High Style | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

I am taking some time off life, business and everything else, but not without feeding my soul with art and all the artistic expressions. Visiting The San Francisco Art Market last week and some museums have been a mind opening. Next, I will visit some culinary academies to experience food creations made by students and aspiring chefs.

The High Style Exhibition at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco was a great visit. This is the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection that will be in San Francisco until July 19, 2015. If you are in the area don’t lose the opportunity to visit such precious collection, sophisticated expressions of women fashion of the 20th century from 1910 to 1980.
High Style includes French couture houses of Jeanne Lanvin, Coco Chanel, Givenchy, Elsa Schiapparelli and American designers Charles James, Sally Victor, and Gilbert Adrian, among the others of the ‘30s and ‘40s eras.

High Style Exhibition is divided into three sections: Influence of Historical Fashion, Influence of Traditional World Couture and Influence of Art and Artists Movements.
In 1927 the fashion collection of Madame Grès was influenced by the chiton and the peplum, two popular women wear of the Roman Empire. Designer Worth Jean Philippe of the house of Worth was influenced by the high waisted dress of medieval era, which the Edwardian of the 1800s liked so much. In 1949 Gilbert Adrian imitated the Robe à la Française with the panier hips, (the cage under the dress that exaggerated women’s hips).
I adored seen the shoes of the Belle Époque echoing the 17th-century shoes covered with exquisite lace and velvet fabric, which Pietro Yantorny reinterpreted so well.

Lanvin-1923 Evening Dress

Louis Hills

Satin Shoe-Steven Arpad-1939

Elsa Schiapparelli BoleroDress

Zodiac Jacket Schiapparelli

Tigress Evening Dress Gilbert Adrian

Arnold Scaasi Spring

Arnold Scaasi-1961 – Evening Ensemble

Sorelle Fontana

Muslin Pattern – Charles James

Charles James Diamond Dress

Charles James Evening

Tree Ball Gown 1955 Charles James

(all photos were taken at the Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco by Valentina Cirasola)

American designer Charles James was fascinated by the women derriere and emphasized it in all his dresses. He accomplished the provocative shaping at the back of a Victorian princess-line dress with a simple realignment of the princess seam and contrasting colors. He created a sensuous form of the female anatomy. In the section dedicated to Charles James the 3-D video representation of his dress construction is amazingly interesting. We can understand how a dress is conceived from paper to realization, piece by piece put together as an architectural building brick by brick and geometrically pleasing. Steven Arpad in 1939 created the satin shoes with the hill echoing the C curve of a Barocco bed, which Chanel picked up again so many years later. It is fun to see how inspiration can come from minute details everywhere even from a bed detail.

Picasso’s art influenced Gilbert Adrian in 1949 and Elsa Schiapparelli in the ‘40s interpreting the beautifully embroidered outfit of a torero, produced evening ensembles with a bolero for a totally different function. She was also inspired by nature and classical art when she produced dresses and jewelry with insects and butterflies, of course not real, but embroidered to perfection.

This is a must-see exhibition, but in the meantime, if you want to hear the curator presenting the collection High Style, watch the video below. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, working in the USA and Europe. Born in Italy in a family of artists, style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations and now she can remodel homes as well as personal images. To better help people in the world, she offers consultations online. She is the author of three books. Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors
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