Thursday, 19 January 2023

 I have just viewed Auckland Art Gallery's 'Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera - Art & Life in Modern Mexico', and when I stepped into the room displaying Frida Kahlo's 'Diego on My Mind Self-Portrait as Tehuana' (1943),


the glorious CdG Spring 2012 collection, White Drama, instantly came to mind!
Maybe because, I had just walked through the room showing the glorious garments representing the dress and style of Frida Kahlo. 
I adored the colours, the silhouettes, the simplicity of structure...the fact that they had clothing on display. (Mind you, Akld Art Gallery is not averse to clothing/fashion exhibitions)


The CdG White Drama collection is about the ceremonial grandeur of clothes.
The Frida Kahlo clothing is about the demonstration of her Mexican pride and identity.

Kahlo took on the traditional Tehuana dress, floral hairstyle, wide skirts, and embroidered huipiles when she was 20, the same age she joined the Mexican Communist Party.


The Tehuana costume is one of the most representative of Mexico. It comes from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

These glorious garments start with the strong textile skills of the Indigenous women, who create beautiful fabric using the versatile backstrap loom. Squares of cloth with textures, patterns and embroideries of giant flowers, birds and animals create the stunning garments, such as Frida Kahlo wore.

This is a good image of a backstrap loom.

One end is tied to a tree or pole, while the other end goes around the waist of the skilled crafter. (The backstrap loom was used among numerous cultures, African, Asian, and even Scandinavian, with the great aspect being that it is a highly portable method of weaving.)

Here's good view of one in action.


This link will take you through the beauty of the craft, and what it has to offer the women who undertake it, as it relates to huipil. https://www.mikoleon.com/blogs/news/the-backstrap-loom-and-the-huipil-weaving-emblems

The Huipil is a traditional embroidered style of dress in Mexico. The word means "Blouse or ornate dress", and it is usually decorated with embroidery, lace, braids and ribbons. The pattern of the huipil often reflects the ethnicity, family status and religious background of the person wearing it. 
A well-woven huipil can last 20 to 30 years, if it is properly cared for. After that it might then be cut into little pieces of fabric, and used as a rug or quilt. I like that factor.

This article takes you through some beautiful Huipil and the stories behind them, as worn by young modern day Mexican women.

After I had visited the Akld Art Gallery exhibition, I was so inspired I came home and constructed my interpretation of a huipil. 
I created it out of fabric I purchased in London's Berwick Street, over 17 years ago! The only shaping is in the neckline. A friend asked me if it was embroidered, to which I replied, "I would not say embroidered, but an embellishment on the fabric delivers a modern take on that concept."


The 'Resplandor' is the huipil of the head, as so gloriously demonstrated in "Diego on My Mind Self Portrait as Tehuana".
It is a small huipil with a collar and ruffles. Vestigial sleeves are evident, starched but not worn as such. The entire head is inserted and the ruffled neck frames the face. The garment covers the shoulders like a cloak, with one sleeve in the front and the other sleeve behind.
Isn't it beautiful.

Italian designer, Maurizio Galante's 2019/20 Fall Haute Couture collection was a tribute to the Mexican culture, in particular the Resplandor, which is what he called his collection.
Apparently, Galante worked with Mexico's top fashion institute and makers in 18 parts of the country on this collection, which endeared him to the Mexican people, as it was felt he gave credit where credit was due, consequently he was not accused of any cultural misappropriation.
Here is a link to the collection. It is quite beautiful. https://door11.com/maurizio-galante-couture-fall-winter-2019-paris-27944/

And, this particular one,

again, has me thinking CdG, the 'Monsters' collection.


Pattern Magic Stretch Fabrics has a design on what could be seen as a resplandor style, a hooded t-shirt.


And, my take of it. Interesting.

Before I go further, this video, 'The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo', is well worth a view. So much of her life is revealed, which made her the artist she is.


In 2014, an exhibition 'Appearances Can Be Deceiving: The Dresses of Frida Kahlo', was presented in La Casa Azul Museo. 
La Casa Azul Museo is the house in Coyoacan, a suburb near Mexico City, where Frida Kahlo was born and raised. She also lived in it with Diego Rivera.

Kahlo's wardrobe had been discovered in the bathroom of La Casa Azul in 2004, 50 years after her death.

The exhibition presented Kahlo's original garments alongside contemporary designs reflecting inspirational aspects of the artist's clothing.  

This link will take you into the exhibition, https://grey-magazine.com/chronicle/appearances-can-be-deceiving-the-dresses-of-frida-khalo/

I think the CdG dress, which is from the 2012 White Drama collection, is this one, although the exhibition shows it with long sleeves,


and, I also think the connection with Kahlo is from her 1944 painting, La Columna Rota (The Broken Column). An extremely evocative image of the agony and anguish that Kahlo experienced in her life. Tears, pins. pain, broken body.

