The Times Quotidian

Yamamoto, Watanabe and Mikaye, Fall RTW 2011
by Nancy Cantwell

Magnitude. I cannot fathom the sheer force unleashed on the Northeast coast of Japan by the largest earthquake ever recorded.

I am no stranger to the shakes. The Northridge earthquake of 1994 lasted 20 seconds and the fear of imminent death undermined my core sense of self. Five minutes of a 9.0 is unimaginable. There is no material preparation for the enormity of that kind of impact. There is compassion. There is today.

I urge people to put aside their crisis fatigue and continue to donate to the worldwide effort to help the people of Japan sustain, recuperate and rebuild. The Red Cross operates 92 hospitals in Japan, has deployed 700 medical relief volunteers across the country and already has sent ten million dollars in aid.

Donate here: Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami. Please check here to see if your company has a matching gift policy. I know that NEC Foundation of America, an independent non-profit organization, is launching a $50,000 matching grant program that will match NECAM employee donations. There are many more programs like this in place.

There is no immunity, no privilege in this global community that separates us from this suffering.
We have all been hit hard.

Fashion Forward!
Time to feast on these Japanese designers who rocked the Paris runways this Fall Ready to Wear 2011.

It has been thirty years since Yohji Yamamoto presented his first collection in Paris. Now the 68 year old designer is also having his first solo showing in London at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The installation is curated by Ligaya Salazar, the V&A’s Contemporary Curator, and designed by scenographer, lighting designer and longtime Yohji collaborator, Masao Nihei. Though not a strict retrospective in terms of chronological display, the comprehensive exhibition features 80 pieces from his women’s and menswear collections in site-specific installations. Also participating in satellite spaces are the Wapping Project and Wrapping Paper Bankside.

Below are garments from the Yamamoto Ready to Wear Fall Collection 2011. True to his gender bending and alternative dress codes, this year’s collection also spotlights his love the historical. Best seen in the hoop skirt covered with lace accompanied by a velvet kimono-sleeve Victorian jacket these new pieces would feel comfortable in any 19th Century English romance novel.

 

This Junya Watanabe (Born 1961 in Fukushima, Japan) collection should turn out to be a retail favorite. Easy to wear rigorous-chic, attracting opposite sensibilities. Rigid black leathers paired with soft draping knits and a flurry of real and fake furs. A clearly feminine agenda wrapped in precise couture silhouettes.

Issaye Miyake. This is to be Dai Fujiwara’s last show as the company’s creative director after a five year tenure. Unlike the hot controversies surrounding the changing of the guard of many Parisian houses this baton handover was accomplished under the most amicable circumstances. Form, execution and theater began the show as models and nimble assistants folded and stapled paper tape into origami inspired garments. Beyond the clever references this open display of crafting is a couture education. And beyond this demonstration of precision lay the most dreamy layered diaphanous dress, that Tim Blanks pronounced “It might be the most beautiful piece of the week.” I would tend to agree!

Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700-1915
LACMA Resnick Pavilion, October 2, 2010–March 6, 2011

Essay by Nancy Cantwell
Photography by Nancy Baron

Fashioning Fashion, one of the inaugural exhibitions of the Renzo Piano designed Lynda and Stewart Resnick Pavilion, is a trove of European clothing that speaks to both the evolution of style and the historical narrative of technical innovation covering a span of more than two hundred years. The show is the culmination of the gift from donors Michael and Ellen Michelson and Suzanne Saperstein, that when integrated with the objects and holdings of the LACMA’s Costume and Textile departments, now make Los Angeles a destination of consequence for European costume studies. Stewards Sharon S. Takeda, department head and senior curator along with co-curator Kay Spilker have culled nearly two hundred rare highlights from the immense thousand-piece collection amassed over  50 years of acquisitions by dealers Martin Kamer of London, England  and Wolfgang Ruf of Beckenried, Switzerland. In a statement Takeda observes, “The addition of this extraordinary collection is a coup simply for the breadth and depth. But even more significantly for its overall quality and number of extremely rare pieces-shown widely in this exhibition.”

