Early fashion plates, and journals promoted the latest, the hottest, and chic-est in garments, so that the middle classes could emulate the aristocracy across Europe. The latest color, silhouette, trimming of ensembles for daytime and nighttime became watered down as each subsequent societal group interpreted fashion. Through the decades that followed this initial blast that became the borgeousie, each group began to identify itself via fabric, shape and designer. In this costume maelstrom of the 17th-18th centuries, the common man has emerged dressed as he chooses, according to his own style and taste.
Today, with the overwhelming freedom of choice in mens’ as well as in womens’ garb, costume can be, and is, often extremely individualistic. Post-hippie vintage merged into haute couture, and slid home with it’s ever popular resuscitation, manipulated bygone eras into iconic combinations that became recognize-able by their decade. The 1970’s revived the 1940’s , and the 1980’s translation of the shoulder has come home to haunt. We’re living in a moment of phoenix-like glory. The 1980’s , so obvious an influence in contemporary fashion has now bled into the dance, and other artistic camps.
The Metropolitan Opera is currently showing, to sellout crowds, the new production of “The Damnation of Faust”. Chock full of intent, the visual content is rampant with dancers, acrobats, costumed singers, and video projections. And that’s in just one scene.
The 1980’s should be culled for specificity, and elements extracted that morph into new interpretation. Any era can provide inspiration, but when we take everything available and throw it against the wall to see what sticks, we’re not designing, or interpreting.
Let the individuals of this new decade ahead take the centuries behind us and extract, or exhume, their favorites icons. The Dandies will live to tie another tie. Hollywood movie stars of the glam eras will drip another foxtail. The flappers of the 1920’s will pull down their cloches on a new era. The Victorians will again tweed us to death, and the embroideries of the Edwardian Arts and Crafts movement will once again be copied somewhere in India. Fashion lives in cycles no doubt, and art follows, but let the art and the fashion be refreshing in it’s newness. It’s the hope we live for.
I'm sad to announce, via Mimi Weddell's press agent, that the lovely hatted one left us on Sept 24th. Here is her obituary:
WEDDELL, Mimi Rogers took a final bow and removed her hat for the last time on September 24, 2009 following a short illness. The first of four children born to Helen Stevens and Harold Rogers, Mimi made her debut on February 15, 1915 in Williston, ND. After exploring numerous cities, Mimi decided to settle in New York with husband Richard Weddell, an executive with what was then known as RCA Victor.
Exceptionally gracious and world-wise, Mimi was a working mother in an age when mothers did not work, especially mothers living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. In her mid-sixties, upon the passing of her husband, she quit all her “day jobs” and with no children to support Mimi launched what would become an eclectic modeling and acting career. She loved the cameras and the lenses embraced her.
At 90 years old she was declared by New York Magazine as one of the “50 Most Beautiful New Yorkers”. She has appeared in over 25 movies,starting with the cult classic “Dracula’s Last Rites”, to “Hitch” and numerous television series including Sex in the City , Law and Order and practically all of the “soaps.”
Ms. Weddell was featured in Joyce Tenneson’s Book, Wise Women. She also found time to appear Off Broadway and traveled across country to join the casts of regional theatre groups. Mimi, who would never let her age get in the way of a casting call, appeared either on the cover or in editorial spreads in New York Magazine; Italian Vogue; Vogue and, of course, Vanity Fair. She worked with photographers, Richard Avedon,Mario Testino, Peter Lindbergh, Tim Walker, and Martin Hyers to name a few. Her lithe spirit was seen in many commercials and print ads for Juicy Couture, Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Nike ‘Just Do It’ campaign and others.
A few years back, Mimi caught the attention of Producer/Director Jyll Johnstone who decided Mimi’s remarkable life was a story worth telling. The result was the highly acclaimed 2008 documentary “Hats Off.” Mimi at last got top billing and in so doing launched the battle cry heard around the independent film industry: “90 is the New 40.”
Within the “industry,” Mimi was always known for her vast collection and endless array of hats. Her sense of style was legend. Grace Coddington, the Creative Director of Vogue Magazine remarked to Mimi's favorite fashion photographer, Tim Walker that she couldn't have styled Mimi any better than Mimi dresses herself.
Wearing a cobbler’s apron crafted by Hermes, Beth Levine made magic in her studio. Beyond shoes, the Levines (Beth, and her husband, Herbert) transformed American made footwear of the prosaic loafer era into a glamourous panoply of humorous, chic, and innovative pieces that remain iconoclastic even today.
Think of Marilyn Monroe in her Springolators….the name Beth Levine is stamped indelibly onto that image.
A virtuoso of shoe-dom, Beth Levine as the design force behind the Herbert Levine brand, influenced European style with her elegant creations. This glorious technicolor book tracks the Levines from their first post War shoe factory to their last run in 1975. Ad campaigns, publicity shots, pages from Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar fashion editorials lend imaginative background to the myth and the reality of the Levine shoe.
Best of all are the artistically photographed portraits of Beth’s shoes- details captured, nuance explained. Able to make inroads in experimental and futuristic shapes and materials, the Levines’ body of work affords a broad spectrum of design research. Theatre boots, encrusted with stones a la 18th Century; modernistic Kabuki “flats” that give a floating sensation; clear vinyl; heels crafted from curls of leather; pumps covered in peacock feathers: this book is a veritable library of shoe history. Written with appropriate quotes and quips, with a dynamic forward by Harold Koda, of the Metropolitan Museum, this is one of the most important costume books in the field since “Mode in Shoes” first appeared.
Vogue does a wedding, or rather, a wedding redux! "The Wedding Party", photograhed by Arthur Elgort, and styled by Grace Coddington re-enacts the wedding of model Sasha Pivovarova, to Igor Vishnyakov. With pages full of romantic frocks, and our headpieces, the "maids of honor" prance in a modern fanciful interpretation of a traditional wedding set of bridesmaids.
The inspiration for the Ellen Christine headpieces used came from the 1950's, popular with the mile-high hairdos of the era. The contemporary version lends itself to a casual but elegant anytime occasion, wrapped wire, leafy appliques, and silk flowers, tinted as in nature, to a subtle variation in tone.
Since the beginning of May, two French students who are studying International Trade in Jean Lurçat in Paris began their internship in the New York boutique, Ellen Christine Millinery.
Denise & Hervé are working on marketing development in this place full of Chelsea creativity. You may already have seen them wearing their favorite hats, a gangster fedora for one and a 1920’s cloche for the other, walking through the streets of New York City with a big hat box.
They have just finished the project for May Madness (S3 group) and now they are ready to attack their plan to further integrate the Ellen Christine label into the Big Apple.
The goal: no more naked heads and letting people know where to find the most extravagant and sophisticated hats of NY
You will find further episodes of “Hat Tales” online and more projects to come.
So pay attention, in one month they are leaving us so who knows what surprises they have in store?
