Prada and Schiaparelli: Impossible Conversations

Surreal Body Gallery
Prada and Schiaparelli: Impossible Conversations
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

At the press preview yesterday for the Prada and Schiaparelli: Impossible Conversations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it seemed like there were three times as many press in attendance as compared to last year. It was a standing room only situation during the presentations by curators Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton, and inside the galleries, it was an elbows out scenario. Perhaps after the McQueen blockbuster, fashion in the museum has gained a new level of respect by the press. Seen in the crowd were Hamish Bowles, Robin Givhan, Bill Cunningham and Tavi Gavinson. My review for Fashion Projects was posted last night and can be read here.

Prada and Schiaparelli: Impossible Conversations opens to the public at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on May 10, 2012 and will run until August 19, 2012.

What's on the Fashion Calendar for May 2012?

May will be a hectic month, with the opening of several must-see exhibitions:

Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Costume Institute in New York on May 10, 2012. In this exhibition, the affinities between Italian designers Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada will be considered. Taking inspiration from Miguel Covarrubias's "Impossible Interviews" for Vanity Fair in the 1930s, curators Andrew Bolton and Harold Koda have orchestrated conversations between these iconic women to suggest new readings of their work. 

The exhibition will feature approximately ninety designs and thirty accessories by Schiaparelli (1890–1973) from the late 1920s to the early 1950s and by Prada from the late 1980s to the present, which have been selected from from The Costume Institute's collection, the Prada Archive, and private collectors. I'll be attending the press preview on May 7th and writing a review for Fashion Projects. 

Roger Vivier at the Bata Shoe Museum 2012

The Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto presents Roger Vivier: Process to Perfection beginning May 10, 2012. In this exhibition, the work of Roger Vivier, one of the 20th century's most important shoemakers, will be displayed for the first time in North America. Loans from museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, have been obtained to create a full picture of the work of this master shoemaker. I will be attending the opening party for this event on May 8th.

Armide by Opera Atelier, Photo by Bruce Zinger 2012

The spectacular production of Lully's Armide by Opera Atelier travels to Versailles, France and opens on May 11, 2012 in the Palace's Opera Royal for three performances. Shall we meet in Versailles or perhaps in Paris?

My upcoming exhibition at loop Gallery in Toronto opens on May 26, 2012. Constructions of Femininity is an exploration of the artifice of feminine dress and identity. This work juxtaposes the extreme silhouettes of 18th century dress with the armour of the modern day hockey warrior and was inspired by young women hockey players who have redefined femininity to include feats of courage, strength, and power. 

Roger Vivier at the Bata Shoe Museum and other Must-see Exhibitions for 2012

Roger Vivier at the Bata Shoe Museum, photo by Ron Wood, copyright of the Bata Shoe Museum

The explosion of fashion exhibitions in museums has made it virtually impossible to see everything that there is to see. Discerning the extraordinary from the run-of-the-mill show takes work and this is my list of top choices for 2012.

1. Roger Vivier: Process to Perfection at the Bata Shoe Museum beginning May 10, 2012
The Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto never disappoints. This jewel of a museum is headed by curator Elizabeth Semmelhack and she knows how to put on a good show.  In Process to Perfection, the exquisite work of Roger Vivier, known for bejewelled and elegantly sculptural shoes and one of the 20th century's most important master shoemakers,  will be displayed for the first time in North America. Loans from museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will make this show into a shoe-aholic's dream display.

2. Schiaperelli and Prada: On Fashion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning May 10, 2012
This exhibition at the Costume Institute of the Met in New York will explore the affinities between Elsa Schiaparelli and Miucca Prada who come from two different eras. Curated by Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton, the title of the exhibition is based on Umberto Eco's books on the philosophy of aesthetics - On Beauty and On Ugliness  and organized according to the book's outline by topics such as "On Art," "On Politics," "On Women," "On Creativity". The exhibition will run until August 19, 2012.

3. Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs at Musee des Arts Decoratifs beginning March 9, 2012
This exhibition tells the stories of two men of fashion, separated by a century, Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs, and will highlight their contributions to the fashion world. Designed to be an analysis rather than a retrospective, this parallel Vuitton-Jacobs comparison is intended to provide new insight into the fashion system during its pivotal periods, beginning with its industrialisation and ending with its globalisation, focussing also on its artistic professions and crafts, technological advances, stylistic creations and artistic collaborations.

I chose these exhibitions because they are about fashion game-changers. Each one - Vivier, Schiaparelli, Prada, Vuitton and Jacobs - brought a unique vision to the world of fashion. Plus, the curators behind these exhibitions are the best of the best....

A Conversation with Jeanne Beker about Fashion and Art

Jeanne Beker: AGO Collector's Series 2011

Jeanne Beker's personal art collection is whimsical, eclectic, and captivating - descriptors that can also be used for the woman herself. In a one-on-one interview with this fashion powerhouse, Jeanne and I had a lively conservation about fashion and art and she also gave me a tour of her favourite artworks now on display as part of the Art Gallery of Ontario's 2nd Annual Collector's Series Exhibition.

The Birthday Party by Marion Perlet

For Jeanne, each work of art in her collection evokes a memory. She said "They really serve as a kind of visual diary for me of my travels, certain stages I was going through in my life, of certain changing aesthetics I've had over the years." One of her favourites is an oil painting by Marion Perlet called "The Birthday Party" in which the artist painted her memories of her birthday party as a child. Jeanne said "This was a cherry pie but my girls always thought it looked like a pepperoni pizza. It sat right over our table in the kitchen of our old house and now it hangs in my dining room and it just makes me feel good. And yet, there is something about the look in their eyes, some of them look a little dysfunctional, or that they have their grudges or own stories to tell or their own feelings about themselves, their particular plight - they are your typical dysfunctional family I think."

Toller Cranston gave Jeanne her first artwork and encouraged her to start her collection. He told her to buy Canadian art and "just chose one artist that you really like and go with it." Jeanne followed that advice and has several pieces from Marion Perlet. She offers advice to other collectors and said "Just buy what you love. Don't buy as an investment."

Yves Saint Laurent by Andre Rau

Jeanne's collection also includes several exquisite photographs by David LaChapelle, Paul Alexander and Andre Rau that capture the intersection of the fashion and art worlds. Jeanne was surprised when I told her about my interviews with Valerie Steele, Chief Curator of The Museum at FIT and Matthew Teitelbaum, Director/CEO of the Art Gallery of Ontario on the relationship between fashion and art. She said "I just think it is old fashioned to not see fashion as art. Of course, I'm talking about a particular kind of fashion. Fashion with a capital F, not fashion put out there for mass consumption." 

Jeanne and I agreed that fashion and art have a complex relationship. She put it this way: "There are a precious handful of designers [that would quality as artists]. I'm certainly not intimating that all of fashion  is art, not by a long shot. But I do think that there are some fashion creators who are, without question artists, in terms of the techniques that they have learned, in terms of the statements that they want to communicate or in what they are saying in their impact of their creations on humanity. I don't know what the definition of art is, if it is not that."

In closing my interview, I asked Jeanne if there was anything left on her list of things she wanted to do given her long list of accomplishments to date as television journalist, as well as author and editor. She answered "I'd like to return to the places I've been to for work that I didn't get a chance to explore on my own, but really what I look forward to doing in this next chapter is to continue doing a lot of things that I have done, but just do them better. I want to continue to make great television - but better; I want to write more books - but better." When I told her that she must have a wicked perfectionist streak because so many people look up to her and admire her that I cannot imagine her having to do anything better, she said "Sometimes I feel like I've barely scratched the surface in terms of my potential. I am turning 60 next year and that only gives me another 20-30 years to go, but who knows. Diana Vreeland didn't start editing Vogue until she was 60".  I left utterly enchanted by Jeanne and her zest for life. 

