Exhibition: China: Throught the Looking Glass, Dior Dress

“Li” of Beatrice Brandini

The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York staged a beautiful and significant exhibition: China: Throught the Looking Glass. An exhibition that explores the influence of Chinese aesthetics in Western fashion, and how this influence is, in truth, a reality for more than a century.

Glimpses of the show, Roberto Cavalli dress

Glimpses of the show, Roberto Cavalli dress, Chinese vase of the Ming dynasty 

John Galliano dress for Dior

Jean Paul Gaultier,F/W 2001-02

    

Glimpses of the exhibition, dress Tom Ford for Yves Saint Laurent, F / W 2004-05

  

Glimpses of the display at the Metropolitan

Glimpses of the display at the Metropolitan

Glimpses of the display at the Metropolitan

Glimpses of the display at the Metropolitan

China, through its art, its designs, its films and its fashion, exerts a huge fascination for the West, a fascination that could be attributed to many great designers, starting with Paul Poiret, through Balenciaga, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, Walter Albini, Giambattista Valli … Each in its own way has drawn from this vast and mysterious culture, are witness to the 140 dresses on display, ranging from haute couture, pret-a-porter to the avant garde, combined with works of Chinese art, such as porcelain, paintings, or film (unforgettable images of “in the Mood for Love” by Wong Kar Way, here care the design/composition).

Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli’s dress for Valentino, FW 2013-14

Valentino fashion show, dress Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli, FW 2013-14

   

Glimpses of the display at the Metropolitan

And it is the cinema that has, in this exhibition, a privileged role. As if to say that the history of China, the Imperial China, the Republic of China, has come to us through the frames of its films.

Louise Brooks

Ni Hongyan

Marlene Dietrich 

Diana Vreeland 

Meggie Cheung Man-yuk In The mood for Love

I strongly believe that our work is nourished by “history”, that story through images and ideas reveals our past. But also the history of remote civilizations, of populations far away and fascinating, as the Chinese. The story is to not forget, to change where you are made mistakes, but also, as in the case of the arts, to inspire. It is not sterile citations, it is and LEARN and KNOW, the only way to create something beautiful and “conscious”.

   

Fei Fei Sun photographed by Steven Meisel for Vogue USA, May 2015

 

Fei Fei Sun photographed by Steven Meisel for Vogue USA, May 2015

    

Fei Fei Sun photographed by Steven Meisel for Vogue USA, May 2015

Giambattista Valli, F/W 2013-14

Louis Vuitton, S/S 2011

Louis Vuitton, S/S 2011

   

Tom Ford for Yves Saint Laurent, A/W 2004

Fei Fei Sun photographed by Sharif Hamza for Vogue China, dress Giambattista Valli

    

When East meets West … by Beatrice Brandini

Good life to all!

Beatrice