As one navigates the the show, organized by the thematic sections Timeline, Textile, Tailoring and Trim there is a palpable sense of drama fueled by the socio-polical narrative of a European society being transformed by wars, revolution, industrialization and the emergence of a burgeoning middle class. For two centuries, from the Age of Enlightenment to the onset of World War I, we can track the shift in taste from aristocratic court-inspired opulence to a fashion that reflected style possibilities more closely aligned with the expanded trade routes, manufacturing processes and technological advances of the day. Research scholar Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell affirms in her catalog essay, “Indeed, the more we delve into the history of fashion in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the more familiar it looks. This period witnessed the birth of the fashion industry as we know it today—that is, seasonal, international and corporate.”

There is a tangible seduction about the collection and a strong operatic quality of intrigue and beguilement as one traverses through the years engaging with these extraordinary sewn artworks. Designed by renowned opera stage designers Pier Luigi Pizzi and Massimo Pizzi Gasparon, each dress, suit, cap and vest seems to not only to manifest its own place in history, but also bears evidence to individual character, principle players on history’s stage. John Galliano, head designer for Christian Dior, is no stranger to dramatic affect in his designs nor his personage. LACMA had definitely chosen the right man to preview the collection and write the Preface to the remarkable catalog, designed by Pentagram’s Abbott Miller, that accompanies the show. Gallinano’s pick to illustrate the concept of how a piece of clothing can transform character is the Revolutionary Vest, French 1789-94. Made of linen canvas with silk needle point, this precursor to the protest tee, is rife with revolutionary symbolism. “You can spend hours studying this vest. It gives many clues about the turbulent time, weaving style with politics, rebellion, and the ‘tricolore’. Here fashion speaks its owners mind through intricate needlework and beauty rather than through the violence of the day.” The embroidered caterpillar collar represents how the aristocracy once dressed “en chenille” or casual in appearance by day, and then morph into the showy butterfly by night. Again as Galliano aptly points out, “The vest is both a political and a fashion statement that captures the mood at the beginning of a new era. It also shows how style reacted, like a fickle mirror, and instantly rejected the gaudy finery so beloved before.”

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Both men and women are given equal opportunity to shine in the details of the embroidery, the exactitude of the tailoring, the exoticism of the fabrics and the inventiveness of the reshaped silhouette. The embellishment of the body begins early and these two boy’s frocks are striking examples of both the growing global trade economies and the technological advances of times. The two following descriptions are extracts from the catalog.

Left: This English boy’s frock is made of soft, lightweight cashmere twill woven in Kashmir. Prior to being cut and sewn, professional Indian embroiderers utilizing silk embroidery thread, probably imported from China, embellished the fabric with traditional stylized floral motifs that featured curved tips (buta) often seen on Kashmir shawls.

Right: The boy’s frock incorporates a white-work technique, broderie anglaise, in which small eyelets are outlined with sturdy embroidery stitches and cut out of the ground fabric. Although the result resembled lace, it could withstand frequent washing and was therefore practical for children’s clothing. Technically very simple, this imitation lace was lower in cost that real lace, and it became increasingly available as the nineteenth century progressed. Ironically, this “democratic” decoration owed its affordability to the meager wages given to the female and child laborers who often produced it.

please click to enlarge for garment details

 

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If ever there was a dress that Violetta Valery, the famed and fated courtesan of La Traviata, would favor it is this moiré finished silk gown. The temptation of this sensuous material alone would keep Verdi’s heroine of ill repute ripe with clientele. The Japanese inspired butterfly-and-flower motif was produced using a mechanical process of roller-printing warps (shadow printing) meant to simulate the chiné à la branche, whose characteristic hazy, impressionist patterns might give our Lady of the Camellias the aura of walking on water.

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The allure of Fashioning Fashion is far reaching from the lavish court gowns, adorned with silk passementerie, to men’s silk cut and voided velvet suits, laden with embroidery. Casting an eye back from the 21st century where clothing has been stripped of most extravagant ornament in favor of more serviceable purposes, it is hard to imagine the kind of functionality all the finery afforded and what real freedoms were accorded in wearing so much, but being given the opportunity to explore these sensibilities in close proximity and collected under one roof is the real luxury of modern times.