Want to know more about this astounding painting? Here's a good link.  https://artincontext.org/the-broken-column-frida-kahlo/

Givenchy's Fall 2010 Haute Couture collection is also included in the exhibition. Riccardo Tisci said "his inspiration was Frida Kahlo and her three obsessions: religion, sensuality, and given the painter's lifelong battle with spinal pain, the human anatomy."



I am taken with these shoes from the exhibit, and how they accommodated Frida,


they are so like the style of shoe I like to wear.

In 2016, 'Frida Kahlo: Fashion As The Art of Being', by Susana Martinez Vidal was published.

This is a very interesting lecture, delivered by Susana Martinez Vidal, author of the above book, in the first half, and Circe Henestrosa, curator of the La Casa Azul exhibition, in the second half.

Here's a link, in case video doesn't play ball https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uM24GM1Evo

I also viewed an informative lecture relating to 'Kahlo and Indigenismo in Mexico'. It was held at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The lecturer looks at pre-Hispanic and colonial era of Mexican history, revealing how Kahlo and her contemporaries worked with this deep history.
(Again, a link, just in case https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpI52-dyEm8)


In 2018 the wonderful V&A presented a Kahlo exhibition, 'Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up'. 
Again, it was based on the discovery in La Casa Azul, and got described as "A fresh perspective on Kahlo's compelling life story through her most intimate personal belongings."
This will take you to all sorts of interesting snippets, https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/frida-kahlo-making-her-self-up items to read, videos to view and discussions to listen to.
And of course, they have a wonderful 'Make and Do' section, in this case, a huipil. 
Remember when I was describing the one I made, I said the only shaping was in the neckline, if you take this link and view the downloadable pattern, you will see that is the case.
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/sew-your-own-mexican-style-huipil

The V&A displayed a cool sculpture, 'Frida Kahlo in Flowers', created by Philippa Craddock and Jacob Hausburg.


I think there is an aspect of this delightful Frida touch in some of the garments from the Comme Des Garcons Fall 2005 collection, Broken Bride.


And Jean Paul Gaultier's 1998 Spring RTW collection, which was inspired by Frida Kahlo and the goth rocker Marilyn Manson. 
There's many a cool take on the floral headwear.

It is worth viewing the whole collection, if interested https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-1998-ready-to-wear/jean-paul-gaultier
There is something about this one I really like, the way it captures Frida in a masculine suit and the flowers in the hair.
Frida in a masculine suit.


Here's a nice way to introduce young ones to Frida Kahlo's creativity, a cool craft making session. 
https://www.artbarblog.com/make-frida-kahlo-felt-flower-crowns/?unapproved=41428&moderation-hash=fa302555bcce0a87cad6735d2e4bf64e#comment-41428

In September, 2022, La Palais Galliera opened their exhibition, 'Frida Kahlo, Au-Dela des Apparences'.


 Again, the Museo Frida Kahlo had lent out over 200 objects from La Casa Azul. Garments, accessories, correspondence, cosmetics, medicine and orthopaedic aids. The exhibition traced the way Frida cultivated her image, that image that reflected her cultural heritage, her experience of gender and her experience of living with a disability. 
It covers a variety of interesting information, and the section that interests me, relates to this book.

Frida's corset. 
Katerina Jebb was invited by both the Museo Frida Kahlo and the Palais Galliera to capture Kahlo's world in La Casa Azul. 
English born Jebb, a self-taught artist, initially focused on photography, but went on to create wonderful work based on photomontage, using a scanner. Her work for the above publication is described as engaging in a dialogue with Frida's writings. I would love to flick through this book!
Here is a glorious example of her work, just to give you some idea. It does not relate to the Frida Kahlo exhibition.


I now return to my Auckland Art Gallery experience. 
I appreciated the Patti Smith connection, her photos from the time she visited La Casa Azul in 2012, and the profound experience it was for her.

This site, https://www.faena.com/aleph/when-patti-smith-visited-frida-and-diegos-casa-azul, delivers aspects of Patti's experience at La Casa Azul. There is an interesting image at the end, it relates to Patti Smith's 'Wave' album. The image is evocative, but is it the appropriate thing to do?

Check out this site, I think he/she is on to something valid.  

I loved this painting by Diego Rivera. 'Portrait of Natasha Gellman'

My fabric creation homage to it. An Arum Lily. (Calla Lily)



Last image from me, my huipil, wearing it with necklace, which has an aspect of thorn edges to it.
 Made me think about Frida's 'Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird'

This video discusses the artistic skill Frida brought to this painting.

