A Profitable Love Affair: Fashion And Art

By Cecilia Rodriguez, Contributor

Fashion is in the rain-sodden air of Paris these days as the Summer 2014 Couture Season rolls through this week, with its spectacularly creative shows by the best-known designers and fashion houses blurring that thin line between art and fashion that for many, in this capital of haute couture, shouldn’t even exist.

The “torrid love affair,” as some fashionistas are calling the art/couture fusion, is “a la mode” and very profitable for cultural institutions and fashion houses – and not just in Paris.

Fashion exhibits are mushrooming at museums everywhere, some of them specialized in fashion but many more curating collections and exhibits that generally break records in attendance, despite some controversy over the distinction between historic and artistic value and state or privately sponsored advertising.

The Grand Palais in Paris, that iconic art exhibition center and museum complex, has become the “habitual showplace” for the house of Chanel which had its show on Tuesday, to rave reviews. Also in the Grand Palais, until  February 16,  is the exhibition Cartier: Style and History , a social and artistic statement of the times, displaying  more than 600 pieces of jewelry by the famous French house, from its beginning in 1847 until the 1970’s.

“Undaunted by wars, economic depression and upheaval, the exhibition reveals that when the going gets tough, the world’s royals, heiresses, socialites, bankers’ wives, celebrities and even maharajas get shopping for sparklers,” wrote The Telegraph in its review.

Among others, the show includes the diamond tiara that Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, wore at her wedding with Prince William in 2011, originally made in 1936 for then-Princess, now-Queen Elizabeth.

A ruby necklace and the “Peregrina” pearl given to Elizabeth Taylor by two of her husbands, the Williamson diamond (considered the finest pink diamond ever found) on loan from Queen Elizabeth, and an array of the jewels commissioned by Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, are also on display.

The designer Giorgio Armani had his Couture Collection show at the Palais the Tokyo, where he inaugurated the exhibition Eccentrico par Armani, with 80 of his exclusive creations, which will be open only until January 26 after traveling to New York, Milan, Tokyo, Rome, and Hong Kong.

In London, the Victoria and Albert Museum is showing Club to Catwalk, London Fashion in the 80s until February 16. The ’80s saw the explosion of the London club scene, inspiring many young designers like Betty Jackson, Wendy Dagworthy and John Galliano. The show includes more than 85 outfits representative of the bold and theatrical “new look.”

Starting April 5, The Glamour of Italian Fashion 1945-2014  will open at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Sponsored by the Italian Jeweler Bulgari, it’s presented as “the first major show to examine Italy’s rich and influential contribution to fashion from the end of the Second World War to the present. It will draw out the defining factors unique to the Italian fashion industry – the use of luxurious materials; expert textile production; specialist, regional manufacturing; and its strength as a source of both dynamic menswear and glamorous womenswear.”

On May 3, another highly-anticipated show graces the same museum:Wedding Dresses 1775-2014, which will run until March 2015 and traces the development of the white wedding dress and its multiple interpretations by leading couturiers and designers, including over 80 of the most romantic, glamorous and extravagant wedding outfits from the V&A’s collection – like the embroidered silk coat worn by the Duchess of Cornwall after her marriage to Prince Charles, the purple Vivienne Westwood dress chosen by Dita Von Teese and the Dior outfits worn by Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale for their weddings.

The dresses will be accompanied by jewelry, shoes, garters, veils, wreaths, hats and corsetry, as well as fashion sketches and personal photographs.

In Florence, Italy, the Villa Bardini is showing Aldo Fallai, From Giorgio Armani to Renaissance, Photos 1975-2013, more than 200 photos of fashion models, advertising campaigns, friends and ordinary people, mostly in “Armani colors” (white, gray, sand) that illustrate the collaboration between the Italian designer and the fashion photographer which, Suzy Menkes in the New York Times declared “androgyny in black and white.”