Photography © Nancy Baron

Missoni Fall Campaign 2010, a film by Kenneth Anger
Puce Moment (1949), a film by Kenneth Anger
by Nancy Cantwell

September is here and even though I have thoroughly combed through the collections, I still race to see how the venerable magazine fashion editors piece it all back together. So far I have found the the massive amount of pulp to be fairly prosaic (yes I capitulate there are a few economic restraints to reflect upon), and really, what could possibly compete with Fall 2009’s Grace Coddington Little Red Riding Hood spread? This year however, before I could even crack the magazine covers, my fashionista cohorts were directing me towards another venerable artiste who seems to be in vogue once more. Kenneth Anger, the octogenarian auteur, has become incredibly fashionable as of late. At Valentino, a massive montage of Anger films was utilized as a backdrop for the catwalk Fall 2010. Interviewed at the show Anger gleefully asserts “I’ve always been friends of fashion!” July previewed a more ambitious project by Missoni who recruited Anger to film their Fall 2010 campaign. I was a bit confused by commission as the Missoni’s strike me as a particularly happy clan as portayed by the Jurgen Teller Spring/Summer campaign, whereas Kenneth Anger is better known for his relationship with the dark side (see Aleister Crowley, Anton LaVey and Bobby Beausolei). In an interview with Italian Vogue, Angela Missoni, the brand’s principle designer, explains,“The images of Juergen Teller for the S/S 2010 campaign reflected and portrayed our everyday family life, Kenneth Anger’s experimental approach and his narrative style, on the other hand, transformed the new campaign into a sublimation of our world.”

Distinctly Kenneth Anger, Missoni includes all the filmmaker’s signature moves. Psychedelia, layered surreal dream sequences, mirrored camera work, the compulsory orb, hand crafted titles and a well appointed soundtrack provided by the French symphonic composer Koudlam. In keeping with the celebrated Missoni family tradition all generations are represented; Margherita, Jennifer, Angela, Rosita, Ottavio, and Ottavio Jr all play their parts. Filmed in the Sumirago countryside and utilizing part of Rosita and Ottavio’s own garden, Anger also made use of other local resources for indoor sequences, building a set in the Council Room of the Sumirago Town Hall.

Whereas I am not thoroughly convinced of the efficacy of the esoteric Missoni as an ad campaign, there is no denying that Kenneth Anger not only has an affinity for fashion, but his own familial ties lean in the sartorial direction. In Puce Moment (1949) he uses gowns handed down to him by his grandmother, a costume mistress of the 1920’s silent era. Titillated as Anger is with the tabloid of celebrity his is quick to add these glamorous gowns were worn by the likes of the suicide prone Clara Bow and the drug addicted Barbara Lamarr. In his later films, Lucifer Rising (1972),  Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) and Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), Anger did much of the costume design himself (he had a great fondness for crafting occult robes).

Puce Moment, quite simply is all about getting dressed. The six minute film stars Yvonne Marquis, as the young woman ecstatic in her selection process, features the cinematography of Curtis Harrington, who later goes onto direct Night Tide, and the soundtrack is the contribution of Jonathan Hapler whose two distinct songs, “Leaving My Old Life Behind” and “I Am A Hermit”, reflect a stirring fusion of traditional folk sensibilities and airy, psychedelic musical experimentation. The films opulent interior shots are filmed at home of Sampson DeBreer, who later figures prominently in Anger’s Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome. To evoke the camera work of the silent era Anger uses different camera speeds and Borzois, a breed favored by the fashionable in the 1920s, make an appearance almost overpowering the young woman as they lead the way to destinations unknown.

There is an playfulness in Puce Moment’s opening sequence as the shimmering gowns happily dance off the rack and are swiftly snapped up out of sight. And at last as our protagonist settles on the color puce, there is a deep sense of portent pleasures to come.