SLTSLTBsigning off after a highly stimulating visit to Auckland Art Gallery.
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Wednesday, 16 November 2022

Comme des Garcons Fall 2004/05 collection was themed 'Dark Romance Witch'. 

It expressed the power of witches, their independence and free spirit, which Rei Kawakubo thought was best expressed by the colour black. (A head-to-toe colour palette which made her famous/infamous (?) when she first presented in Paris in the early 80s.)









RK's concept for the collection was "A strong woman is the starting point...So I thought 'witches' in the sense of a woman having power. The original witches were benevolent but because people didn't understand them they bullied them."
She also said, "What interests me with witches is the way they have always resisted the current order. Because they were different in their way of thinking and acting, they were persecuted, hunted, excluded by society."

The collection also returned to concepts RK had worked with previously, and many a time since, Victorian and Edwardian eras, and the boundaries between masculine and feminine.

A very cool fashion shoot from 'Purple' magazine (I think) delivered that boundary crossing. "Obscure Alternatives The new Comme des Garcons' womenswear looks just as achingly beautiful on boys."
Photography, Willy Vanderperre.



Regard the Victorian/Edwardian reference mentioned, the images below relate to The Met Museum 2020 exhibition, 'About Time: Fashion and Duration'.
Outfits were organised in pairs, juxtaposing historical womenswear with a contemporary one, which highlighted a similarity in silhouette and detail.
An outfit dated 1895 and a CdG Fall 2004/05 collection garment are very cool together.

I included a video relating to the exhibition in my SLTSLTB Virginia Woolf blog. Take this link and scroll way down to the video 'About Time: Fashion a...'
http://solovetosewliketheboys.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2020-09-23T22:06:00-07:00&max-results=7&start=2&by-date=false

I like Lizzie Lo's recreating the CdG Fall 2004/05 look. She knows her makeup and I love how she does her hair. 

My garment inspired by the CdG Fall 2004/05 collection. It is one of my first SLTSLTBoys creation. Made during summer, northern hemisphere summer 2004, on the dining table of the house where I was living in Finsbury Park, London, and I still love wearing it! 

I have a wee 'mini mannequin' project going with my Yr.8 Fab.Tech. class, and 2 students produced this, which they themed 'Dark Romance'. There's something about the cross that just sets it off.

Witches.
A witch is someone who practises witchcraft, the use of supernatural power to harm others. The term originated in medieval and early modern Europe. 
European witch-hunts and witch trials in the early modern period led to tens of thousands of executions. (European belief in witchcraft dwindled during and after the Age of Enlightenment, late 17th and 18th centuries.)
The women most often accused of witchery were frequently elderly, poor, widowed or childless, women who were atypical of society's norms.

A brief history of Witches via youtube.

And for the book minded among us, Literary Hub has a good section, describing a wonderful history of witches found in literature.

Alexander McQueen's Fall 2007 Ready-To-Wear collection was a personal affair. McQueen's mother, who traced family trees, had discovered that her bloodline lead back to a victim of the Salem witch trials. The ancestor was Elizabeth Howe, one of the first victims to be hanged for being a witch.

For a brief history concerning the Salem witch trials, take this site. I found this section very interesting, "In 1711, colonial authorities pardoned some of the accused and compensated their families. But it was only in July 2022, that Elizabeth Johnson Jr., the last convicted Salem "witch', whose name had yet to be cleared, was officially exonerated."
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-brief-history-of-the-salem-witch-trials-175162489/


Here's a neat video relating to McQueen's exhibition, showing runway, backstage and front-row footage.

(One comment Sarah Mower made concerning the collection presentation was, "... overwrought show that only succeeded in ramming home the realization that the theatrics and stadium-sized presentations of the 90s are - or rather should be - a thing of the past.")

The link below comes out of the V&A's marvellous Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty 2015 exhibition. It provides very good information concerning McQueen's, 'In Memory of Elizabeth Howe' collection. Do scroll down for the images of the wonderful accessories delivered with the collection. https://www.vam.ac.uk/museumofsavagebeauty/rel/encyclopedia-of-collections-in-memory-of-elizabeth-how-salem-1692/

McQueen's collection also features in the Peabody Essex Museum's 2021-2022 exhibition, 'The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning and Reclaiming'. This museum is situated at 161 Essex Street, Salem, Massachusetts, so it is the home of original documentation relating to the trials. There is a heap of good reading in this site, particularly poignant being the examination of Elizabeth Howe's transcript.   https://www.pem.org/exhibitions/the-salem-witch-trials-reckoning-and-reclaiming

On the 22nd of January, 1953, Arthur Miller's  'The Crucible', a dramatised and partially fictionalised story of the Salem witch trials, was performed for the first time. 


