{"id":84916,"date":"2023-12-20T10:49:26","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T10:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&p=84916"},"modified":"2024-03-20T19:32:52","modified_gmt":"2024-03-20T19:32:52","slug":"designing-women-new-york-metropolitan-museum-of-art-san-francisco-de-young-museum-grazia-winter-2023","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/designing-women-new-york-metropolitan-museum-of-art-san-francisco-de-young-museum-grazia-winter-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Designing Women: New York\u2019s Metropolitan Museum of Art & San Francisco\u2019s de Young Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"
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From left: Anifa Mvuemba for Hanifa dress, Fall\/Winter 2020-21; Gabrielle Chanel for Chanel ensemble, ca. 1927; Maria Grazia Chiuri for Dior ensemble, Spring\/Summer 2017. Photo Credit: Anna-Marie Kellen \u00a9 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pop quiz: Name a famous Paris couturier from the first half of the 20th century. Chances are you said Crist\u00f3bal Balenciaga or Christian Dior. Perhaps Gabrielle Chanel or Elsa Schiaparelli came to mind. But you probably didn\u2019t think of, say, Lucy Christiana Duff-Gordon or Marcelle Chapsal, who were famous in their own time but are practically unknown today. They are just two of the 18 other female couturiers from this period whose work is featured in two landmark exhibitions this winter at New York\u2019s Metropolitan Museum of Art and San Francisco\u2019s de Young Museum that explore the often overlooked contributions of women to the fashion industry. Women Dressing Women<\/i>, on view through March 3 at the Met, examines the creative legacy of 73 women designers and women-led fashion houses from the early 20th century to the present day, while Fashioning San Francisco: A Century<\/i> of Style<\/i>, opening January 20 at the de Young, narrates the same period through the stories of women like Ethel Sperry Crocker, Eleanor de Guigne, Zelda Quigley, and Dodie Rosekrans who actually bought and wore the clothes on display.<\/p>\n

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Claire McCardell wearing her own design, 1945. Photo Credit: Erwin Blumenfeld \u00a9 The Estate of Erwin Blumenfeld 2023. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“I think often of the Paquin lot that got away.” \u2014 Sandy Schreier<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While both exhibitions are several years in the making, they are debuting in the context of conversations about the small and ever dwindling number of women in creative director roles today sparked by a viral Instagram infographic depicting the all-male creative director roster at Kering following Se\u00e1n McGirr\u2019s appointment to succeed Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen. You can count on one hand the number of female creative directors at the other two rival European luxury conglomerates: Stella McCartney, Dior\u2019s Maria Grazia Chiuri, and Chloe\u2019s Chemena Kamali. And there are only a few more at privately held companies like Chanel, H\u00e8rmes, Versace and Prada. \u201cI do think that it\u2019s nice to have a timely reminder of just how much ingenuity and creativity and innovation women have brought to dress across time,\u201d says Mellissa Huber, associate curator in The Costume Institute, who co-organized Women Dressing Women<\/i> with independent curator Karen Van Godtsenhoven.<\/p>\n

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From left: Ann Demeulemeester suit, Spring\/Summer 1997; Marcelle Chapsal for Marcelle Chaumont evening ensemble, Fall\/Winter 1948-49; Donna Karan for Donna Karan New York evening ensemble, Fall\/Winter 1992\u201393; Miuccia Prada for Prada ensemble, Fall\/Winter 2007\u201308; Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen ensemble, Spring\/Summer 2012. Photo Credit: Anna-Marie Kellen \u00a9 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the most striking takeaways from Women Dressing Women <\/i>is that a century ago, in the 1920s and 1930s, women designers in Paris actually slightly outnumbered their male counterparts. The exhibit opens with a section titled Visibility, which explores how women had long excelled as professional dressmakers in France\u2014seen as an extension of the domestic sphere, dressmaking was one of the few professions open to them\u2014and were thus instrumental to the rise of haute couture and the modern notion of the named designer at the turn of the 20th century. As new couture houses began offering seasonal collections of made-to-measure garments, several of the earliest labels were run by sisters, including Callot Soeurs founded by Marie Gerber, Marthe Bertrand, Jos\u00e9phine Crimont, and R\u00e9gina Tennyson-Chantrell under their maiden name in 1895 and known for slender, revealing cuts, and Bou\u00e9 Soeurs, a partnership between Sylvie Bou\u00e9 de Montegut and Jeanne d\u2019Etreillis begun in 1897 that was celebrated for its modern renditions of historical silhouettes.<\/p>\n

