Nostalgia Friday - Fashion's Past

On May 08th my favoritest museum in the whole world - the Met in NYC - is staging a new fashion exhibition: Charles James, Beyond Fashion.

(This portrait of the fashion designer by Cecil Beaton is terrific, placing the man behind his tools of trade, operating his own cage, so to speak, and it is reminiscent of a portrait of the Soviet artist Vladimir Tatlin with his flying appartaus/sculpture Letatlin. )

The exhibition explores the work of a man known to be America's first couturier, the fashion designer Charles James (1906-1978), the man Christian Dior credited with inspiring his post WWII "New Look"; the man known as the inventor of the puffer jacket and the taxi dress (so easy to get in and out of you could do it in the backseat of a cab - Mad Men, this is one dress you should have featured!).

Puffer Jacket:

Taxi Dress:

Beyond these innovations and an early foray into fashion licensing James' legacy is firmly 'cemented' in yards and yards of frothy tulle - as a fashion designer his forte were strictly luxurious ball gowns.

Like so:

Austine Hearst in the Leaf Gown:

And the dress on a mannequin:

The Butterfly gown in a B&W print:

And on a mannequin, the masterful use of color of its creator on full view:

And the intricate treatment of tulle from behind:

Check out the fantabulous construction:

A coat:

and in action, on Nancy "Slim" Keith, a NYC socialite, an inspiration for Truman Capote's roman a clef novels :

Gowns created for the heiress Millicent Rogers:

And this spine-like dress:

Beyond, no?

Truly, though, beyond the fashion, these gowns are a conduit of sorts to a past that is both not that far off (NY of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s) and light years away, a city of glamour and formality so far removed from today.

And in that spirit of Nostalgia Friday  here's Bryan Ferry's take on "Smoke gets in your eyes":