By the early 1930s, the surface geometries and reductive shapes had declined into softer silhouettes. Disruptive camouflage receded as an influence in fashion. It was not until the 1960s that disruptive patterning principles were again introduced into fashion through Op-Art, and exemplified in textile patterns like those from Marimekko.

As the late fashion historian Richard Martin stated, “It was almost inevitable that the planes, cylinders, mutable optics and dynamic motion of Cubist art would engage fashion.”6 Disrupted camouflage applied to clothing created dynamic visual moments that represented the rapidly modernizing world. This modernity, expressed most clearly in the violence and devastation of the First World War, demanded a pattern that related object against environment, body against background.

After the First World War, the relation of clothing to Dazzle camouflage became more literal and widespread. In 1919, the British portraitist Bertram Park took a photograph of his wife wearing a Dazzle-inspired outfit with diagonal stripes set at odds with a striped backdrop. While her outfit, likely worn to the Dazzle Ball held in London in 1919,7 is more costume than fashion, its mimicry of Dazzle camouflage reinforces its popularity with civilians. Another example of civilians wearing disruptive camouflage is a photograph from a British newspaper showing two women frolicking off the coast of Britain in Dazzle-inspired bathing suits. The movements of the women accentuate the dynamism of Dazzle, clearly demonstrating its disruptive ability to break the body into segments.

Detail of Schiaparelli camouflage print, 1931.

Photo by Sarah Scaturro.

3. The Rise of Coincident Camouflage There is material evidence that coincident camouflage was used informally in WWI. Overwhelmingly, it was hand-painted, rather than government-issued, and relegated only to elite military personnel. Standard military-issued camouflage patterns did not develop until after World War I. While COSTUME AUSTRALIA

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Detail of Robert Molnar’s custom camouflage.

Photo by Sarah Scaturro

Germany was the first country to mass-produce camouflage uniforms, beginning in the mid-1930s, by 1941 both Italy and Britain had developed unique patterns for their elite units, with the United States finally issuing its first camouflage pattern, “Frog-skin,” in 1942.9 The development of each of these discrete prints points to one of the most paradoxical aspects of camouflage theory: even though the primary purpose of camouflage is to render the wearer invisible in a specific environment, camouflage immediately becomes a marker of identification. This distinguishing characteristic of coincident camouflage is a significant aspect of the pattern’s eventual uptake by popular culture and fashion.

Chili Williams, one of the top pin-up girls in World War II, best exemplifies the intersection of camouflage, fashion and the feminine in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1944, Life presented her in a two-page spread with the claim that “Chili Williams is working for the army.”10 The photos showed Chili Williams illustrating camouflage techniques, including one in which she wearing a man’s “Frogskin” camouflage jacket modified to fit her like a mini-dress. This is one of the earliest photographs showing the manipulation of actual military camouflage fabric into a fashionable garment. It emphasizes the idiosyncrasy in having a female wear an undoubtedly male pattern. Towards the end of World War II, surplus camouflage fabric flooded the American market, and there is evidence indicating that women on an adhoc scale used it to create fashionable garments.

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Elsa Schiaparelli was quite possibly the first Parisian fashion designer in the first half of the twentieth century to use a civilian textile pattern called “camouflage” in her creations. As her camouflage patterns were expressly civilian and not military surplus, they operated on several levels which recognized the inherent beauty and artistry of the pattern, while still paying heed to the irony of a civilian woman wearing military camouflage. The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has a Schiaparelli gown with a coincident camouflage print from circa 1931. The pattern is pink, dark purple and light and dark brown, and contains mid-sized, almost rose-like shapes.

Camouflage was not an anomaly for Schiaparelli as two years later, just after war was declared in France, she presented her midseason collection with a military theme. It included “a taffeta dress streaked with dark red, green and blue [that] was named ‘camouflage,’”11 which caused quite a stir as “It buttons down the front on miniature hand-grenades.”12 Schiaparelli predates by sixty years a Moschino “Cheap and Chic” camouflage dress from Fall 2000 with a lipstick holster.

Her cheeky use of camouflage is easily understood when one considers her connection to Surrealism and its adherents, like Salvador Dali and Jean Cocteau. She implicitly realized the irony and political implications of using a camouflage pattern on a fashionable silk dress. “Fashion even in the most difficult years, when it goes eccentric or foolish, undoubtedly retains some relation to politics,” she wrote in her autobiography.13

The official US Army view after World War II was that camouflaged uniforms had no real advantage over a single color that blended with the natural background. Thus, the American army wouldn’t issue another camouflage pattern until 1967, after the United States entered the FrenchVietnamese conflict. During this war, a significant proportion of the American young adult male population was dressed in the now-iconic Woodland pattern camouflage. The controversial nature of the war meant that some of these men would be among the many protestors to wear these same uniforms to anti-Vietnam War protests. Non-veteran war protestors often wore camouflage military surplus.