I hope this link will take you to the 1996 article in The New Yorker, written by Arthur Miller, 'Why I Wrote "The Crucible". Well worth reading. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/10/21/why-i-wrote-the-crucible

I have read that the three main symbols of the play are the fire in the crucible, the poppet and the witch hunt. The poppet, a child's toy, is discovered by Ezekiel Cheever and used as proof that witchcraft was used by Elizabeth Proctor to harm people. When the senior drama class performed the play a number of years ago, the teacher asked if anyone had "a poppet". I produced this for the production. I think it served its purpose very well.



View a very good 1981 BBC TV production of the play, directed by Don Taylor. It is all interior scenes, with the sense of not-yet-electricity-for-lighting, and a design set which presents that enviroment of what was a late Tudor era. 

Witch Hunts, as this video acknowledges are so very ugly.

We don't have to go very far to experience such an ugliness in Aotearoa/New Zealand!

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/the-twists-and-turns-of-peter-ellis-christchurch-civic-creche-sex-abuse-case/C4WP7PXYSPCVUD32SLMZ5N7PVQ/

and, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/805643/pdf  

A quote from the above  "A passage in which Hood compares the tone and framing of child psychologist Miriam Saphira's baseless assertions regarding the prevalence of child sexual abuse in New Zealand to passages drawn from fifteenth-century witchcraft treatise Malleus Maleficarum is breathtaking for its appropriateness." 


This is one of the beginning images from McQueen's 'In Memory of Elizabeth Howe' collection show. Could it be a connection to The Three Witches?

The Three Witches, aka The Weird Sisters or Wayward Sisters, are from Macbeth. 
It is considered that they bear a striking resemblance to the Three Fates or The Moirae, of classical mythology. 
Clotho (Spinner), Lachesis (Alloter) and Atropos (Inflexible). 
Clotho spun the thread of human fate, Lachesis dispensed it, and Atropos cut the thread, which determined the individual's moment of death.

Henry Moore's 'The Three Fates'.


This is an interesting compare and contrast of the Three Witches opening scenes from five adaptations of Macbeth,

but this performance, by Kathryn Hunter from Joel Coen's 2021 production, is astounding. 
Hunter plays all three like she is possessed by the other two, plus, there is an element of crows, and she is a woman living on a battlefield, where the crows are her only company.


Rei Kawakubo revisited Witches in the Comme des Garcons S/S 2016 collection, this time 'Blue Witches'. 
Again, she said "Powerful women who are misunderstood, but do good in the world."  
Many in the industry regarded Kawakubo as such a woman, "with magical powers who they hold in awe."


Much of this collection was crafted in faux fur, from astrakhan to leopard. The original swatches of the faux fur, sourched in a Spanish factory specialising in the fabric, happened to be blue, which Rei Kawakubo fell in love with.
Once she was aware of the blue fabric, RK said she started thinking about 'Blue Velvet', David Lynch's 1986 neo-noir mystery thriller film, starring Isabella Rossellini.
(A cool aside...isn't this a great shot of Lynch and Rossellini, taken by Annie Leibovitz.)

Blue Velvet has been described as a "surrealist masterpiece". 

And Isabella Rossellini singing the title song.

These are the shoes from the CdG SS Blue Witches collection

Aren't they glorious! I don't know if you remember someone from the McQueen backstage video mentioning the shoes "Witchy shoes, pointy, very high, quite black." Okay, Rei's aren't high, but otherwise, spot on..witchy shoes!
Just like...


This is the wonderfully creative Julien d'Ys, who designed/devised the fabulous headwear for the Blue Witches collection.

A link, which will take you into his glorious sketchbook for the collection, plus an explanation of his working relationship with Rei Kawakubo. They have a great working connection.

Here is my Blue Witch Mannequin inspiration

And the day I put it together, I was wearing an ensemble connecting with the CdG collection. It's not very clear, but the skirt has a blue and black pattern with a cool ribbon & lace hem section. The black cardigan has puffed sleeves in a knitted lace. The whole look is finished off by my lovely black 'witchy' Italian boots. 
Fun and expression through clothing.
Just including this shot to show the blue with a black print, and the bottom edge lace. Whenever I wear this skirt, it always gets a compliment, and it really is an oldie!


This blog has inspired my 3rd 'Redress the Past' project. (Found on my SewRound website, see the side bar)


And I am just going to finish off with these lovely little images from the Dark Romance Witch collection, sketched so beautifully by someone, cut out by me, glued on to card, to become, sort of, paper doll like.

SLTSLTBsigning off.




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