Menswear Spring / Summer 2011
By Nancy Cantwell

I have to say that I had a much harder time than I expected trying to narrow the field for Menswear Spring 2011, but my first impulse is to run with what really works. This is how I would have sent David de Rothchild packing for his latest eco-crusade expedition aboard Plaskti, in search of Eastern Garbage Patch, an island of trash twice the size of Texas located in the Pacific Ocean. From creative director Alessandro Sartori of Z Zenga, the fashion forward branch of the 100 year Ermenegildo Zegna family empire, this ultra light, multo functional outwear is just the thing for our fearless adventure ecologist. I think Mr. de Rothchild would also feel comfortable wearing material produced by a company such as Zenga, whose commitment to social responsibility can be explored here at Oasi Zenga Project. You can follow David de Rothchild’s voyage at adventureecology.com

Outerwear seems to be favored over the traditional jacket for most shows. Trenches are everywhere, but let’s start at Lavin where Alber Elbaz, along with Lucas Ossendrijver, cooked up some amazing classics. The twist of turning a bomber jacket into a duster is absolute genius. Hooded or not, in suede or something more practical, these coats are an essential piece for spring. While more popular figures of fantasy use their coattails to traverse the realms of the undead, again my mind lights on the nautical, seeing Melville’s Ahab as the character of choice to wear the all noir enselmble on the left. I can imagine him updated, replete with whale bone jewelry, austere and fierce as he skippers the Pequod onward in his monomaniacal search for the “thick-lipped Leviathan” that was the elusive Moby Dick.

Rick Owens men look like they are survivors of some teutonic Wagnerian theme park ride. The short sleeves work particularly well with the long under tee…but, as always, Owens has just killer boots— industrial strength, half dock loader, half God stompers.

Keeping with the full length profile, but striking a far more relaxed pose are hybrid coat/robes at Dior Homme. House designer Kris Van Assche serves up one the finest white trenches of the season. He then moves on to more esoteric shapes. I do like the way the middle coat morphs from lapel jacket tailoring on one side into fabulous Morrocan robe on the other. And I have clear vision of a most refined Japanese gentleman on a hot summer evening, sleeveless, seated on tatami, practicing his kanji calligraphy.

For color this year you just had to go for the cacophony of brights by Raf Simons for Jill Sander. The show’s evening setting at the spectacular gardens of Renaissance-era Tuscan Villa Gamberaia provided the perfect backdrop for these rare birds to take flight. And in contrast to previously discussed silhouettes these slim honed trousers and suits are incisive and exciting.

And finally John Galliano’s men are part Buster Keaton, part Harold Lloyd, but all Proust. The look is light and ready for action whether it be a summer picnic, boat ride or generally just hanging off a clock. These are the finest of duds, most beautifully collared, tied and cuffed, complete in concept like no other than Galliano can do.

Be Here Nau
by Nancy Cantwell

Putting principles into practice for any organization is challenging and in the world of fashion this is no exception. But for the people of the Nau it’s all in a days work. Theirs is a green goal, a complete commitment from cradle to grave to sustainable business practices, materials and style. Every garment, every accessory is designed, manufactured and distributed looking at the big picture.

Their enthusiasm and eco spirit is infectious. I make a personal commitment to update my wardrobe at least once a year with a piece from Nau and become a bit evangelistic, particularly when I hear of a friend or relative who might be traveling abroad by insisting they consider packing a garment, scarf or satchel on their sojourn. It is one of best ways I can think of to represent what’s great about Americans.

Nau strips theatricality out of their style. Frills and thrills give way to a smart, clean, comfortable wearing. I think Jil Sander would be very happy sporting an Asylum Jacket, Helmut Lang would applaud the Men’s Riding Jacket and I can see Issaye Miyake giving his full support to the multi-use, multi-configurable Chrysalis Dress. Siting inspirations Peter Zumthor, Gerhard Richter, Claudy Jongstra and Copenhagen Cycle Chic, it is no wonder that the aesthetics of Nau run cool.

The company, founded in 2005 by former Nike, Patagonia and Adidas executives, is purposed to create a new model for retailing and manufacturing. Fabrics, trim and hardware are chosen for their sustainable, recycled or organic merit. Where high performance man made fabrics are required Nau seeks to offset the negative aspects of the material by reducing its carbon footprint or shortening the supply chain. Their credo reads Sustainability: Balancing the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit.

Nau’s initial entry in retailing also reflected it’s out of the box thinking. Each outlet carried the full line for customer hands on look and feel, but when it came to the check out counter they were redirected to the Nau website where an order was placed for home delivery. This practice thwarted the consumer’s need for instant gratification, but cut down on carbon emissions from trucking goods from distribution centers to stores. In 2008 Nau attracted national attention, thanks, in part, to a documentary about the company that aired on the Sundance Channel. Unfortunately it was not enough to stave off it’s impending demise. Up went it’s glorious “Goodbye for Nau” home page.