This inversion of camouflage into an anti-war symbol was an essential turning point in the transition of camouflage as a tool of the military into a device misused by civilians to express political discontent. Soon after, other counter-culture groups, like the Punks, began wearing camouflage to express discontent.

As is typical throughout the course of fashion history, fashion soon took notice of this anti-fashion trend. Yves Saint Laurent’s 1971 spring/summer collection contained a silk crêpe de chine dress with a marbleized camouflage pattern in rich green tones.14 Sent down the runway at the height of the Vietnam War, the dress was bound to create a stir with its juxtaposition of the military-influenced pattern rendered in luxurious silk. Vera Maxwell was another designer who used camouflage in a 1976 version of her “Speed Suit”.15 The combination of a suit designed to be pulled on in seven seconds with an aggressive, yet beautiful textile pattern hints at camouflage’s ability to bend traditional gender roles.

Maxwell was suggesting that if camouflage was integral for the armed male, it was also a tool for females who had left their homes to work for their own survival.

Fashionable camouflage was not just consigned to the high fashion realm during the 1970s. A newspaper, reporting on the growing trend for ladies pants in 1971, noted “a print like the army’s brown and green camouflage pattern has been splattered over jeans.”16 Another reporter observed that same year that “democracy reached a pinnacle this summer…[as] fashions at Saint Tropez have joined the army this summer, with miles of khaki or camouflage fabrics.”17 Both articles hint at camouflage’s ability to cross gender and class barriers. This perception of camouflage as proletarian, democratic, and gender-neutral is ultimately the most critical factor to its success in the cultural realm.

4. “God is Camouflage” By 1980, the New York Times noted that camouflage was back, but in more “palatable incarnations” like Lester Hayatt’s unisexual camouflage jumpsuits, pants and jackets which were sold at Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdales and even Browns of London.18 A year later Tommy Hilfiger sold camouflaged garments under a line he called “20th Century Survival”19 and by 1984, Time Magazine acknowledged that there was a full-blown “camo craze” with authentic military surplus selling out of stores.20 That same year, New York designer Robert Molnar created a stir with his custom camouflage pattern containing a map of the world with words like “A-Bomb,” “U.S.S.R,” and “Cuba” on it. To Molnar, “camouflage represented the problems” of the world and his pattern was an attempt to make people aware of them.21

Look from Robert Molnar’s 1984 Spring/Summer Collection.

Courtesy of Robert Molnar.

Just as camouflage owed much to art in the beginning of the twentieth century, Andy Warhol’ s Camouflage series, produced in 1986, solidified Woodland camouflage into popular consciousness. By using vibrant primary and pastel colors, he effectively neutralized the bellicose quality of camouflage.

In the best known art/fashion camouflage collaboration, two COSTUME AUSTRALIA

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years later Stephen Sprouse used Warhol’s prints in a variety of garments.

By the 1980s, music also had brought camouflage to the forefront of popular culture. Groups such as the Clash and the Eurythmics wore camouflage variants in concerts and photographs. Public Enemy’s use of the US’s Woodland pattern in an Urban coloration scheme cemented camouflage as an integral component within Hip-Hop and Rap. Their succinct use of a textile pattern to convey militant and subversive messages quickly infiltrated street and youth culture at large.

In the 1990s mainstream designers such as Calvin Klein, Vivienne Westwood, and Gianni Versace all experimented with camouflage. In 1999 Marc Jacobs used a rare Swedish camouflage from the 1980s called Barracuda which had never made it past the trial stage, thus exemplifying the underground “cool factor” that camouflage has, especially when exploited for its identifying characteristics. A major development at the turn of the century was the conversion of camouflage into a branding mechanism. While companies such as Realtree and AAdvantage created trademarked hunting patterns, haute couture houses like Chanel were embedding their double-C logo into camouflage dresses. The streetwear brand Maharishi issued camouflage containing bonsai trees, clouds and dragons while another brand, A Bathing Ape, placed their logo-infused camouflage onto coveted limited edition hoodies and sneakers. Harking back to its original discerning ability, these new types of camouflage were symbols letting people know you were “in” on the secret.

