La Mode

by Alona Birjiniuk

I have always had an interest in the relationship between fashion, culture and politics. Therefore, I was excited to learn that Paris has not one, but two museums devoted to fashion – one called the Palais Galliera and another Le Musée de la Mode et du Textile which is a subset of the Musée des Arts Decoratifs. I visited both museums in an attempt to gain a greater understanding of the importance of fashion in history. However, this was made difficult by the fact that neither museum has a permanent collection. Due to the fragility of fabrics, it is very difficult to preserve clothing, and therefore neither museum displays many of its pieces at once.

The Palais Galliera was running an exhibit on “Les Années Folles” – the years between 1919 and 1929 which were characterized by what Americans call “flapper” style.

Entrance to Palais Galliera

les annees folles

Though the exhibit focused on French designers of the time, the clothing displayed were similar to those that were popular in America at the time and the designers were featured in American Vogue at the time . The 1920s signaled the emergence of a nightlife scene which revolved heavily around music and dancing. As a result, fashion moved towards less restrictive clothing and dresses that no longer required a corset so that women could actually move and dance. The feathers and beaded embellishments on dresses served to enhance the movement produced while dancing as did any dress style that allowed for the skirt to move about. Women’s clothing became less and less restrictive as they began to actively participate in sports, a result of the early women’s liberation movements. Designers created outfits for skiing, golfing, and swimming in addition to evening wear. One designer, Jean Patou, even created a scent specifically for women playing sports. The scent was “more masculine” than other perfumes as was appropriate for the playing field which was “one of the places where women and men were equivalent”.

While the Palais Galliera exhibit was very interesting and informative, the Musee de la Mode et du Textile ran a less impressive exhibition. The exhibit was designed by Christian Lacroix to celebrate his 20 years as a haute couturier. He chose twenty themes that inspired him, explained their influence over his work, and showed several of his own pieces that relied on these themes. In addition, Lacroix pulled numerous historical pieces (ranging from the 1600s to modern day) to display other examples of the inspirations. However, the display was poorly done (most likely due to limited available space) so it was difficult to see all of the clothing pulled from the museum’s archives. Though the Lacroix pieces were not particularly inspiring in my opinion, it was interesting to see how the designer’s thought process worked and understand where his designs came from. Currently there seems to be a strong influence of past fashion driving modern day design. In the case of Lacroix, the historical influence manifests itself in dresses which look as if fabrics from several different decades were randomly patched together, rather than any attempt to truly morph past trends into something fresh and modern. This leads me to question the direction of modern designers and it is interesting to think about what this lack of true innovation in fashion says about our society.