Not more than a month or so later, the Santa Barbara based lifestyle-apparel company Horny Toad saw a good thing and stepped up to purchase the defunct business. Gone are the stand alone retail stores, but on October 21, 2008 the official relaunch of Nau commenced and has been going strong since.

What initiated my need to engage on the topic of Nau was not it’s staunch environmental policies but it’s unwavering commitment to being a social progressive force. To start with Nau uses the labor watch dog Verite to monitor all of their overseas factories. Each of their manufactures must comply with a Code of Conduct that addresses issues of child labor, voluntary employment, freedom of association fair and equal treatment, nondiscrimination, compensation, hours of work, overtime, and health and safety. For each Nau purchase 2% is automatically donated to one of their “Partners for Change” philanthropic charities. You can choose between such organizations like Kiva, “Loans that Change Lives”, Breakthrough Institute,” Making Clean Energy Cheap” or Mercy Corps “Unleashing the Potential of People.” At certain times of year that 2% increases to 10% to further invigorate the real relationship between corporate responsibilities and social solutions. Finally (but is anything final for phoenix Nau?) Nau’s 2nd annual $10,000 Grant for Change is awarded to those who “instigate lasting, positive change in their communities.” Nominations are open from May 10th ’til June 11th.

Grant For Change from Alex Hamlin on Vimeo.

I encourage all to take a tour of the Nau website to explore their innovative business model. Check out the “Thought Kitchen” where ideas brew and take shape, “The Collective” where the Nau community of artists, activists and athletes share their stories via video and most importantly, found under “About”, is “The Things We Think About.” Here is a quick glossary of terms you will become acquainted with:

Restricted Substance List (RSL) – We independently test our products against a Restricted Substance List (RSL) of chemicals that, while inexpensive, are environmentally toxic.

Beginning of Life and End of Life (BOL/EOL) strategy. – We look at the energy and resources used to create a fabric, and the opportunities and systems to deal with a product at the end of its useful life. We also distinguish between the life cycle of the garment and the initial and end considerations of its fiber.

True Cost – Cheap, disposable goods accelerate the consumption of resources, as they are bought, broken and pitched in a landfill. And while consumers may get a good deal at the register, the repeated costs of replacing low-quality disposable goods quickly adds up. As individuals we may pay less up front, but in the end we all end up paying environmental and social costs for these lower prices.

Traceability - We seek to implement and use systems that allow us to know where our fibers and fabrics are created and what paths they follow to get to us. By creating relationships with different partners (including Organic Exchange, GOTS, Zque and Asure), we are able to ensure that the standards we have for our materials and products are met by the vendors we work with.

Aesthetic Sustainability – Styles and product details that are considered, timeless, and able to move seamlessly through the day and all its unpredictabilities. Products that look as good on city streets as they perform well in the outdoors

If all of this sounds too virtuous, let me reassure you that you will be oh so happy when you actually wear their softest cashmere or breeze easily from day to night in one of their tough, but tony jackets. The fit is tailored and runs true to size. Nau is now sold in select stores throughout the country, so if you need to go beyond the digital realm use the store locator and get some irreproachable retail therapy!

Missoni, Milan RTW Fall 2010
By Nancy Cantwell

In a season filled with respectable, rational, dressed offerings, some of which I cannot resist myself (there is a white coat at Gucci that is formidable!), the show that I still return to with relish is Missoni. It was a passionate display of pattern, texture, color, and family fun. Prepped by the ad campaign that featured three generations of Missonis, bathed in zigzags, delighting in one another and mugging for photographer Jurgen Teller, one could not help but succumb to the ebullient clan atmosphere of the collection. The throw pieces pinned at various points of the body come down the runway with a defiant spirit as if to say “clean cut camel…not interested!” Those familiar with the Missoni brand color palettes will not be disappointed. The shades of pink, turquoise and green were all there and accounted for, but the surprising surplus of black was new. Intricate noir crocheted creations walked with ease and sex appeal. Fur, this years de rigueur medium, made a scant appearance, mostly as collars that balanced nicely with the blanketed knitwear. Another odd, but effective paring was the addition of shiny accessories, cuffs, sunglasses and neck pieces that supplied a thought provoking contrast to all that thread.