The beginning of the 21st century ushered in an even larger explosion of camouflage in fashion houses like Christian Dior, Comme des Garcons, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Louis Vuitton. The Moroccan-born designer Claude Sabbah created a camouflaged vest worn by Eminem (now in the Costume Institute) which included the stars and stripes of the US flag.

He explains, “America is my second motherland…and rules the world with so many contradictions. Camouflage is the first fabric that represents all of the human contradictions of life and death, war and peace, love and hate. God is camouflage.”22 Why was this pattern, which was not new to fashion, so prevalent at the beginning of the twenty-first century? Perhaps the answer can be found in fashion’s capability to foreshadow revolutionary times.23 By Fall 2000 the disputed election of a hawkish George Bush as US president had recently occurred.

An increase in terrorist bombings, such as the US embassy in Kenya in 1998 and the USS Cole in 2000, also served to heighten a feeling of insecurity. And of course, by the end of 2001 the world had witnessed the attacks of September 11th.

Fashion had brought the camouflage print to the forefront of the popular dialogue at an especially relevant time.

“Is fashion playing dangerous and callous war games or fulfilling Isaiah’s vision of crafting fertile ploughshares from sharp swords?” asked Richard Martin.24 Camouflage’s highly loaded historical dichotomies enable this textile pattern to transition fluidly between the artistic, military and fashion realms. Like the fragmented world that the pattern embodies, in socio-cultural terms the camouflage pattern symbolizes anything and everything – violent yet peaceful, urban yet natural, abstracted yet implicit. Inherently democratic, camouflage belongs to male and female, the rich and the poor, the free and the struggling. Ultimately, it is the wearer who determines its meaning.

Sarah Scaturro is Textile Conservator at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, New York 16

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Notes: 1. Hardy Blechman, Disruptive Pattern Material (Buffalo: Firefly Books, 2004) 27.

2. Stein, Gertrude. Picasso (New York: Courier Dover Publications, 1984) 11.

3. Giacomo Balla with Fortunato Depero, “Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe,” as quoted in Umbro Apollonio, ed. Futurist Manifestos (London: Thames and Hudson, 1973), 199.

4. Sonia Delaunay, Nous irons jusqu’au soleil (Paris, 1978): 96 as quoted in Stern, 65.

5. Helen Demorian, “Interview de MME Sonia Delaunay à propos de l’Exposition ‘Les Années 1925, au Musée des Arts Décoratifs en 1966,” Connaissance des Arts, no. 171 (1966) as quoted in Radu Stern, Against Fashion: Clothing as Art, 1850-1930 (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Cambridge, 2004), 65.

6. Richard Martin, Cubism and Fashion, (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999): 11.

7. Tim Newark, Camouflage (London: Thames and Hudson, 2007): 88-89.

8. Sarah Scaturro and Sonya Mooney, Modern Master: Lucien Lelong, Couturier 1918-1948, Exhibition catalog, The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, 28 February 2006 – 15 April 2006, 9.

9. Blechman, 189.

10. “Speaking of Pictures…Chili Williams is Working for the Army,” Life, 10 April 1944, 12-13.

11. “Paris Goes to War for Styles,” Christian Science Monitor, 26 October 1939, 2.

12. “‘Occupational’ Fashions Now in Paris Scene,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 31 December 1939, C2.

13. Elsa Schiaparelli, Shocking Life (London: V&A Museum, 2007) 66.

14. http://www.canadianart.ca/online/reviews/2008/07/31/ yves-saint-laurent/ (14 December 2008) and Booth Moore, “Yves Saint Laurent Reinvented the Clothing We Live In,” Los Angeles Times, 3 June 2008.

15. In the collection of Museum at FIT [Accession 79.49.78 A/ B]. Donated by a D.V. Maxwell, 16. Jan Irwin Sadd, “1971 Prediction: Another Big Year for Pants,” Chicago Tribune, 2 January 1971, A13.

17. Margareth de Miraval, “Ingredients of Style,” Christian Science Monitor, 30 July 1971, 12.

18. John Duka. “Notes on Fashion”, New York Times, 18 November 1980, B14 19. Anne-Marie Schiro, “A Survivor’s Designs,” New York Times, 12 April 1981, 58.

20. Richard Zoglin, “Code Green, Tan and Brown,” Time, 6 February 1984. (www.time.com) 21. Interview with the author. 30 March 2007, New York City.

Molnar ultimately felt that his attempt failed, mainly due to the superficiality of fashion. He left fashion soon after.

