Out of the dropped jaws from Rodarte’s collection showcased at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) fell a very important question. It’s a question about fashion, ofcourse, but also of culture, of design at large, and of the future.
Where are we going???
It is possible, based on the overwhelming affection the collection received, that within the question lies a bit of hope for us fashion lovers. The Fra Angelico Collection, as it is named, was inspired by the Italian Renaissance frescoes in the monastery of San Marco by Fra Angelico in Florence, Italy, as well as the Baroque sculpture, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) in Rome.
Rodarte’s signature dressmaking techniques and sculptural details can be seen in each of the gowns. Silk fabrics (including chiffon, georgette, lamé, organza, satin, taffeta, and tulle) are draped and manipulated to give form, texture, and tonal variety to the color palette inspired by the frescoes. The gowns are customized utilizing a variety of materials such as feathers, SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS, sequins, and custom-made silk flowers. Hand-forged gold metallic accessories such as a headpiece, breastplate, and belts dramatically complete the look of several key gowns.
The Fra Angelico collection will enter LACMA’s Costume and Textiles Department, which houses over twenty-five thousand objects, representing more than one hundred cultures and two thousand years of human creativity in the textile arts. (LACMA website)
Rodarte has debuted collections at large museums before, and certainly isn’t the first fashion house to do so. And isn’t it fitting that we not only view the collections beside (or in the Fra Angelico’s case, in the center of) the art and architecture and design elements that inspired it in the first place. And isn’t it so wonderful and fulfilling to see, once again, life inspiring art, and art inspiring life…especially so directly.
Fra Angelico isn’t unlike Seattle Art Museum’s recent exhibit, Nick Cave: Meet Me At The Center of the Earth, 2011. For those out there who had the chance to see Nick Cave’s exuberant and flavorful representation of costuming, you know the creations are not easily forgot: Nick Cave tailors suits that are sculpture, clothing characters that spring out of his imagination.
Stately guardians preside in shaggy, day-glow pink hair; polar bears wear sweaters that stick out in humorous places; and dancers are adorned with white beaded filigree crowns. Suits like this have never been seen before. Partly this is due to his choice of improbable materials—buttons, plastic tabs, hot pads, metal flowers, sandwich bags, spinning tops and crocheted doilies—which are used to make visually fierce and impeccably detailed suits. (SAM website; past exhibits)
Often we are bombarded with the fashion that is arguably more shocking than it is innovative. There is no doubt the impact fashion has on other art realms such as music, and vice versa. Now, as the two interweave in a more couture-inspired way (much thanks to Gaga), fashion has become an even more liberating force of self-expression in cultures worldwide. It’s nothing new; Annette Funicello’s bikini, the beatnik’s obsession with the color black, Marilyn Monroe’s every hip-hugging ensemble, they all spoke for freedom to rebel, and rebellion for freedom. Art inspires life, life inspires art…
I certainly hope the honors are properly awarded, however, in the mixing of artistic mediums. In 2011, Lady Gaga was interviewed by acclaimed haute couture designer Jean Paul Gaultier. This interviewer (*ahem*) believes the interview would have been better the other way around, but in any case, the two artists, bound by a love of the imaginative and beautiful, were placed together for what TV called “Gaga by Gaultier”. Interesting, sure. Informative, hardly. Gaga’s fashion style– dresses made of everything from meat to Kermit the Frog, or giant ‘condom’ inspired body suits – does put quite a wet blanket on the idea of life inspiring art. With the tragic loss of brilliant designer Lee Alexander McQueen, mastermind of Alexander McQueen, it may have been that we were all simply needing to be shocked, to be woken up, to be wowed again. Even Wikipedia’s explanation of McQueen is phenomenal:
McQueen’s early runway collections developed his reputation for controversy and shock tactics (earning the title “l’enfant terrible” and “the hooligan of English fashion”),[4] with trousers aptly named “bumsters” and a collection titled “Highland Rape”. In 2004, journalist Caroline Evans also wrote of McQueen’s “theatrical staging of cruelty”, in 032c magazine, referring to his dark and tortured renderings of Scottish history.[19] McQueen was known for his lavish, unconventional runway shows: a recreation of a shipwreck for his spring 2003 collection; spring 2005′s human chess game; and his fall 2006 show “Widows of Culloden”, which featured a life-sized hologram of supermodel Kate Moss dressed in yards of rippling fabric.
Even the great Alexander McQueen had a bumpy road to begin, especially at Givenchy and his first couture collection (he was even quoted saying the collection was “crap”. Ouch.) Ultimately, though, he allowed the beautiful world around him and his own self-convictions to lead his designs. For instance, Manta, inspired by manta rays of the Maldives, or one of his last collections inspired by different reptiles. It isn’t the subject matter that inspired the design, but rather the feeling that the subject evokes. It isn’t wrong for an art to be created with the purpose of instilling an emotion (such as shock), but there must be more behind it. There must be more to the motives: the beauty seen in death, in the pain behind a widows eyes, etc. If not, the only statement most audiences here is trite. How is a meat dress trite, you ask? When it can’t be distinguished in value from a Katy Perry Candy Land character dress…the only difference is that Perry admits she’s doing it for fun, and so it is.
So the question remains: where are we going? Where is the world of fashion design headed? With a whole heart, I believe we are still headed toward designers with true and timeless brilliance like that of John Galliano, Louis Vuitton, and even today’s Tom Ford. Haute Couture is certainly not losing luster as it is more widely accepted and investigated. Might America’s Chris March be the next to change the game? With fashion study becoming more popular thanks to the E! channel, we can have a much more informed conversation of it in our day-to-day. We also have the fortune of a Royal icon again in Kate Middleton, a place that has long been empty in our hearts since the loss of Diana. With each dark night eventually comes a dawn. Life continues to inspire art, art continues to inspire life… The only problem is the catch-22 we find ourselves in:
As we humans further our evolution into a techno-world and destroy our planet around us, what ‘life’ shall inspire the art, and what art shall inspire our lives in the future?
Fra Angelico by Rodarte is on exhibit at the LACMA until February 5th, 2012.