The AGO's 2nd Annual Collector's Series
AGO Art Rental + Sales Gallery
481 University Avenue
Toronto, Ontario
November 30, 2011 to December 19, 2011

For more information, see the AGO website link here.

P.S. Jeanne Beker's interview of Harold Koda as part of the Bata Shoe Museum's Founder Series Lecture was published yesterday in the Toronto Star. The link is here.

Creative Process Journal: Marie Antoinette and Elsa Schiaparelli

Insect Necklace by Schiaparelli

Sometimes inspiration comes from the least likely of places. Earlier this week, Harold Koda, chief curator of the Costume Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, showed a slide of Elsa Schiaparelli's Insect Necklace during his talk as part of the Bata Shoe Museum's Founder's Lecture Series. The surrealist whimsy of this piece captivated me and I had to know more.

According to the Met's website, this piece came to the museum via the Brooklyn Museum's Costume Collection and was created by Elsa Schiaparelli in 1938 for  the fall pagan collection.  "This iconic necklace epitomizes Schiaparelli's Surrealist tendencies, perhaps more than any other design she executed because of the unreal idea of insects crawling on your skin as a fashion statement." The necklace was worn by Millicent Rogers - one of Schiaparelli's "best clients who was brave enough to wear her outré designs."

As unlikely as the connection between this necklace and Marie Antoinette is, a light bulb went off in my head when I reviewed accounts of hygiene practices in the 18th century.

In an out of print book from 1932 called The Elegant Woman, From the Rococo Period to Modern Times by Gertrude Aretz (translated and with a preface by fashion scholar James Laver), the author wrote about the lack of hygiene in 18th century, including the rank odour of the lack of bathing that was covered up with heavy doses of scent.  "Marie-Antoinette was not altogether a vain and coquettish woman, nor was her elegance altogether consistent. Her clothes were rich and beautiful, but somewhat negligently put on, and she was often careless and untidy in her dress. Her personal cleanliness was not very strict, especially before she became Queen, and she used her bathroom but seldom..... The Rococo period, with all its luxury, was a period of dirt and lack of hygiene." (pg. 62-63)

The elaborate pouf hairstyles of the period were crafted out of false hair, pins, dye, grease, and powder and then laden with accessories like feathers, flowers, jewels, and even such implausible additions as vegetables and small ships. Aretz wrote: "It goes without saying that with such complicated coiffures elegant ladies could not pay much attention to cleanliness of the head and hair. Indeed, very little consideration was given to personal hygiene in the eighteenth century. The hair was very rarely washed, perhaps once a year or even not at all. Elaborate coiffures were expected to last for weeks, and it was no rare occurrence for vermin to nest in these monstrous edifices of hair and to attack their owners in a terrible way." (pg. 76) Caroline Weber in her book Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette wore to the Revolution  also wrote about the "Queen's hallmark hairstyles" and the "special head-scratchers (grattoirs) made from ivory, silver, gold, and even sometimes decorated with diamonds" (Weber: 111).

Our perceptions of the grandeur and beauty of this period are no more than illusions. And this I think is the key to adding a subversive element to my recreation of a robe a la francaise. Funnily enough, it seems to tie in rather nicely to my previous dress sculptures made out of mosquito mesh - which originated from a play on the word "fly" as a reference to both the pest and the tag word for "cool".

I am going to appropriate Elsa Schiaparelli's insect necklace and reinterpret it in the context of the 18th century as a reference to "all manner of vermin" that crawled out of the elaborate pouf hairstyles of Marie Antoinette's time (Weber: 111).

Sources:
Aretz, Gertrude. The Elegant Woman: From the Rococo Period to Modern Times. London: Geroge G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., 1931. (Translated by James Laver)

Weber, Caroline. Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2006.

Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Collection: Elsa Schiaparelli Necklace 2009.300.1234
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/80093782
sourced: November 12, 2011

Project Clock: +3 hours
Project Clock to date: 27.5 hours

Harold Koda on Fashion in the Art Museum at the Bata Shoe Museum Founder's Lecture

Harold Koda (Photo by Karin Willis)

Last night, Sonja Bata introduced The Founder's Lecture series at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto as being part of a new initiative to bring "one truly outstanding personality" related to fashion to speak about their work. Harold Koda, the "rock star of fashion curators",  is the curator in charge of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, was the first speaker in the series.