Meet the Missonis. Founding partners Rosita and Ottavio (called Tai) started the Missoni empire in 1953 opening a small knitwear workshop in Gallarate, Italy. Daughter Angela became principal designer 1996, her older brother Vittorio is the company’s marketing director, and Luca is the creative director of the menswear collections and Missoni Sport. Third generation Missonis include Francesco, Margherita (who debuted this year as designer of her first accessories line), Teresa and Marco all whom were on hand for the Fall 2010 Milan show. Each member of this handsome and enchanting family is enough to make one relinquish one’s own heritage to grab a chance to become Made in Italy. It is worth spending some time with the “history” section of the Missoni site to get acquainted with the vast accomplishments of this multi-talented family.

All of this brand madness led me to traipse on over to the newly opened 7,500 sq. ft. Missoni boutique in Beverly Hills. Angela Missoni teamed with architects Patrick Kinmonth and Antonio Monfreda to create a pristine, whitewashed environment to call home. This was the first complete building project for the architects whose previous achievements include Valentino’s retrospective in Rome at ARA PACIS. The building is sheathed with woven slats of white powder coated steel that echo the famous brand’s own knits. Each dress, bikini, men’s sweater, bag and pillow get a chance to be seen in its own right. So much of their work is suited for California casual luxe chic. When a sales associate unfurled a scarf/sarong for me to view, it was an intoxicating close brush with an impulse buy.

Alternative Thoughts on Walking the Red Carpet
by Nancy Cantwell

It is awards season here in Los Angeles and along with the traffic we seem to be stuck in a glamour glut. Is it the handlers, stylists or just me: it’s so boring out there! The constant parade of Elie Saab, Marchesa, L’Wren Scott and J. Mendel blurs from one podium to the next. The two exceptions, off the top of my head, would be Sandra Bullock’s SAG Awards knockout Alexander McQueen and the ever fashionista Chloe Sevigny at the Golden Globes in Valentino…que bella!

So I did some scouting about and came up with a few alternatives. To keep focused on getting fancy was actually tiring, giving me new found respect for Rachel Zoe, whose taste drives me sideways, but who can really anticipate what the viewing public wants from their celebrities (see the spread in C Magazine September 2009 with Jennifer Garner). And just as I was becoming totally discouraged I fell in head over heels in with love the Givenchy Riccardo Tisci’s Spring 2010 collection. While I understand that full length gowns are the expected I want you to consider the impact of these lush, polished short frocks and pant alternatives.

These first set of six are all Riccardo Tisci. 1-3 are from the Spring 2010 Ready to Wear Collection, while 3-6 are from Spring 2010 Haute Couture. To really appreciate the Haute Couture you must visit the Givenchy site and see these garments from the rear. Spectacular.

RED. Enough said. From the team of Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli at Valentino.

Rick Owens other worldly designs take on a softer note here. So much more to say about our local Angeleno gone stellar, but for now suffice it to say that the chic of these pieces would be a welcome site on any red carpet.

From Jil Sander’s Raf Simon. Pretty slinky for a guy who started in industrial design.

And finally I would love to see these three from Nina Ricci’s Peter Copping. Fresh, Fem and wouldn’t you love to see a splash of fur on the shoes as well.

Chanel Redressed
Last Year at Marienbad, Alain Resnais France 1961 94 minutes Black and White 2.35:1
by Nancy Cantwell

Much has been said about Last Year at Marienbad and so little of it has to do with the sensational costume designs of Coco Chanel. Has no one noticed just how well paired Chanel and Resnais, were or more to the point, what a dramatic backdrop Marienbad provides for Chanel couture? Chanel was no stranger to the film industry, but it had 22 years since her last employ at costume design and Marienbad. In 1931, as the behest of Samuel Goldwyn, Chanel came to Hollywood twice a year to design for the actresses Goldwyn had on contract with his studio, he would pay her one million dollars per year. She created the costumes for a forgettable Jean Harlow film called Palmy Days and for a Gloria Swanson box office disaster called Tonight or Never. The third film which featured her costumes was called The Greeks Had a Word for It, directed by Lowell Sherman, 1932, which was a huge success starring Ina Claire, Joan Blondell, and Madge Evans.* While these last two films were still in post-production Chanel, disillusioned with Hollywood, returns to Paris to tend her couture business flailing in the midst of The Depression. In 1937 she collaborates with long time friend Jean Cocteau for his plays Les Chevaliers de la Table Ronde and Oedipus Rex and continues with theatrical costume designs in early French cinema classics including Port of Shadows, directed by Marcel Carne, 1938, and Jean Renoir’s masterpiece La Règle du jeu, 1939.

