PATTERN LANGUAGE

A wall text at the Met’s Charles James exhibit, Beyond Fashion, uses the word “Jamesian” to describe his work. It startled me because the word typically refers to author Henry James, whose legendary, novella-long sentences are crafted with an arch, meticulous prose, in which each comma, clause and conjunction inflects meaning importantly. But even when taking this literary meaning, “Jamesian" rings true. In another wall text, just a few feet away, Charles James makes the connection himself: "Cut in dressmaking is like grammar in language. A good design should be like a well-made sentence, and it should only express one idea." This formal clarity – where each small element of a design contributes essentially to its overall effect – is true of his garments.

There is no fat, no unnecessary seam or line, in any of the clothes on display. They have no obvious embellishments or extravagances: no visible fasteners, no floral patterns, no checks or stripes. And only one piece here (a ballgown) uses embroidery. Instead, the garments really on piecing – on the placement of seams – for effect. This, and this alone, gives the garments structure and character. If tailoring is a language, then James is working with a distilled vocabulary. In any one of his ball gowns the placement of a shoulder seam, the slope of a lower bodice, the curve of a princess seam, are subtly and powerfully expressive.

The awesome clarity in the tailoring – its language-like order – is clearest in those garments that are asymmetrical. Most of James’ ballgowns are rigidly symmetrical, following the line of the human body. But some of his day dresses have symmetrical skirts and asymmetrical bodices, as if they’ve been twisted at the waist. Their tops, like a sari or shawl, are made with a stretch of fabric that’s been thrown over the shoulder and pinned down on the other side. In relation to their severe silhouettes, these measured, cautious asymmetries are disruptive. They give a special life to these garments, acknowledging the character – a streak of eccentricity, a disruptive inner force – of the designer, and also the woman who might wear them. Here a hem that dips lower on one side, a collar that stands in front of the other, or a lapel cut wider than its partner, becomes high drama. Now that’s Jamesian.

Image from Beyond Fashion courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum.

June 25, 2014 by Nalina Moses

SHOWTIME

The Met Costume Institute’s blockbusters are, typically, hot stuff. They lead visitors through a maze of small chambers tricked out with theatrical sound and light effects, luring them in another world: the streets of 70’s London, Nan Kempner’s closets, or the dreams of Alexander McQueen. Stepping back out into the museum at the end is a bit like stepping out of a movie matinee, a bit disorienting and sad.

In contrast this year’s show, Beyond Fashion, devoted to the work of Charles James, remains super-cool. The exhibit was designed by architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS +R), who are best known for their high-concept work, and for the Highline in Chelsea.

DS +R break the display into two large galleries, one in the basement with day dresses and coats, and one on the ground floor with evening gowns. The garments are displayed conventionally, on raised platforms and pedestals. Small video cameras on robotic arms buzz and whir about them and broadcast real-time details to giant screens along the perimeter of the basement gallery, and monitors on the pedestals in the ground floor gallery.

The exhibit is a handsome one. The organization of the rooms is generous and lucid. Display stands and cases have been crafted subtly, so that they don’t distract from the garments, and meticulously, to honor James’ dressmaking ethos. There’s a gorgeous, cube-shaped, clear acrylic vitrine that holds a quilted white silk bolero. Its sides are fitted with jewel-like precision, held together by tiny embedded silver screws.

But when I saw the exhibit, early on a Sunday morning, visitors were gathering around the screens rather than the dresses. If the seam at the lower back of a gown is divine, then why not draw attention to that seam, instead of sending a live video stream of it to a screen just below it? The whole experience is a bit a little like going to Yankee Stadium and watching the game on the Jumbotron. Sometimes the videos shows us things about the dresses that we can’t see. There are dazzling animations to explain how these complexly constructed garments are pieced together, and x-rays showing the layers of materials they are assembled from. But video technology is so central to this exhibit that it holds us one step away. Why can’t we turn off the screens and look at the dresses?

Image of Beyond Fashion courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum.

June 23, 2014 by Nalina Moses