Fashioning Art from Paper

Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave creates breathtaking paper recreations of historical costumes. The life-size sculptures celebrate the artist’s love of vibrant color, textiles, and the artistic effect trompe l’oeil (French for “fools the eye”). De Borchgrave began her studies at age 14 at the Centre des Arts Décoratifs in Brussels. After graduating from the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, she established her own studio by age 18 and embraced multiple creative disciplines—including painting and sculpture—from the beginning of her career.

Following a visit to New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in 1994, de Borchgrave created her first series of paper dresses, Papiers à la Mode, in collaboration with Canadian costume designer Rita Brown. The elaborately designed paper costumes depicted 300 years of fashion history, from Queen Elizabeth I to Coco Chanel.

Since then, de Borchgrave’s work has included commissions and series focused on specific historical garments she has seen in museums and private collections—kaftans spanning three centuries of the Silk Road trade route in Central Asia, early 20th-century European and American stage costumes, and clothing pictured in European portraits. As she renders the textiles, she interprets them—incorporating her own research and impressions—rather than recreating them identically.

ABOVE : Isabelle de Borchgrave, Kaftan Sholeh

Sadra—Flame (detail). 2004. Mixed media, acrylic, ink, metallic powder, and adhesive on paper, 57 x 49 3/4 inches.

ABOVE RIGHT : Isabelle de Borchgrave, Kaftan Safir Sadr—Sapphire, 2004. Mixed media, acrylic, ink, metallic powder, and adhesive on paper, 57 1/4 x 50 3/4 inches. Collection of the artist

IN 2019, DE BORCHGRAVE TOLD

VOGUE MAGAZINE’S LAIRD BORRELLI-PERSSON:

I was, and still am, surprised every day by what paper can give you. Paper gives you freedom: You can paint on it, shrink it, iron it, and mimic fabrics such as linen, velvet, brocade, taffeta, and satin by playing with trompe l’oeil and illusion. It’s much more resistant than fabric. It endures better against light and time…

Today, de Borchgrave’s studio, located in the center of Brussels, includes a team of assistants and interns, collaborating not only on sculptures but on a range of projects, including paintings, bronzes, and décor. In addition to her artistic pursuits, de Borchgrave has worked with luxury fashion brands Christian Dior and Hermès, among others. Her work is in private and permanent collections, including The Frick Art Museum in Pittsburgh and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. She has worked in fashion, interior design, painting, and sculpture for nearly 60 years.

Isabelle de Borchgrave: Fashioning Art from Paper provides a retrospective view of the artist’s paper sculptures. Her art reimagines the history of fashion in humble paper, transporting us through more than 500 years around the world.

WAM Curator Dr. Tera Lee Hedrick interviewed fashion historian Dennita Sewell, who curated the Isabelle de Borchgrave exhibition and currently serves as the program director/professor of practice in the School of Art at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University. Prior to her position at ASU, Sewell was a curator of fashion design at the Phoenix Art Museum.

FOR AUDIENCES WHO HAVE NOT HEARD OF ISABELLE DE BORCHGRAVE, WHAT SHOULD WE KNOW ABOUT HER? WHAT DO YOU THINK IS IMPORTANT ABOUT HER LIFE AND CAREER?

She’s an artist first. This isn’t a fashion exhibition. This is an artist interpreting clothes from different periods of time—she’s just as interested in the time period, people, and place as she is in fashion per se. The sculptures are her interpretations.

CAN YOU TELL US WHAT DE BORCHGRAVE’S PROCESS IS LIKE, FROM IDEA THROUGH PRODUCTION? HOW DOES SHE DECIDE WHAT TO MAKE? WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

She draws inspiration from travel and research. The first thing she does is buy books on a subject, for inspiration. The next step is choosing whatever paper or armature she’s going to use—doing some samples and mockups and experiments. She makes the “fabric” (from paper) and then constructs the dress. Textural qualities are very important to her. She studies historical artists and the way they painted. If you compare how gold lace looks in reality to how it’s represented in a painting, it’s obviously connected and structured in reality. And yet when Isabelle paints it, she has that same ability to abstract that idea and recreate what that object looks like in light and color and translate it through paint into something that’s absolutely believable. Like any painting, when you step back and view it at a distance, it is completely believable.

DE BORCHGRAVE DOESN’T MAKE THESE WORKS ALONE— SHE HAS A STUDIO OF ASSISTANTS. WHO DOES WHAT?

When she first started out, she collaborated with theatrical costumer Rita Brown. Rita made patterns that were extremely period accurate. Then Isabelle began working with fashion students. It became a lot more expressive. She cared much less about historical accuracy, much more about the aura, the emotion, the passion in the piece.

AND WHAT IS THE ATMOSPHERE OF HER STUDIO WORKSPACE LIKE?

Oh boy, if only everyone could go. It’s all white but it’s filled with colorful things. It’s like her own “white box” gallery and her work is hanging from the ceiling and in drawers. Things that she’s made are everywhere. She’s energized by others. The role of studio assistants varies according to their skill set. Like any small business, people show their strengths and you use their strengths. Maybe they lay down the ground color, and then Isabelle goes in for details. Maybe they help make little pearls. (Even I made a pearl!) In order to do the level of output that she’s done, you need people to help.

IF YOU WERE TO TELL OUR VISITORS TO LOOK CLOSELY AT ONE SPECIFIC ELEMENT OF THE EXHIBITION, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

Don’t miss the touching station—go through and look and then don’t miss touching. It is so Isabelle to want that as part of the show. She loves to share; she loves tactility.

WHAT DO YOU HOPE VIEWERS WILL TAKE AWAY FROM THE EXHIBITION ABOUT ISABELLE DE BORCHGRAVE’S ART?

She’s brought together what would be an impossible exhibition of fashion. These are treasures—including things that don’t even exist but are iconic. She’s brought them together.

Isabelle de Borchgrave, Flora, 2006. Mixed media, acrylic, ink, metallic powder, and adhesive on paper, 71 x 25 x 24 1/2 inches. Collection of the artist

ADMISSION TO Fashioning Art from Paper

• FREE for WAM members

• $12 for adults/seniors

• FREE for college students w/ID + youth 18 & under

Pay for admission at the museum’s Welcome Desk.

FREE DAY

No admission charge for visitors to see Isabelle de Borchgrave

MANY THANKS TO COLBY SANDLIAN OF SANDLIAN REALTY FOR SUPPORTING THIS FREE SATURDAY.

In addition, thanks to the generous support of Colby Sandlian, Sandlian Realty, more than 40 public libraries in the metro area and across the state offer access to check out passes to all temporary exhibitions at WAM for FREE! Visit your library and check out your pass today!

PRESENTING SPONSOR

Lattner Family Foundation

PRINCIPAL SPONSORS

Koch Family Foundation

Sondra Langel

Sarah T. Smith

Judy Slawson Exhibition Fund

GENERAL SPONSORS

DeVore Foundation

Dondlinger Construction

Emprise Bank

The Trust Company of Kansas

Donna Bunk

Mary Eves

Toni and Bud Gates

Joey and Rich Giblin

Carol and H. Guy Glidden

Harold and Evelyn Gregg

Sonia Greteman and Chris Brunner