With the onset of World War II Coco Chanel closed her shop and had taken up with Hans Gunther von Dincklage, a German officer 13 years her junior to ride out the war. There are several accounts of her complicity with the Third Reich, but the one I found the best researched is by weekly columnist for the Times (London) Kate Muir and can be found here. Needless to say she was persona non grata in Paris. But time permitted her return and in 1954 she reopened business as usual. Although not a success in France, sales of what became the quintessential Chanel suit sold extremely well in the US and England.

All this being said, it does seem a bit odd that Resnais, one of the first directors to capture the horrors of the holocaust in his 1955 powerful documentary short Night and Fog, would employ a blatant sympathizer. My speculation runs that, regardless of political affiliation, no one could define the culture of the characters of Last Year at Marienbad with as much exactitude as Coco Chanel. Her sensibilities for perfection in workmanship and design were akin to Resnais’s passion and rigor for the art of film making.

But lets get more to the point of this pairing or trining as it were. For the complicity between Resnais and Robbe-Grillet cannot be undone, theirs is an extraordinary partnership. Here is what Robbe Grillet’s script calls for as to people and place in Marienbad. “This takes place in an enormous hotel, a kind of international palace, huge, baroque, opulent but icy: a univere of statues, motionless servants. Here the anonymous, polite, certainly rich and idle guests observe—seriously though without passion—the strict rules of their games (cards, dominoes…), Their ballroom dances, their empty chatter, or their marksmanship contests. In this sealed, stifling world, men and things alike seem victims of some spell, as in the kind of dreams where one feels guided by some fatal inevitability, where it would be futile to try to change the slightest detail as to run away.” Resnais delivers the mise en scène explicitly, and Chanel conjures through her sartorial discernment just the precise expression of the bored upper class which this film so well portrays.

Note: *Madsen, Axel. Chanel: A Woman of Her Own (Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1990)

Narcisco Rodriguez lets loose. His signature tightly constructed dress takes on a relaxed volume for Spring 2010. Jackets come in shapes like that of an Apollo command capsule and I am particularly covetous of the longer leather coat. So light, with a perfect shoulder and plenty of deep V. Dresses with shear structuring and pink moth-like pattern cutouts move so sexy. But the real knockouts of the collection are the evening dresses whose hems are cut short in the front and billow to floor length in the back. They demand a grand staircase and film crew to follow.

The fabrics at the Francisco Costa for Calvin Klein gave the collection an immediate appeal. The big time minimalist line felt positively embellished with the addition of expressive ruched crunched “needle punching” fabrics. I particularly like the way he experimented with the shape of the sleeve, whether it be an extended cap which turned a would be nurses’ outfit into something naughty, or an extra long knuckle skimming sleeve that really toys with the proportion of the jacket and dress. While neutrals dominated the color palette, when a lemon dress with the most perfect pushed up over the elbow sleeve did appear it was so welcomed that you wanted to grab the dress right off the model and wear it now.

The Donna Karan collection was an exciting mix of lean sophisticated city strut and ocean urchin. Lots of action at the waistline where the draping sometimes feigned oyster shells that hover over slim pencil skirts or simple ties that give focus to breezy leggy dresses. One particular ensemble was crafted out the the most brilliant modern red that, in this vampire crazed entertainment frenzy, it just might be the ticket. And while I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to makeup at these shows, Pat McGrath’s eye treatment set off the look so successfully that I’m tempted to run out and try some white liner myself.

And one last collection that still lingers and gives me cause to shop. Here are a few from Zero +Maria Cornejo. I just love what happens when the black strap slashes through this silk and the ying yang sandals.