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Madeleine Lepeyre and Madame Madeleine for Madeleine & Madeleine evening dress, ca. 1923; Sandy Schreier in a Katharine Hamnett for Katharine Hamnett London t-shirt, 1985. Photo Credit: Anna-Marie Kellen \u00a9 The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Courtesy Sandy Schreier.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The intimate scale of made-to-measure fashion offered unique entrepreneurial opportunities for women to start businesses independently. After her husband abandoned her and their young daughter, the American-born dressmaker Lucy Christiana Duff-Gordon launched Lucile, a couture line of diaphanous chiffon dresses, in 1904 and went on to dress Anna Jones Dyer, a first lady of Delaware, and Nan Tucker McEvoy, a former head of the San Francisco Chronicle, whose dresses are featured in the Met and de Young exhibits. \u201cShe started doing everything on her own with no money whatsoever, and because she had the skill set to design and sketch and sew, she was able to build something that other women wanted to invest in,\u201d says Huber. Perhaps no one built something women wanted to invest in more successfully than Gabrielle Chanel, the daughter of a peddler and self-made billionaire who founded her femme moderne<\/i> label featuring menswear elements like tailored jackets as women\u2019s dress in 1910, which she modeled herself to great effect.<\/p>\n

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From left: Maria \u201cNina\u201d Ricci for Nina Ricci evening dress, Spring\/Summer 1937; Jil Sander suit, Fall\/Winter 1998\u201399; Diane von Furstenberg ensemble, 1970s; Norma Kamali for OMO Norma Kamali evening dress, 1978; Elsa Schiaparelli dress, Fall\/Winter 1937\u201338. Photo Credit: Anna-Marie Kellen \u00a9 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“It\u2019s nice to have a timely reminder of just how much ingenuity and creativity and innovation women have brought to dress across time.” \u2014 Mellissa Huber\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Women Dressing Women<\/i> features an animated family tree that presents the primacy of women-led couture houses in interwar Paris as a function not just of talented couturi\u00e8res but also the equally important technical and business acumen of female workroom staff including the premi\u00e8res d\u2019ateliers and modelistes<\/i> who helped design and sew the dresses and the vendeuses who sold them. \u201cI definitely had some Homeland<\/i>-style boards going in my apartment, including with string at one point, which my cats loved,\u201d says Huber, describing how she pieced it all together. It\u2019s fascinating just to follow the connections between houses led by women named Madeleine, including Madeleine & Madeleine, founded in 1919 by Mademoiselle Madeleine, a former vendeuse at Jeanne Hall\u00e9e, and Madame Madeleine Lepeyre, a designer who had previously worked at Paquin and Callot Soeurs. There was also Vionnet, founded by Madeleine Vionnet, which shuttered in 1939 and splintered into two camps: daywear powerhouse Mad Carpentier (led by premi\u00e8re d\u2019atelier Madeleine Maltezos and vendeuse Suzie Carpentier) and Grecian-inspired eveningwear label Marcelle Chaumont (led by Vionnet\u2019s longtime right-hand Marcelle Chapsal).<\/p>\n

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Rei Kawakubo with models wearing Comme des Gar\u00e7ons, 1983. Photo Credit: courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Both the Met and de Young exhibitions are drawn from the museums\u2019 permanent collections. Laura Camerlengo, curator in charge of costume and textile arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (which comprises the de Young and its sister institution the Legion of Honor) notes that \u201cwe see this switch at the mid-20th century where the collection does become more male focused.\u201d Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Bill Blass, and John Galliano replace labels like Callot Soeurs, Lucile, Louiseboulanger, Peggy Hoyt, and Lanvin that comprise the museum\u2019s earlier holdings. So where did all the women designers go? \u201cWhen you think about the conditions of the period itself, there were a lot of challenges: two world wars, the Great Depression, plus the nature of the industry itself was rapidly expanding and reconfiguring,\u201d suggests Huber. \u201cIf you didn\u2019t have a perfume or licensing agreements or something to sort of keep the business alive during difficult financial times like Chanel did, then it was really easy for these houses to disappear and just sort of fall out of existence.\u201d Of the haute couture houses founded by women in the first half of the 20th century, only Chanel, Nina Ricci, Gr\u00e8s, and Lanvin\u2014all of which had successful fragrances\u2014survived the 1960s.<\/p>\n