22. Email interview with the author 3 September 2007.

23. Lourdes Font, Lecture on the Fashion in the French Revolution, Fashion Institute of Technology, October 2004.

24. Richard Martin, Swords into Ploughshares. (Metropolitan Museum of Art: New York, 1995).

The Virtual Shoe Museum Liza Snook

I‘m Liza Snook, director and founder of the Virtual Shoe Museum (online from 14th of Feb. 2006), I’m a graphic desiger by profession. My partner Taco Zwaanswijk, who is a multimedia designer (www.interactive-affairs.com) designed the site.

The video reports are also made by us.

If so: what fascinates you about shoes? I was born with a passion for shoes and I have been collecting shoes now for more than 25 years. My collection exists of a library of shoe books, shoevenirs, shoes I can wear (wearing doesn’t necessary mean walking!), shoes from different cultures and hundreds of Barbie shoes.

What qualifies a model to be shown on the site? The core of our virtual collection focuses on designs that question the very essence of the shoe: ‘Is this a shoe? ‘Is this wearable?‘Does it matter?‘Is it tickling your imagination? Designs that balance between these values and still present a shoe that can be worn or looks as if it could be worn, are what I’m after: a twist, a sense of humor.

If I made a sketch of some outrageous shoe and sent it to you would I stand a chance to find it in the VSM? Every designer or artist can send their shoe images by mail, we always make time to look at it and then we decide if the shoe is suitable for our collection.

Tisshoes © Masashi Kawamura

How many different models are currently exhibited on the site? At the moment there are 1,000 shoes in our the virtual shoe collection. And we are working on many more.

Future: We have lots of plans for the future. Soon visitors can select their own favorites from the complete collection (their own virtual space) within the museum. We will expand the video reports (there will be a great exhibition in the Leather and Shoemuseum of Waalwijk about Beth Levine and in spring a new shoemuseum in Belgium will opening. We will be continuing with interviews with designers and shoe collectors.

We are considering opening a branch in Second Life, where visitors might try on the designs and even acquire them.

Facts and figures: Last year we had 300,00 visitors and ± 4,000,000 page views. www.virtualshoemuseum.com

For the Birds © Arnold van Bezooyen Can you give me some more information on the VSM? What is the motivation/Intention behind it? For some twenty years I showed my collection of shoes, shoe images, advertisements, photo’s etc. at home to whoever was interested, telling the same stories over and over again... Now, of course I always visited shoe museums when abroad. Most of the times however, this proved to be a rather disappointing experience: there was never enough exhibition space to present a substantial part of the collection (roughly 5 percent). Even then, not much context is created and conditions could be better (lighting, spacing). These experiences inspired me to create a virtual shoe museum: the range of possibilities a digital environment might open up. We could include shoes in all sorts of sections, without having to compromise or duplicate. We could create multiple perspectives on any shoe, varying from ‘designer’, ‘focus’ and ‘material’ to ‘style’ and ‘type’ and even ‘colour’. All without duplicating and every time creating a new environment in which the shoe would be presented.

Moulded mole © Niels van Eijk - Mirjam van der Lubbe COSTUME AUSTRALIA

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Lace Encounters at the Powerhouse Museum Lindie Ward

Close encounters with museum objects are rare in these days of tight security and armoured glass. So a visit to the Lace Study Centre at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney is a real treat. The Museum has been collecting lace for over a century. The collection of over a thousand examples includes handmade pieces from the late 1500s and many subsequent interpretations and innovations in lace right through to the present day. It includes machine-made lace, which emerged in the early nineteenth century, and some extraordinary contemporary pieces. The Lace Study Centre stores 287 examples of hand made lace in glass topped drawers, close enough for the keenest eye to be satisfied. This display embraces all the major techniques of hand made lace.

In the early museum records there is mention of a netted bag made by ‘natives’ of the Albert District, North Western NSW. It was composed of new worsted and old socks etc, unravelled and retwisted and was brought to the Museum by a Mrs Kennedy in 1889. For some years netting would not have been considered lace, seen more as functional, for carrying bags and fishing nets. Netting is now recognised as an important lace technique and is included in the display alongside knitting and knotting.

Close study is enhanced by a very comprehensive collection of research material available at the facility. Collection notebooks itemise and describe each of the 287 pieces of hand made lace in the Centre, providing technical details, provenance and enlarged photos. Information has also been set up to describe each technique and how it is achieved. Touch samples are available to illustrate different generic techniques. Shelves house reference books and folders for interesting articles as they occur in papers and magazines. Visitors are able to have a 18

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close look at different techniques from around the globe, and take photographs with a digital microscope if they so choose.