Harold's talk was entitled "The Arrangement: Fashion in the Art Museum" and traced the history of the costume collection at the Met from its earliest incarnation in 1947 as a resource collection for the fashion industry through to the present as one of the largest costume collections in the world.

The history of the Costume Institute is a story of personalities - from Diana Vreeland through to Richard Martin and Harold himself. An engaging speaker, both brilliant and humble, Harold kept all of us in rapt attention throughout his talk.

Not shy about the necessity of raising funds to support the Costume Institute, Harold mentioned the  strategies used by the museum to create excitement and raise funds for the collection. He gave credit to Diana Vreeland for recognizing that the annual party needed to have a high and glamorous profile in order that people would pay a lot of money to attend. He gave credit to Richard Martin who had the idea to create conceptually developed themes to generate audiences. Harold did not take any credit for himself, but he should have -- for his intra-museum collaborations for shows like "Dangerous Laisons" and his foresight in developing exhibitions of women of style like Jacqueline Kennedy and Nan Kemper as well as monographic designer displays like Chanel and Alexander McQueen.

Although fashion is one of the industries that drives the world economy, it seems that there is an uneasy relationship between fashion and finance and I was impressed that Harold addressed this head on. He said that when the museum presents a monographic designer exhibition (like Chanel), they often receive criticism as if there has been some kind of "collusion between high culture and the museum". And this problem is "complicated by fashion brands curating their own shows" in which the "concept never becomes as lucid as having someone outside the house reflect on it." Although the museum has to ask for the cooperation (and often sponsorship) of the fashion house, he made the point that "we are not working for the fashion company...we ask for access to their collection and archives...but there is a type of firewall between curation and the company."

Harold also talked briefly about the relationship between fashion and art and he mentioned that art is something that "elevates us beyond our daily experience". He gave examples of a few designers that he feels do this including Hussein Chalayn (and his airplane dress), Roberto Capucci who used "dress as a medium for sculpture" and Jean Paul Gaultier who uses "fashion as a vehicle for some other narrative". He said that the pattern for collecting at the Costume Institute is "focused more and more on the objects that have artistic virtue but are estranged from the experience of daily life".

To read more about Harold's views on the relationship between fashion and art, visit Fashion Projects here for the transcript of our conversation.

To join the Bata Shoe Museum and be at the front of the line for other illuminating talks and their upcoming show on Roger Vivier, visit their website here.

What's on the Fashion Calendar for November?

Queen Alexandra in Court Dress
Courtesy of the ROM and subject to copyright

November is another hectic month!!! Here is what's on the fashion calendar:

November 4 - Opening of the Grace Kelly exhibit at the TIFF Lightbox in Toronto. Last year, I went to London to see this exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Read my review here.

November 5 - I will be speaking about my research on Ruth Dukas, a Canadian designer of evening wear in the 1960s, at the Ryerson University Graduate Research Symposium called Convergence. Speakers will present their research in three panels including - Narratives of Femininity in Fashion; Canadian Content? From Local to Global; and The Spaces in Fashion: Conditions & Contexts. The plenary talk will be given at 4:30 pm by Kate Strasdin of the University of Southampton and The Royal Ontario Museum’s 2011 Gervers Fellow. This event is free and held on campus. More details are available at www.ryersonfashionsymposium.ca.

November 8 - Harold Koda, Chief Curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be coming to Toronto as the Bata Shoe Museum Founder's Lecture Series to talk about Fashion and the Art Museum. The transcript of my interview with Harold Koda will be published on Fashion Projects next week. Tickets for the event are available through the Bata Shoe Museum.

