Kristy Bishop

Madame Gres, Ideal History of Contemporary Fashion 1990-2000, and Alexander Mcqueen at the Met

July 25, 2011

Back in April I had my first trip overseas and got to spend a month in Spain and France with two of the weeks in Paris.  The trip was amazing and was made even more amazing since we did most of the trip by couchsurfing.  We had awesome hosts who took us around the city to all the historical sites, to a fantastic comedy, and picnics at Notre Dame, Bercy Park, and so much more.  I felt so spoiled since on so many mornings we woke up to croissants, jams, and nutella for breakfast.  We originally were going to spend only one week in Paris but the overwhelming sensation of not seeing nearly everything there was to see made us change our mind.  Staying that extra week made such a difference.  We weren’t running around town squeezing every little thing in just to say that we did it.  It was a more leisurely pace which I’ll take any day.  Among seeing all the cathedrals and churches, catacombs,  museums, and lots of history I had the chance to see two AMAZING exhibitions which I will never forget.  The first one I actually ended up going to my first day in Paris.  It was the  History Ideal of Contemporary Fashion, the Years 1990-2000. I’ll go more into that later on below.  The second was the Madame Gres Exhibit at the Museum Bourdelle.

The museum is actually the original ateliers and gardens of Antoine Bourdelle, a sculptor who was a student of Rodin.  What I thought was so awesome about this exhibit was that all the designs were displayed among the large and somewhat gargantuan sculptures that are permanently exhibited at the museum.

 

Madame Gres show at the Musee Bourdelle

 

The construction of the dresses was absolutely mind-blowing.  I love the draping and the repetitiveness of the gathers and especially how small they are.  Many of the dresses reminded me of grecian draping  which I thought was very well suited amongst all the statues of men and horses.  It felt like these were dresses that you would picture Aphrodite or Athena wearing.  My only regret with going to this show is that I didn’t have a camera so I couldn’t take any pictures.  The ones above are borrowed but are still some of my favorite parts from the show.

This photo is courtesy of http://emmapeelpants.blogspot.com

Below is the show that I saw on my first day of Paris.  Of everything I saw and did in Paris this show most definitely was the best part of the trip.  I was so inspired by the levels and lengths that the fabrics were sculpted and manipulated.  This is something that I am working with in my current work as well.  The biggest heartbreak was the photos were not allowed so once again I had to borrow more images.  Click on the picture below to read more about the show the Museum of Decorative Arts. Some of my favorites were Vivienne Westwood, John Gallians, Victor and Rolf, and there were definitely many more.

Insane in my membrane!  This is a Christian Dior by John Galliano.

Pictures courtesy of  www.froggydelight.com and ritournelleblog.wordpress.com

In a week in a half I will be making a trip up to NYC with some friends and the first thing that we are doing is going to see the  Savage Beauty Exhibition of Alexander Mcqueen at the Met.  We ended up reworking our entire trip schedule around this show because we found out that it ends on August 7th. Anyone interested in this should definitely watch the video on the Met’s website.  Before I was on the fence about it just because of time and the dates but it totally convinced me to go.

]

 

| Tags: alexander mcqueen, couch surfing, fashion 1990-2000, madame gres, Musee arts decoratif, musee bourdelle, Paris, savage beauty | More: Blog