The Centre is staffed, six days a week, by a team of volunteer lace enthusiasts from the Australian Lace Guild, on hand to answer queries about techniques and materials. Each with varying interests, the volunteers share their skills, demonstrate techniques and research the collection and the stories that it tells. Increasingly they are enjoying visits from overseas specialists who have heard about the centre on the web. This has become a two way exchange.

More than 5,000 enthusiasts visited the Lace Study Centre in 2008. Many international visitors come from traditional lace making centres such as St Albans, Valenciennes and Brussels. A quote from the visitors’ book is testament to its popularity.

‘I’m only sixteen years’ old and I found it one of the most amazing things I have ever seen - to the point that I nearly cried.’

The Lace Study Centre was initiated by lace curator, Rosemary Shepherd, now retired, who was curator of the lace collection for many years. She researched, catalogued and categorised the collection in great detail with the distinct advantage of being an expert lace maker and designer herself. Her cataloguing system can be found on the Powerhouse website.

For many years Shepherd has taught lace making and been at the forefront of a resurgence of interest in this art. Her particular speciality is metal lace.

Shiro Kuro man’s shirt by Anne Farren, WA, Australia, from the 2001 Lace for Fashion Award and Exhibition, photograph by Robert Frith.

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Volunteers from the Australian Lace Guild in the Lace Study Centre, 2007

‘Judith and Holofernes’ linen needle lace panel with human hair and red silk, unknown maker c1650, donated by Christian Thornett 1966 A5335

Metal lace bracelet by Rosemary Shepherd, 2007, Rosemary Shepherd collection

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For those uninitiated, the term ‘lace’ covers a wide range of textile techniques. Shepherd defines lace as ‘an openwork structure whose pattern of holes is as important as the solid areas’.

The Lace Study Centre has many examples of the traditional forms of needle lace, embroidered lace and bobbin lace.

Knitted, knotted, tatted and crocheted lace are also displayed.

Highlights from the collection include a precious needle lace panel from the mid 1600s depicting the biblical story of Judith and Holofernes. Needle lace panels and stumpwork embroidery of this period often depicted stories of lust and violence, sometimes from the bible. Worked mostly with twisted buttonhole stitch in linen thread, this panel tells of Holofernes sent by King Nebuchadnezzar on an expedition against Palestine. Holofernes besieged the city of Bethulia from which Judith, a beautiful widow, attempted to flee.

Unable to escape, she seduced him and, after he had fallen into a drunken sleep, she cut off his head and returned triumphantly to Bethulia with his head in a bag. The Assyrian forces were subsequently defeated. The drama of this scene is accentuated by the use of red silk for blood and human hair for the hair and Holofernes’ beard.

Another important and well provenanced piece of lace is a Venetian needle lace border dating from the late 1600s. It was wrapped in a crumpled piece of paper on which Philip Gidley King, the second Governor of New South Wales, had written “My dear mother’s Great Uncle Gidley’s ruffler which he wore when he was with ‘King Billy’”. We assume this refers to William III who reigned from 1689 – 1702.

Descendents Mr and Mrs R.G.King donated this important piece to the collection in 1986 along with a Masonic apron dating from the 1750s.

The lace collection is not exclusively focussed on the past.

A most important initiative, the 1997, 2001 and forthcoming 2009 lace award and exhibition encourages contemporary lace makers from all over the world to use their creativity in this fascinating medium. The entries have featured a variety of industrial, man-made and natural materials such as metals, plastic and soluble base fabrics. Seaweed, leather and optic fibres were manipulated with a wide range of innovative techniques. Some of the most significant pieces from this program are now in the collection, several on display in the Lace Study Centre. The skill of these lace makers exemplifies our timeless fascination for the way lace simultaneously conceals and reveals. The 2009 award ‘Laced up Spaced out’ will broaden its scope to call for designs for interiors as well as fashion.

In addition to holding a world class and very comprehensive lace collection, the Powerhouse Museum is the only Australian museum actively collecting contemporary lace and promoting lace as a medium for design and artistic expression.

Lace-making is an art requiring great skill and patience. The lace maker needs to embrace and understand traditional techniques. At the Powerhouse we would like to create an exciting environment where contemporary lace makers are inspired to develop new techniques and designs in new materials, the natural process of any art form. The Lace Study Centre seeks to facilitate and encourage a new generation of experimentation and innovation in contemporary lace design.