November 11 - Kate Strasdin will be giving the 20th annual Veronika Gervers Memorial Lecture called "A Royal Wardrobe Unlocked: Queen Alexandra 1863-1910" at the Royal Ontario Museum from 530-630 pm. Kate has been studying the ROM's collection of  Queen Alexandra’s clothing. According to the press release, the Museum’s holdings "include significant evening garments from her earliest years as Princess of Wales to the more stately examples she wore as Queen. These objects offer a sparkling snapshot into the world and wardrobe of one of the most famous women of the nineteenth century." For more information on this free event, visit the ROM's website here.

November 13 - The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier opens in Dallas at the Museum of Art. This exhibition was developed by the Montreal Museum of Fine Art and this will be its first stop on its tour of the world. There will be some new exhibition additions including a motorcycle suit with headlights costume for Pedro Almodovar's 1993 film "Kika" and a menswear outfit from the recent Gaultier Haute Couture Fall Winter 2011/2012 collection. My review of the MMFA exhibition and my interviews with curators Thierry Maxime Loriot and Nathalie Bondil are on Fashion Projects.

It all started with Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette's Dress (Property of the Royal Ontario Museum)

Life is funny. If someone had told me that one day I'd be interviewing curators and that people in New York would be talking about a speech I'd given on the topic of Fashion and Art, I would have laughed at the improbability of it all. And yet, that is now my reality and it is all because of a dress.....

Back in 2008, I was new to blogging. All I knew at that point was that I wanted to write about fashion, art and books. It was a slow beginning. And then one day, I saw a dress at the Royal Ontario Museum that may have been worn by Marie Antoinette. It is probably the only such dress in existence and is believed to have survived because it was customary for royalty to give away their clothing after the season. The dress had been altered in the 19th century and was purchased by the ROM in 1925 by the ROM's first director, Charles Trick Currelly, from an antiques dealer in London, England.  I became obsessed with this dress and wanted to understand what it might have looked like before it was altered (actually I'm stilll obsessed with this dress and will soon begin to post about a creative project inspired by that dress).  I started reading everything I could about Marie Antoinette and 18th century dress and discovered a whole world of fashion scholarship that I had not even known existed. By immersing myself in the topic, I taught myself costume history. (The one thing I learned from my first master's degree was how to teach myself anything although I have since taken courses in costume history). And although fashion had been my muse in my art practice for several years before this juncture, I also began to make replicas of period dress in paper, in fabric and in mesh. I attended lectures and exhibitions about costumes and textiles. As I gained knowledge, I began to write about what I saw - at first for my blog, then for newsletters and then for journals and now for my masters of fashion thesis.

There was a time when I worked in finance that I had an unshakable confidence in what I was doing. They called me the Blonde Barracuda - probably because I was fearless in speaking my mind. But when I left that career to care for my sick little boy and tend to my dying father, my self confidence evaporated. It seemed that people no longer were interested in what I had to say because I was a stay at home mother.... And even after I forged a new career as a photographer and then as an artist, something still didn't fit. As much as I enjoyed the process of creation, I did not feel intellectually engaged or challenged as an artist and my days in the studio were too solitary. But what this immersion in art has done is helped me to understand the common visual vocabulary and processes shared by both art and fashion.

After attending the Costume Society of America mid-west conference last weekend, I feel like I have found my people... I speak the language of fashion academia and I'll be reshaping my speech into an article to submit for publication. Who knows maybe one day I'll actually be brave enough to actually talk to Hamish Bowles and Anna Wintour ....

P.S. I received permission from Valerie Steele and Harold Koda to publish the transcripts of our conversations on fashion and art on Fashion Projects.

When Does Fashion Become Art?

Alexander McQueen Jungle 1997-1998

This is the abstract for my Keynote Address at the Costume Society of America Mid-West Conference presented on October 14, 2011 at 4 pm at the University of Northern Iowa:

When Does Fashion Become Art?  by Ingrid Mida

Clothing can be a visual mirror of our inner selves. We each get dressed in the morning and make choices how to present ourselves to the world. We construct our identity with our choice of clothing and accessories and signal our belonging or not. This expression of identity through dress makes it a ready subject for artistic practices and interpretation and both artists and designers have considered notions of the body and identity as articulated through fashion. 