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From left: Lucy Christiana Duff-Gordon for Lucile evening dress, ca. 1921; Kate and Laura Mulleavy for Rodarte evening dress, Spring\/Summer 2011; Christian Dior for House of Dior evening gown, Fall\/Winter 1949-50. Photo Credit: Randy Dodson, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But that doesn\u2019t explain why female designers from the Visibility era have faded into the shadows in our telling of fashion history. The reasons, Huber suggests, are multifactorial. When curators are trying to appeal to a general audience there\u2019s a tendency to lean on the best known names and \u201cthose tend to be men,\u201d she says. Moreover, the material record that exists\u2014for both female and male designers\u2014from this early period was before most brands kept archives, and relies on what clients thought to donate to museums or pass down within their families. Much of the Met\u2019s holdings come from one private collector, Sandy Schreier, who has made a valiant effort to salvage pieces from labels like Madeleine & Madeleine, Premet, Augustabernard, and Maggy Rouff from Detroit area estate sales. \u201cI think often of a Paquin lot that got away,\u201d says Schreier. \u201cThe lady who bought it cut the dresses up into pieces and made doilies and antimacassars out of them. Can you imagine?\u201d (A couple pieces by Katherine Hamnett and Jean Muir from her personal wardrobe also made into the show.)<\/p>\n

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From left: John Galliano for Dior Haute Couture jacket, Fall\/Winter 1996-97 and Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Gar\u00e7ons skirt, Spring \/Summer 2006; Junya Watanabe jacket, Fall\/Winter 2015-16; Yves Saint Laurent Haute Couture evening ensemble, Fall\/Winter 1976\u201377. Photo Credit: Randy Dodson, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another common thread to both exhibits is the way that, even if they\u2019re not the creative directors of European heritage brands, female designers\u2014and the many other women who make up the ecosystem of fashion\u2014continue to have an enormous impact on women\u2019s lives. Women Dressing Women<\/i> features several international and intergenerational groupings, that explore themes such Reclaiming the Body, which examines the work of more avant-garde designers like Comme des Gar\u00e7on\u2019s Rei Kawakubo, Georgina Godley, and Melitta Baumeister who challenge conventional notions of beauty, or Bodily Agency, which looks at clothes from No Sesso, Norma Kamali, and Simone Rocha that have aspects of adaptability to them.<\/p>\n

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From left: Yves Saint Laurent for Christian Dior evening dress Fall\/Winter 1955; Sherri McMullen wearing Christopher John Rogers Resort 2023 evening gown, 2022; Callot Soeurs evening dress ca. 1908. Photo Credit: Randy Dodson, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Drew Altizer Photography.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“In most cases women designers will think of comfort.” \u2014 Christine Suppes<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another thematic grouping is American Women, exploring the way sportswear designers from Claire McCardell to Bonnie Cashin have prioritized the comfort of the wearer, by allowing them to better inhabit their clothes through wrapping, tying, or layering. \u201cIn most cases women designers will think of comfort,\u201d says Christine Suppes, a major collector of Rodarte and Vivienne Westwood who has donated more than 500 pieces to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. \u201cWhen I put on my Rodarte, I can zip it up myself.\u201d Fashioning San Francisco<\/i> features several Dior gowns that have gussets added under the arms by the couture salon at I. Magnin & Company to allow more movement in the shoulders. The local department store, which sold local reproductions of French couture, was also known to cut holes in internal corsets to accommodate women postpartum. \u201cI thought clearly that it was a woman who was adapting that garment to another female body, rather than a man who might not necessarily consider how the body shifts,\u201d says Camerlengo.<\/p>\n

The stories in these two exhibits could easily fill 12 different exhibits, and that, says Huber, is exactly the point. \u201cOur approach was to try to squeeze in all of these stories and hopefully give our visitors a sense of the breadth of things that were happening and the range of different ways that women were approaching fashion and finding opportunity across time and geography,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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Zedla Quigley in a Julio Laffitte for Patou evening gown, Fall\/Winter 1953-54. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Ruth Quigley and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Read GRAZIA USA<\/em>\u2019s Winter Issue<\/a>, out now, featuring cover star Emma Roberts<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"author":42719,"featured_media":84917,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[38,17,16],"yoast_head":"\nDesigning Women: The Met & de Young Museum<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Landmark exhibits this winter in New York and San Francisco highlight the often overlooked contributions of women to the fashion industry.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/designing-women-new-york-metropolitan-museum-of-art-san-francisco-de-young-museum-grazia-winter-2023\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Designing Women: New York\u2019s Metropolitan Museum of Art & San 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