Lindie Ward is curator of design history and society at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

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Dresstudy, a History of KCI, an Attempt of Fashion Studies

by Makoto Ishizeki Clothing is one of indispensable things in our everyday life. Clothing can be a communication tool of our thoughts. And clothing reflects the society where it is worn and the time when it is in fashion. To demonstrate the importance and possibility of fashion and costume studies, the Kyoto Costume Institute (KCI) has been publishing for over a quarter of a century its semiannual bulletin, Dresstudy.

First of all, we will take a brief look at the Institute’s history and activities. Since its foundation in 1978, KCI has been collecting and conserving historical and contemporary garments, undergarments, accessories, especially from Western world, with the unique financial, personal, and environmental support of Wacoal, a Japanese major lingerie brand. KCI’s collection, world-famous for its quality and quantity, currently ranges from 17th century to the present with 12,000 items of clothing and 14,000 documents, and it is enriched by a great number of gifts from collectors, designers, and fashion houses, among which you can find around 1,000 sets of clothing from Comme des Garçons.

Working with the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, KCI launched large fashion exhibitions based on its collection, including “Revolution in Fashion” (1989), “Japonisme in Fashion” (1994), “Visions of the Body” (1999), and “Fashion in Colors” (2004), whose themes and installations were highly evaluated and which traveled to national and international institutions such as the Musée de la mode et du textile in Paris, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Musée de la mode de la ville de Paris (Musée Galliera).

Dresstudy, apparently a coined word of dress and study, was first published in 1982, at the very early stage of KCI’s activities, with the aim of having the opportunity to present its peerless collection and research activities to the public as well as promoting, as mentioned at the beginning of this text, the development of fashion studies in Japan. Since then, these two objectives have been unchanged. Now, the editorial members are Akiko Fukai as editor-in-chief and Makoto Ishizeki.

Featuring timely topics or themes that should be deeply studied, Dresstudy consists of essays, interviews, and summaries of lectures contributed by researchers, critics, designers, or other experts of various fields, as well as reports and articles written by KCI’s members. International and interdisciplinary, the these writings show us not only 24

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that a fashion in a certain period could be closely linked to what was happening in the society of the time and also that, when studying such fashion, even investigating a piece of clothing, we need to think them with different points of view from the structure of the garment to the cultural, political, and economical backgrounds. In 2008, we brought out a book entitled Jidai wo kiru (wearing the period) to celebrate the 50th issue of Dresstudy. This is an anthology of articles published in the bulletin since its first issue, representing what we have been doing and asking for in it.

We sometimes pursue one comprehensive subject in several issues of this periodical. The latest one is “luxury.” Its necessity and utility has been argued for thousands of years by lots of philosophers and scholars and it has always been thought of as an important element of fashion. Without a passion for luxury, would a sumptuous 18th-century textile have been produced? Would the haute couture system have been invented? Would a number of people form a line in front of a Louis Vuitton shop to get monogram bags and wallets? The desire to be luxury is universal. Today, however, our idea of what is luxury is likely enough in the midst of change, as seen from the fact that people get more and more interested in comfort or sensory pleasure, and that recycling or being sustainable is considered as a new lifestyle of a next generation instead of mass-producing and consuming. While constantly doing our researches, we also invited scholars and experts to have a lecture or make an essay for Dresstudy so that these oral or written contributions could supplement and verify our studies on luxury in the apparel field. From this April, the fruit will be presented in the exhibition entitled “Luxury in Fashion Reconsidered” at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, and the show will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo next winter.

Exhibitions and publications very often refer to each other in our activities. As a leading fashion-study institution in Japan, KCI is involved in exploring mutual influences between Japan and the West. The most respected and successful achievement

is the “Japonism in Fashion” show, which reveals how the Western fashion adopted the motif and the structure of Japanese traditional kimono around the beginning of the 20th century and it admired the creativity of Japanese designers after the Second World War II. This could not be done without previous researches published in Dresstudy.

Japanese cultures, especially pop cultures like mangas, video games, and street fashions, have lately attracted worldwide attention. It is just the same in Australia without exception: lots of manga comic shops opened in cities like Melbourne and Sydney, thousands of anime fans seen in the Melbourne Japan Festival, young ladies from Australia among other countries coming to Tokyo to get some GothLoli gear. Museums also follow this trend, one of which is the Powerhouse Museum that held an attractive exhibition of contemporary Japanese fashion, The Cutting Edge: Fashion from Japan, with works of various designers from the KCI collection. This worldwide enthusiastic phenomenon could be called a “neo japonism.”