There has been much debate about whether fashion is art. Fashion scholars such as Sung Bok Kim, Sandra Miller, Anne Hollander and Elizabeth Wilson have considered the question. In my interviews with four museum directors/scholars, including Matthew Teitelbaum of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Nathalie Bondil of the MMFA, Valerie Steele of FIT and Harold Koda of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, there was no consensus. This was not surprising given that fashion designers themselves do not agree on whether fashion is art.

It was an instinct – as a result of my work as an artist - that led me to frame the question in a different way. Instead of asking “Is fashion art” it seemed to make more sense to ask “When does fashion become art?” After all, both fashion and art require the translation of an idea into another form. Both disciplines share a visual vocabulary and process-oriented development. Both fashion and art also have commercial aspects driving their conception and both can include multiples in a series or collection.

But, not all fashion is art. What falls into the realm of fashion is just too broad for that statement to be true, especially when fashion can include both garments of haute couture and trendy mass-produced items.

Changing the question to “When Does Fashion Become Art?” leaves open the possibility that some fashion might be considered art. This is especially true when contemporary art is defined by the expression of an idea or a concept. The object – whether painting, sculpture, video, installation or clothing – is important, but only in terms of the manifestation of the idea. In our post-modern world, the boundaries have blurred and the conception of what is art has changed.

Ideas expressed in terms of fashion are accessible to audiences in a way that contemporary art often is not. One does not have to be a fashion scholar or understand the complex and divergent theories of how fashion works to decipher the language of clothing. We do it unconsciously every day and to me, it is this quality that makes fashion as art such a powerful statement. 

Some curators have embraced the concept of fashion as art. Recent noteworthy exhibitions of this type have included The Concise Dictionary of Dress at the Blythe House, London in May 2010, Rodarte, States of Matter at Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles in March 2011, McQueen: Savage Beauty at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in May 2011 and The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art in June 2011. 

Within each of these exhibitions, fashion was presented as a means of conveying a specific conceptual premise. This premise was not just a source of inspiration, but was a message or statement about society, identity or the body. And it is this aspect of fashion – when the form of expression is based on a thematic premise -- that defines for me the point at which fashion becomes art.

Notes:

To read the transcripts of my interviews with Nathalie Bondil and Matthew Teitelbaum, please visit Fashion Projects (www.fashionprojects.org). I have requested the permission of Harold Koda and Valerie Steele to post the transcripts of our conversations there as well. This will be my last post about the conference as it is time to move on to other things...

The Keynote

Fiona dress by Judith & Charles

I have had so many ideas for posts but no time to write them.... Between caring for my family and cooking Thanksgiving dinner for my extended family, doing course work, reading, research, studying for a test, yoga, practicing and re-writing my keynote address for the Costume Society of America conference later this week, there hasn't been much time for anything else....

Of course, there was one thing I absolutely had to make time for and that was picking out a dress to wear for the keynote. I wanted something to signify confidence.... and this red dress was it! Made by the Canadian label Judith & Charles, it makes me look like I know what I'm talking about. And after nearly 6 months of thinking about my keynote, 5 drafts of my speech, 4 interviews with curators Nathalie Bondil, Matthew Teitelbaum, Valerie Steele, and Harold Koda, 3 long practice sessions with my slides, 2 sleepless nights and 1 red dress,  I think I'm finally ready!!!  

Fashion and the Art Museum: A Talk by Harold Koda

Harold Koda

 On Tuesday, November 8, 2011, Harold Koda will be speaking on the subject of Fashion and the Art Museum as part of the Bata Shoe Museum's Founder's Lecture Series.

Harold Koda has served as the Curator-in-Charge of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since June 2000. He is the author of 19 books including Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed.

