blog.mode: addressing fashion

Image: Olivier Theyskens (Belgian, b. 1977) for Nina Ricci (French, founded 1932). Evening Dress, spring/summer 2007. Steel gray heat-crinkled silk organza embroidered with linear chain stitch in white silk. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Mario Grauso, 2007 (2007.376.2a, b).

For his inaugural collection at Nina Ricci, Olivier Theyskens referenced not only the archives of the house’s faintly recalled eponymous founder but also her perfume, L’Air du Temps, with its two doves hovering above the bottle of swirling crystal. Read more »

More than any other art form, fashion is an immediate expression of our zeitgeist. While painting and sculpture can seem removed from our understanding, fashion is so familiar, so ubiquitous to our experience, that it is tangible, accessible, and open to a wide range of interpretations. Individuals who might avoid publicly commenting on a canvas by Picasso or a bronze by Brancusi readily disclose their thoughts about a gown by Galliano or a mule by Blahnik. Unlike its haughty siblings, fashion—even in its most extreme and avant-garde expression—does not estrange us from the belief in the essential aptness of our judgment. Read more »