Cross-cultural encounter as the West had experienced in the japonism movement gives us a different way of thinking to create a new style and fashion. And also it provides original subjects of study. Australia, where people from different societies are living together, is characterized by its cultural diversity. This can be a theme appropriate to Dresstudy. Full of good examples of cultural intercourses and mutations, this country will certainly bring about great fruits in the fashion studies. We are looking forward to them.

Makoto Ishizeki is, Assistant Curator, The Kyoto Costume Institute COSTUME AUSTRALIA

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The New Zealand Costume and Textiles Association

by Jane Malthus.

New Zealand’s costume and textiles association grew out of a desire to share some of the information, research and collaborations that were known to be happening around historic and contemporary dress in fields from conservation to art. In 2002, a day-long symposium in Auckland organised by a textiles conservator and two curators drew 110 people, and resulted in the adoption of some aims for the nascent organization.

Promotion of interest in all aspects of historical and contemporary costume and textiles, fostering the study of NZ and international costume and textiles, encouraging conservation of NZ dress and textiles, and being helpful to each other are still the organizations aims and objectives. We hold a two-day symposium each year with a theme, inviting people to submit abstracts for consideration and selection.

We publish Context, currently twice a year, with articles, reviews, notices of conferences, and exhibitions. Members are also kept in touch through our enews system (approx monthly), and our website www.costumeandtextile.co.nz Members come from varied backgrounds, some academic or professionally involved with costume and textiles, others from art, craft, or science, and all have varied interests within the broad costume and textile scope. Some concentrate on detailed study of a particular aspect or phenomenon, others explore historical analysis, yet others are designers, makers, or artists. Material seems to bind us together however loosely, since we can and do all learn from each other, whether about research techniques or technical equipment.

We are happy to include more Australian members in our organization (yes, we have a few already). Membership is currently $45 waged or $25 unwaged. You can join through the website, or by sending membership to Jane Malthus, Traquair, 2000 Lee Stream-Outram Rd, RD 2 Outram, 9074, New Zealand.

Our next symposium will be held at TheNewDowse museum, Lower Hutt, June 12 13, 2010.

Jane Malthus, President.

New Zealand Costume and Textile Association Announcement and call for Papers The 9th annual conference of the New Zealand Costume and Textile Association will be hosted by TheNewDowse art museum in Lower Hutt Saturday 12 & Sunday 13 June 2010 HANGING BY A THREAD tales of disaster and survival In April 1968 the inter island ferry Wahine headed into Cook straight, loaded with passengers and freight. Among her various items of cargo - a small brilliantly coloured cocktail dress made in New Zealand wool - lovingly packed in a suitcase. As the ferry came to its ill-fated end on Barrett’s Reef, the suitcase and dress were abandoned as its owner fled to safety on the last lifeboat.

Months later “out of the fuel oil, the slimy silt and rust of the Wahine’s hold,” the dress, recognisable only by its shape, was rescued and restored to its former glory - its miraculous recovery attributed to the survivalist properties of pure wool. To the promoters of wool this story was not only of the survival of a woman and her favourite party dress, but ammunition for an industry fighting to survive the synthetic revolution and willing to exploit every promotional opportunity at its disposal, even a national disaster.

Historically, and within current practice, costume and textiles are synonymous with survival, and are certainly no stranger to disaster.

The 2010 New Zealand Costume and Textile Association conference will address the perilous theme of Hanging by a Thread. We look forward to receiving moving, inspirational, and thought provoking papers that tell tales of disaster and survival.

Abstracts You are invited to submit abstracts of no more than 300 words on the theme Hanging by Thread. Please include a short biography.

Abstracts should be forwarded to Dr Jane Malthus by Friday 5 February 2010.

Postal address: Dr Jane Malthus, Traquair, 2000 Lee Stream-Outram Road, R. D. 2, Outram 9074 Email:james.reid@xtra.co.nz Applicants will be advised if their abstract has been accepted by Friday 5 March 2010.

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The Art of Fashion: Installing Allusions

The Art of Fashion: Installing Allusions 19 September 2009 - 10 January 2010 This autumn Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen will be exploring the boundaries of fashion. Today’s fashion designers are entering the area of fine art and in their turn influence the art world. The Art of Fashion reveals the sparks that fly at the interface between fashion and art. New and existing works by twenty-five international designers and artists provide a confrontational visual experience.

