One hundred and sixty-six cardboard boxes are stacked in a workspace at the University of Hawai'i Art Department, their contents being gently lifted, cradled and catalogued, 166 wire mannequins in all, in dresses and gowns, their ensembles made complete with gloves, hats, handbags and shoes.
Despite WWII devastation,
Paris designers staged a
show to rememberBy Nadine Kam
nkam@starbulletin.comEach mannequin is a time capsule of 1940s fashion, but beyond the shoulder pads, lengths of silk satin, leather laces and wool, the fragile 27-inch figures offer a lesson in resilience and art's ability to transcend man's more destructive impulses.
The mannequins and accompanying stage sets -- still packed in crates that fill the UH Art Gallery nearby -- form the exhibition "Théâtre de la Mode," which opens Sunday as one of the first events of fall's annual French Festival. The gallery is being reconfigured to give viewers the feel of strolling down the boulevards of Paris, taking in the plaza scenes and peeking into grand ballrooms and boutique windows.
The mannequins will be dressed in the 1946 spring/summer collections from 54 of Paris's haute couture houses. While a handful of the names are recognizable today -- Balenciaga, Balmain, Lanvin, Hermes, Nina Ricci -- most live on only through the work that was created decades ago. The couturiers had banded together in 1945 to demonstrate that although the country had been ravaged by World War II, invading armies did not succeed in crushing the creative spirit."It was a good example of how a culture endured," said Betty Long-Schleif, manager of the collection for the Maryhill Museum of Art in Goldendale, Wash., where the collection is housed. "The French had no fuel, no money, no materials. They couldn't stage a full-scale show, but they could do it in miniature."
A traveling show was put together that would raise money for war relief, and the mannequins were dressed in the scarce materials they could piece together. The exhibition was taken to London, Leeds, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Vienna, New York and San Francisco, thrilling audiences wearied by the long war, shortages and rationing.
"The craftsmen were still there and by doing this they were reasserting: we can go on with our lives, we're survivors," said UH gallery director Tom Klobe."And that winter after the war ended was the coldest in Paris in the 20th century." Reading accounts of the era in a catalog being reprinted for the exhibition and expected to be available in early November, he said contributing writers constantly noted the merciless cold.
"Supplies were low and people were freezing, so imagine when this show opened in the spring. Over a million people came to see it, and they saw in it a sense of hope," Klobe said. "This is so wonderful, this sort of rising out of the ashes. I see this exhibit as being really relevant to us today in the United States."
Although the events of Sept. 11 gives the show unexpected poignancy, planning for the Hawaii exhibition began in 1994, when professor Linda Arthur of the UH Textiles and Design program and curator of the UH's Historic Costume Collection traveled to Maryhill to view the collection."I filled out a grant application right away," said Arthur, who noted the show is important because "it also represented the end of an era, the end of incredible attention to handmade detail. Haute couture was the way fashion was introduced to the world in those days, and every woman wanted to wear it. The Americans looked at it, studied it and found a way to mass produce it. We democratized fashion and made French fashion available to everyone."
"A friend of mine always says fashion ceased to exist after 1949," said Long-Schleif, who more charitably sets the date at about 1956, when leisure in dress and attitude became associated with the American way of life.
Long-Schleif, an alumnus of the UH textiles program, moved to Washington specifically to tend to the Théâtre de la Mode collection which she had only read about before taking the job. When she finally saw it, she said, "I was fascinated by the detail, the incredible detail. The shoes are so much like today's shoes."
Those details include tiny functional buttons, zippers and pockets. Miniature lipsticks and cosmetic compacts fill leather, top-stitched pocketbooks with functioning buckles and adjustable straps.Textiles student Marques Marzan lifts the silk-satin skirt of a figure from the set created by Jean Cocteau, an "Homage to RenÉ Clair: I Married a Witch," in which a bride takes off on a broomstick over blackened imagery of war-torn Paris. Underneath it all, which the public won't get to see, many of the figures are modestly dressed in the lingerie of the day.
Although first time viewers may find themselves gravitating toward gowns of ivory satin trimmed with floral embroidery of silver lame or ballgowns of taffeta and lace, Long-Schleif says she is more impressed by the street clothing.
"From the point of fashion designers they show the era better; ballroom clothes are timeless."The Hawaii connection did not start with Long-Schleif. The collection disappeared after the American tour ended in 1946. The French took the jewelry back but rather than pay to have the mannequins and sets returned, they were abandoned to a department store warehouse in San Francisco. When they were rediscovered in 1951, Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, an arts patron with ties to Hawaii's sugar industry and Spreckelsville on Maui, saw to it, as trustee and benefactor to the De Young and Maryhill museums, that the collection would be properly cared for at Maryhill.
Even so, it was not recognized as a collection until 1983, when Kent State professor Stanley Garfinkel, who was studying Christian Dior, came up with the idea of recreating the exhibition. The mannequins were sent back to Paris for restoration and nine out of the 12 original theater sets were reconstructed. The refurbished exhibition opened in the Louvre in 1990 and began its second world tour. Over the past 10 years, the show has delighted audiences from Europe to Tokyo, serving as a sublime reminder that while wars may tear down civilizations, it is through the arts that we remember their greatness.
Where: University of Hawai'i Art Gallery Théâtre de la Mode
When: Opens with a 2 to 4 p.m. reception Sunday, attended by French Cultural Attaché Alain-Marc Rieu and Honorary French Consul of Hawaii Patricia Lee; hors d'oeuvres will be provided by chef Yves Menoret. Exhibition continues 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays to Fridays and noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through Dec. 21. Closed Nov. 12 and 23.
Admission: Donation
Call: 956-6888
Also: "Insights into Théâtre de la Mode," a lecture by Betty Long-Schleif, registrar of the Maryhill Museum of Art, will precede the opening, at 1 p.m. Sunday. UH professor Linda Arthur will speak about "Fashion, Class, and Status: The Social and Cultural Context of Haute Couture During the 1940s" at 8 p.m. Oct. 23 in the Art Auditorium. A companion exhibition, "Costume Ordinaire: American Fashion of the '40s," featuring seven garments, will be on view at nearby Miller Hall 112 to show how Americans interpreted the French designs.
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