Balenciaga, L’oeuvre au Noir & Fortuny, un Italien à Venise: Complementary takes on Contemporary Monographic Fashion Exhibiting

Abstract

This crossed review of two Palais Galliera exhibitions, both held around the theme of Spanish couturiers’ fashion work, examines how varied the exercice of monographic fashion exhibiting today can be, through the example of one museum and two very different yet complementary approaches.

Keywords:

• Cristobal Balenciaga
• Mariano Fortuny
• monographic exhibitions
• Palais Galliera

Notes

Notes

1 Putting in parallel the sculptural qualities of Madame Grès’ famous pleated, Grecian-inspired dresses of the 1940s and the monumental work of 19th-century sculptor Antoine Bourdelle (an intimate friend of Rodin, his well-preserved atelier has been frozen in time and turned into a city museum), it allowed a large public to rediscover the vision of a couturière who dreamed herself as an artist, and who saw no difference in working with fabric or with marble. See Di Trocchio (2014). There is little doubt that it is the popular and critical acclaim met by this first exhibit (which has been deemed “astonishingly modern”) that prompted a new collaboration between both institutions.

2 Here, one is reminded of Hiro’s 1967 photograph of the dress and cape for Harper’s Bazaar, but also of Penn and Avedon’s 1950s black-and-white photographic reports on Paris fashion, on models Suzy Parker or Lisa Fonssagrives, so emblematic of a certain image of Parisian elegance and couture’s importance, to which Balenciaga is strongly associated. See Ribeiro (2009).

3 The “Spanish Costumes: Darkness and Light” exhibit was held at the Victor Hugo House in Paris from June 21st to September 24th, 2017. It displayed pieces from Madrilean museums’ collections in the former house of the famous poet, now a city museum dedicated to his life. The exhibition, focused on the craft and folk dimension of the costumes, was not, unlike the two reviewed here, a monographic exhibit on one designer. For review of this exhibition, see de Lorenzo (2018).

4 Such a reflexive current in fashion exhibiting is exemplified by some of Saillard’s previous endeavors such as the Anatomy of a Collection (2016-2017) or Alaïa (2013-2014) exhibits, but also by other fashion or non fashion-related exhibitions—such as the recent Masterworks: Unpacking Fashion (2016-2017) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, or even the Milanese Pinacoteca Brera in which a glimpse at the restoration laboratory can be caught amongst Renaissance masterpieces.

5 On this topic, see for instance the recent Vänskä and Clark (2017).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alice Morin

Alice Morin just completed her PhD on the contested yet lasting editorial system of fashion photographs in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Interview from the 1960s to the 1980s at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, where she also taught American cultural history. She communicates and publishes internationally on the subject. [email protected]