Fashion shows and advertising campaigns have

had their day. Fashion designers present their work with installations, performances and sculptural designs. Like art, today’s fashion is collected by museums and private individuals.

Conversely in recent years artists have been exploring the visual world of fashion. The fixed boundaries between fashion and art have become blurred. For the first time The Art of Fashion combines the two disciplines in a confrontational visual spectacle.

Museum boijmnans van beuningen 19 September 2009 - 10 January 2010 COSTUME AUSTRALIA

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LOCAL EXHIBITIONS

GLOBAL EXHIBITIONS

PERSUASION: FASHION IN THE AGE OF JANE AUSTEN

MADELEINE VIONNET, PURISTE DE LA MODE

National Gallery of Victoria International 22 May - 8 November 2009

Musées des Arts Décoratifs Paris, France 24 June 2009 - 31 January 2010

Jane Austen’s life coincided with some of the greatest transformations in history including the Revolution in France, the American War of Independence, the Industrial Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. In response to such events, fashion undertook dramatic change. Featuring over 70 works, the exhibition looks at such changes in fashion during Jane Austen’s lifetime (1775-1817). With a focus on English women’s dress from the early 19th century, the exhibition will also include prints, drawings, decorative arts and paintings.

In 1952 Madeleine Vionnet donated 22 dresses, 750 dress patterns and 75 photo albums to Les Arts Décoratifs. This year, the museum is devoting a major exhibition to the couturier selected from works made between 1912 and 1939. Recently restored, the works showcase her refined and sleek designs that show her trademark drapery.

EASTON PEARSON GoMA 22 August – 8 November 2009 In celebration of Brisbane-based fashion house Easton Pearson’s twentieth anniversary, the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art is hosting a survey exhibition. Taken from the designers archive, the exhibition explores the designers inspiration, “and the edgy glamour, exquisitely embellished fabrics and vibrant colours that have made them one of Australia’s most successful design teams”.

TIES WITH TRADITION MACEDONIAN APRON DESIGNS Powerhouse Museum Sydney 1 August - 22 November 2009 This exhibition showcases a selection of Macedonian aprons, traditionally worn for special occasions and everyday use. A powerful juxtaposition of colours, patterns, and materials, these hand-woven aprons tell the stories of women’s lives and creativity, their villages and traditions. For the women of the Illawarra their journey of migration to Australia transformed their aprons from an integral part of daily dress into a lasting memento of a former way of life.

QUICKTAKE: RODART Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum New York, USA 29 January 29 - 14 March 14 2010 Rodarte’s creations feature complex manipulation of materials and other meticulous techniques evocative of haute couture through an American lens. Founded in 2005 by Kate and Laura Mulleavy, Rodarte is widely acclaimed for its daring and conceptual fashion collections. The installation offers a glimpse into the Mulleavys’ unique process and inspiration at an important point in their career; recently Rodarte was awarded the 2009 Womenswear Designer of the Year by the Council of Fashion Designers of America and was named a 2009 fashion design finalist for Cooper-Hewitt’s National Design Awards.

NEWS: RUSSIA TO OPEN ITS FIRST FASHION MUSEUM The history of Russian fashion is to be unveiled as the brand new Fashion Museum is being prepared for opening in 2010, as part of the All-Russian Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts.

As the director of the new museum, Margarita Barzhanova, says, it has already collected over 40,000 costumes, from 15th Century dresses to modern clothing, fabric and embroidery samples, as well as sketches and photographs dated from the 19th and 20th Centuries. The museum has been collecting all these priceless pieces of fashion history since its foundation 125 years ago.

TOGETHER ALONE, AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND FASHION National Gallery of Victoria Australia 1 October 2009 – 18 April 2010 Brining together close neighbours Australia and New Zealand, this exhibition explores the similarities and common fashion ground.

Works from eight fashion houses Akira Isogawa, Toni Maticevski (see image to right), MaterialByProduct, Romance Was Born, Doris de Pont, World, Nom*D and Zambesi display the intellectual and creative undercurrents that bind the region.

IMAGE: Maticevski, Melbourne fashion house est. 1999 Toni Maticevski designer born Australia 1976 Dali goddess evening dress 2007 summer 2007 triacetate polyester (crepe jersey), silk (organza), nylon (tulle) (a) 187.0 cm (centre back), 30.0 cm (waist, flat) (dress); (b) 154.0 cm (centre back), 47.0 cm (waist, flat) (underskirt) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2007 ©Toni Maticevski

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