Freedom, equality and sisterhood. Modeutställningen ”Femmes Fatales – Strong Women in Fashion” at the Gemeentemuseum in the Hague celebrates imbued and puts the focus on the women who design our wardrobes. From the French revolution rebellious seamstresses, and 1900-century pioneering Coco Chanel, to today’s greats like Miuccia Prada and Rei Kawakubo. And a new generation of women is slowly but surely moving up the positions in the male-dominated lyxmodetoppen, Maria Grazia Chiuri at Dior, Clare Waight Keller at Givenchy and Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen.
Women who design for women – differ in their look from men’s? This full-bodied, samtidspulserande the exhibition is pushing the thesis that female fashion designers throughout history have tended to design more kroppsbejakande, convenient and vardagsfunktionellt than their male colleagues. But also to a greater extent engaged in the pressing matters of the heart and used its position on the fashion scene to make their opinions heard.
it winds through room after room and offers one surprise after the other. The department of fashion activists is visually the most striking. On the one hand, the exposed garment by Maria Grazia Chiuri; fashion house of Dior’s current creative director and the first woman in the post. As a convinced feminist, she has taken it upon themselves not just to design a fashion that appeals to today’s women, but also to act as educators. The simple white t-shirt from debutkollektion 2016 with the quote ”We should all be feminists” (from activist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies drew the attention of the Ted-talk) has already gone to modehistorien.
On the opposite side of the room is an installation with a characteristic eccentric creations of Vivienne Westwood. Punkdesignern, who nowadays prefer to call themselves activist than fashion designers, working tirelessly to draw attention to sustainability issues and to counter the climate crisis with a fashion that changes the world, literally.
Vivienne westwood’s section at the exhibition. Photo: Alice de Groot, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag
in the Middle between these two giants form an ornate marches, with hard-hitting posters and t-shirts that highlight the issues involved the fashion of women through the years. Here are references to suffrage symbolic colors, miljökämparnas slogans, the manga artist metoo-the manifestation in the recent Golden Globes and pink pussyhats from the last few years kvinnomarscher around the world.
holding up a placard with the text ”Bring Back Philo”. A comment to the vocal disappointment that erupted when Parismodehuset Celine chose to replace the estimated designer Phoebe Philo with the male megastar Hedi Slimane.
Phoebe Philo has been hailed as a woman who designs what women want to wear – comfortable, functional and samtidsrelevant. While Slimane is known more for its minikorta sleeve and sexy attitude. The fashion world was divided in two camps; Philophiles versus Slimaniacs. Hedi Slimane has heard the criticism of the debutkollektionen as homophobic, arguing that it is a tiring repetition of the claim that homosexual men do not understand the female body. Though it is a completely different discussion, which will surely rage on, but do not fit within the context of systerskapet at the Gemeentemuseum.
installation view: with the campaign for Phoebe Philo. Photo: Alice de Groot, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag
space for an excellent historical perspective that throws us three hundred years back in time, to the beautifully embroidered styvkjolar and rigid corsets.
A headless course she wore svenska, which has been placed during the French revolution’s guillotine, symbolizing the end of the guild system and a power structure that favored the tailors (men). Sömmerskorna (women) in Paris had, however, already in the 1600s managed to organize a private guild, and finally, against all the odds, pushed through the exclusive right to create clothes for the women. Including the most luxurious and highest-grossing creations, previously only the tailors had to concern themselves with. The hierarchy between the two crafts, with the higher status of the tailoring, to be cemented, however, and lives to a certain extent than in our days.
No wonder that Coco Chanel was furious when the competitor Paul Poiret dismissed her as a ”seamstress”. However, the swept Chanel soon the track with his detractors. The women preferred her functional modernism, in front of his theatrical orientalism. And the fact is that just mellankrigsåren, when the woman began to take place in his career, was the golden era for female fashion designers.
an impact with the period creations; the sportinfluerade fritidsmode and thirties slender satängfodral of Jeanne Lanvin, Coco Chanel, Madeleine Vionnet and Elsa Schiaparelli. The pioneers who developed the modern wardrobe with clothes that gave the woman freedom of movement, physically as well as intellectually.
Few of these legendary innovator capable, however, to come again after the second world war. The new, conservative spirit of the times, advocating that the woman should stay at home and be supported, it paved instead way for a new generation, male designer. Fashion designers such as Christian Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga and Hubert de Givenchy took over the command.
since Then, lyxmodescenen, with few exceptions, been dominated by men. But now, women revenge! Besides the already mentioned influential women lift the exhibition, among other things, the Dutch in the world cup, Iris van Herpen. An experimental hantverkskreatör that is breaking new ground with innovative, 3d-printed design. This is, of course, also global trendsetters like Stella McCartney and former epokers innovator Mary Quant, Diane von Fürstenberg, and Ann Demeulemeester.
the Innovative design of Iris van Herpen. Photo: Alice de Groot, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag
it then Goes to read a specific female gaze in their design? Hard to say, but it is an interesting thought. Fixed for me is the big benefit of this bustling, passionsdrivna the exhibition rather the power in the common struggle for a better world, which distinguishes the women’s long-awaited comeback on lyxmodescenen.
