Voici Paris Haute Couture - exhibit Den Haag

During our weekend in Den Haag, by accident I discovered that there was an exhibit about haute couture in the local museum, so I made my boyfriend promise that he would take me to Voici Paris Haute Couture the next day. It was amazing; the first room we entered, presented Chanel's SS09 pieces. The room after that Worth, then Paul Poiret, Vionnet and vintage Chanel, the room after that Dior, Balenciaga and Givenchy -the dress from Breakfast at Tiffany's!-and next Jean Paul Gaultier and Armani Privé.... It truly was amazing and I was in complete awe of the amount of detail in those garments.

One of my favorite fashion exhibits ever, and definitely a must-see ...

Chanel SS 09 Haute Couture

Dior AW 2007 Haute Couture - See: Sex and the City

Cristobal Balenciaga 1950's Haute Couture

Too many pictures; more after the jump!

Prèt-à-Porter

As mentioned before, for my thesis on film and fashion I'm analyzing Robert Altman's Prèt-à-Porter. The film is a parody and satire on the fashion world, and ridicules the industry. The movie, set during Paris Fashion Week, sends out a quite stereotype and negative message that only greed, betrayal and shallow 'keeping up appearances' are of the greatest importance in the business.

And yet, never did I see a Hollywood picture in which so many 'real designers and models appeared; Jean Paul Gaultier, Gianfranco Ferré -back then working for Dior-, Sonia Rykiel, Christian Lacroix, Issey Miyake, Campbell, Schiffer, Christensen... And not to mention the designs by many other great fashion houses. It's a shame that I've left the DVD at home, but when I return for the weekend I'll put up a screen shot of the end credits, so you can discover which designs -by whom- were featured in this 'fashion film' yourself! This movie beats Sex and The City for sure.

But the 'communications scientist' in me can't help but wonder; why were these fashion icons so happy to work on this project, if it puts the industry in bad daylight? Is bad publicity better than no publicity?

For anyone who loves fashion, this movie is a must!



Don't let this boring trailer mislead you, the film is much more fun...
And the title chosen for this movie is genius, Ready To Wear, when all designs presented are totally unwearable.

edit: And according to literature, Karl Lagerfeld was so furious that one of Altman's characters portrayed the french designer of chanel as a 'thief' that he called in the German juridical system and had the movie banned from German cinema's. But the picture does however feature quite some product placement by the house of Chanel. Curious and curiouser...

Film influences fashion

So for the last past days, I've been going through literature on how elements from the film industry can influence the fashion world. And I've found quite a few. For instance, a film star or character can start up a trend easily, like the Louise Brooks-look or the Letty Lynton-dress.

But aside from influencing the public, film has cast a spell over some fashion designers as well. Jean Paul Gaultier and John Galliano, they both have a thing for Hollywood movies and film stars, hence their many collections inspired by the industry's golden age... (see: JPG haute couture 2009 & Galliano's Fall 2005)

Alexander McQueen, also a film-enthousiast, based some of his creations and fashion shows on Hitchcock's work or movies like The Shining and They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Also, after watching a Harry Potter-movie, the designer incorporated the chess segment in his 2005 spectacle, where the models functioned as pawns.



And the fashion business is catching up on the film world really quickly, with Burberry being the first fashion brand to broadcast their entire fashion show in 3D globally, only weeks after Avatar premiered.

Proenza Schouler

Okay, if there is one reason to start watching Franco-German TV-channels, this has to be it: Arte, in collaboration with Sundance Channel, have shot four fashion documentaries. The names of these fashion houses are huge: Fendi, Jean Paul Gaultier, Proenza Schouler and Sonia Rykiel!

The Fendi-piece was last week, so make sure to mark every thursday night (10PM) in your moleskin calendar! This is the teaser about the Proenza Schouler-duo I found online on the Arte-page. Oh and according to Belmodo.tv, my source for this one, the full episodes can be watched here after 7 days, in cased you happened to miss one.

I'm so excited!

Update: I just realized that the day after the Proenza Schouler-

documentary airs, I have to catch a plane heading towards

Milan at 6AM. Will hurt, for sure.