He has curated and co-curated many exhibitions including Balenciaga (1986), Fashion and Surrealism (1987), Jocks and Nerds (1989), Fashion in Film (1990), Splash! (1991), Giorgio Armani: Images of Man (1990), Paper Clothes (1991), and Halston: Absolute Modernism (1991), Diana Vreeland: Immoderate Style (1993), Waist Not (1993), Madame Grès (1994), Orientalism (1994), Haute Couture (1995), Bloom (1995), Bare Witness (1996), Two by Two (1996), and Christian Dior (1996) and The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion (2009).

Born in Honolulu, he graduated from the University of Hawaii with a B.A. in English Literature and a B.F.A. (Art History), and a Masters degree in Landscape Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.

Last week, Harold answered a number of questions for me on the topic of Art and Fashion which is the subject of my keynote address at the Costume Society of America mid-west conference in October. His eloquence and the clarity of thought helped illuminate the topic for me and I was grateful for the generosity of his time. Because of that interchange, I know that his talk will be an unforgettable experience.

Tickets are available through the Bata Shoe Museum.

The Arrangement: Fashion and the Art Museum by Harold Koda
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011 at 6:30 pm
George Ignatieff Theatre, Trinity College
15 Devonshire Place, Toronto

A Conversation with Matthew Teitelbaum of the Art Gallery of Ontario about Art and Fashion

Matthew Teitelbaum, Director and CEO of the Art Gallery of Ontario

Recently I sat down with Matthew Teitelbaum, the Michael and Sonja Koerner Director and CEO of the Art Gallery of Ontario,  to talk about his views on fashion and art. I was looking for a contrary viewpoint to that of Nathalie Bondil, the Director and Chief Curator of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, who during our interview at the Gaultier press preview clearly defined fashion as art. Whether fashion is or is not art is definitely a topic worthy of discussion....  An extract of my conversation with Matthew was published on Fashion Projects here.

Now if only I could get Harold Koda or Anna Wintour to have a chat with me....

Bill Cunningham New York

"The best fashion show is on the street" said Bill Cunningham. This charming 82 year old photographer is the original Sartorialist, capturing New York street style and society parties for the New York Times. His  two weekly columns called "On the Street" and "Evening Hours" have been fixtures in the Sunday paper for nearly 50 years.

Originally opening in New York on March 16, this documentary by Richard Press and Philip Gefter  finally arrived in Toronto and I attended the pre-screening last night at the Varsity Theatre as a guest of Fashion Television.

The movie celebrates Bill Cunningham's work as a "fashion anthropologist". Not interested in celebrities, Bill uses his Nikon camera and Kodak film to document what people are wearing on the street. Out in all types of weather, he says "I let the street speak to me". Stalking his fashionable prey like a hunter, he wears the uniform of a French garbageman and rides his Schwinn bicycle around the city looking for creative dressers to photograph. Many of his photographs have never been published and he keeps the archives of his negatives in rows of filing cabinets that dominate his apartment.

It is clear that this man loves his work. Living a monastic existence in a tiny studio apartment with a shared bathroom, he works day and night. His bicycle is his main mode of transport even at night when he attends an array of gala benefits where he photographs pretty party-goers and philanthropists. Seeming at ease with everyone, he refuses to accept even a glass of water at any of the events he attends,  fearing that to do so might compromise his independence.

"We all get dressed for Bill" said Anna Wintour who went on to add that it was a bad day when Bill declined to photograph her. Interviews with other style makers like Harold Koda, Patrick Macdonald, and Iris Apfel  give evidence to how much this man is loved. In 2008, Bill Cunningham was awarded the title chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture which was pinned onto his blue garbageman smock. He also worked the event saying it was "too much fun not to".

I sat through the movie with a big smile on my face and laughed out loud at Cunningham's sharp wit and fierce sense of independence. Although there are some awkward moments in the movie, like when Bill is asked about his religion and relationships, the movie paints a colourful picture of a man that has been a fixture on the New York fashion scene for decades. Plus I couldn't help but admire someone who says "If you don't take money, they can't tell you what to do".