What's on The January Fashion Calendar

The January calendar includes fashion weeks in Paris and Berlin as well as the closing of two not-to-be-missed exhibitions about fashion icons including:

Daphne Guinness

Daphne Guinness at the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology ends on January 7th, 2012. Daphne herself was heavily involved in the production of this exhibition. She said "What draws me to fashion is art...and certainly not fashion as status symbol," and "This exhibition is done for the benefit of those out there, students or otherwise, who share this love." The show is hauntingly beautiful and many of the ensembles evoke a sense of fragile and fleeting beauty. Daphne uses clothing like armour -- attracting attention in doing so but also putting a physical barrier between herself and the world that hides her real self within these exquisite creations.

Grace Kelly Engagement

Grace Kelly: From Movie Star to Princess at the TIFF Lightbox ends on January 22, 2012. Having seen this exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, I recall marveling at the elegance of the gowns on display. Grace Kelly embodied the elegance and restraint of a modern princess.

The Haute Couture shows in Paris run January 23-26, 2012, beginning with Versace at 10:30 a.m. on January 23rd and ending with Valentino on January 25th at 6:30 p.m. The complete schedule can be viewed here. How I wish I was going... instead I'll be in class (sigh)....

May 2012 bring good things your way....Live with passion and dream big!

Blogging and Baudelaire

Gaga's Boudoir Window at Barney's New York by Ingrid Mida 2011

Poet Charles Baudelaire and theorist Walter Benjamin were fascinated by the concept of the flaneur, a figure who anonymously strolled through the city streets gazing into windows, embodying the concept of modernity in the specular relationship to urban space and consumer goods. I felt a bit like a flaneuse myself during my weekend jaunt to New York, strolling the city from the Museum at FIT (at 7th and 27th) up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (at 5th and 82) and stopping to admire the windows like this fabulous Gaga display at Barneys. The weather was glorious and I drank in the sunshine as if I'd recently been released from prison (which is what I equate the library I've been living in of late).

Stepping away from for a weekend was refreshing in so many ways and it re-energized me.  I also thought of all the good things that have come my way from being a blogger -  the people I've met, the exhibitions I've seen, the friends I've made.... I recently submitted an abstract for a paper called "Blogging, Benjamin and Foucault" to the Fashion Tales 2012 conference in Milan. In equating bloggers to Baudelaire’s and Benjamin's concept of the flaneur and drawing on Foucault’s theories on the aesthetics of existence, I hope to recast the blog as a creative portal and a form of conversational erudition. Call me crazy.... I don't know if it will fly, but sometimes you just have to jump off the cliff....

What's on the Fashion Calendar for December

In a month filled with holiday parties and festivities (not to mention a raft of deadlines), I find the reflective nature of art to be a balm to the soul. Here are some of the exhibitions I hope to visit this month:

Cecil Beaton 1948

The Museum of the City of New York presents the work of British-born photographer and designer Cecil Beaton (1904-80). The exhibition Cecil Beaton: The New York Years brings together extraordinary photographs, drawings, and costumes by Beaton to chronicle his impact on the city’s cultural life.

Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue, New York

Daphne Guiness

Tom Ford once said: “Daphne is one of – if not the – most stylish women living." In an exhibition at the Museum at FIT, curator Valerie Steele collaborated with this fashion icon to present a selection of Daphne Guiness' collection of couture. Divided into six sections, the garments are organized into six themes including Dandyism, Armor, Chic, Evening Chic, Exoticism and Sparkle. 

Museum at FIT, 7th Avenue at 27th, New York 

In the exhibition Stieglitz and his artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe, the Metropolitan Museum of Art presents over 200 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints from Alfred Stieglitz's collection. These artworks were acquired by the Metropolitan in 1949 from Georgia O'Keefe. After reading the book "How Georgia Became O'Keeffe" by Karen Karbo and learning about their stormy relationship, I'm keen to see this exhibition, especially since many of the works were acquired by Stieglitz when the artists were relatively unknown.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue (at 82nd Street), New York

Blue Circus by Marc Chagall

The Art Gallery of Ontario presents Chagall and the Russian Avant-Garde: Masterpieces from the Collection of the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and features the work of Marc Chagall alongside his contemporaries of Russian modernism, including Wassily Kandinsky and Sonia Delaunay.
The exhibition of 118 works comes from the Centre Pompidou and features 32 works by Chagall and eight works by Kandinsky.

Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas Street West, Toronto

If I were in New York over the Holidays.....

Sometimes I wish I was Eloise and lived in the Plaza Hotel with the magic of Manhattan at my doorstep. I'm not going to be in New York over the holidays but a friend is and she asked me what I'd recommend. Here is my list of top three shows in the Big Apple.

Overcoat 2004 by Charles LeDray
Photograph by Tom Powel

Charles LeDray WORKWORKWORKWORKWORK at the Whitney Museum
945 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10021, United States
(212) 570-3600
Subway: 77th Street - Lexington

This retrospective of New York-based sculptor Charles LeDray's work celebrates his highly original and uncanny manipulation of scale to create objects such as tiny men's jackets out of cloth, teeny flip flops out of rubber and embroidery floss and little chairs carved out of bone. His meticulous technique and the small scale of his work, some of which is the size of a child's finger, evoke whimsy and wonder.

Balenciaga Infanta evening dress 1939 (left) and Evening dress and stole 1952 (right)

Balenciaga Exhibition at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute
684 Park Avenue, New York
(212) 628-0420

One of the great fashion couturiers was Balenciaga (1895-1972). His mastery of line, cut and tailoring created sculptural pieces that are unparalleled in their elegance and beauty. In the exhibition BALENCIAGA: Spanish Master,  curator Hamish Bowles presents important examples of the couturier’s designs borrowed from archives and private collectors, including the flamenco-style gowns, the fichu stoles and matador-inspired hats, the evening dresses that evoke the austere sweep of a nun’s wimple.

Men's 3 piece court suit, France c1785

His and Hers Exhibition at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology
7th Ave W 27th St
New York, NY 10001
(212) 217-7676

His & Hers explores changing perceptions of "masculine" and "feminine" dress from the mid-18th century to the present and includes more than 100 garments, accessories, and textiles.