Technicolor fantasy

The color palette of technicolor dance films of the 1940's and early 1950's are amazing. The costumes and sets were fabricated in Hollywood. To imagine the amount of handicraft and needlework required to build up a scene. Tiny pixelated youtube picture don't make justice to it, it should be seen on silver screen. The musical in my opinion is underrated genre. In it's visual grandeur it is as close to fine arts as a movie can be.

Besides the world would be a better place if people would tap dance more.

The sketch and the costume

Some nice samples of illustrative power of the sketch. And sure a bit of classic Hollywood glamour.

Design by Frankie Evans for "Francine Evans"

Liza Minelli in New York, New York (1977)

Costume design by Edith Head for "Lisa Carol Fremont"

Grace Kelly in Rare Window (1954)

Bette Davis in All About Eve (1950)

Another design by Edith Head for "Margo Channing"

Costume design by Walter Plunkett for "Julie LaVerne"

Ava Gardner in Showboat (1951)

Design By Tim Burton for "Edward Scissorhands"

'

Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhand (1990)

Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Design by William Travilla for "Lorelei Lee"

Varvara Stepanova patterns

I was doing little research about Soviet Union in 1930's for school. I was supposed to make a design for Michail Bulgakov's classic novel Maestro and Margarita (or "Satan arrives in Moscow). Bulgakov started writing it in 1928, but it was published as late as 1967. It's one of my favorite novels. Anyways, I discovered and got stuck with these very inspiring textile designs from 1920's by Varvara Stepanova.

Stepanova was one of the key artist in Russian Constructivism movement among Lyubov Popova and Alexander Rodchenko. I remember seeing an exhibition of Popova and Rodchenko's work in Tate Modern in London in 2009. Also Stepanova was one the participants of revolutionary 5x5=25 exhibition of abstract art held in Moscow in 1921 (and reconstructed in Tate in 2009). The exhibition was a milestone in defining Constructivist art, which was very influential in development of modern art and architecture. Later Stepanova worked as professor of textile design in Vhkutmeas (Russian state art and technical school). She also did stage design, advertisement and propaganda posters and clothing design. Stepanova herself was interested in fashion and encouraged her students to be so as well. Design reflects the artistic ideas of the society, and in this historical period in very concrete way. 

Varvara Stepanova

Lisää kuvateksti

Fantastic sports outfits

Fashion illustration

Design in use

Carmen Miranda's headdresses

Flamboyant is a word that's hard to translate into finnish language.

So instead I would rather just show these Carmen Miranda headdresses from 1940's and 1950's.

Portugal born Brazilian Carmen Miranda was an actress, singer and entertainer popular in 1940's and early 1950's. At the time she was the highest paid actress in Hollywood. Her style was a mixture of different Latin American clichés with no specific origin, and her image was highly controlled by her studio.

Exoticism is a delicate form of racism. Miranda was promoted as the "Brazilian bombshell" but as she grew her popularity in the United States, she was rejected by her Latin American audience for strengthening the negative stereotype of the South American woman. Miranda herself tried to break out of her image with only moderate success. She died at age of 46 of a heart attack. She had a habit of drinking and using description drugs.

Disregarding this side of the story, her appearance is a nice example of golden age of Hollywood costume design. It's purposely extravagant, carefully stylized and definitely recognizable. I think there are two ways to make something look very interesting. One is the "less is more" and the other one is Carmen Miranda way.

Schiaparelli pink

The extravaganza of disco (last night's post) resembled me of fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli's design in 1930's and 1940's. I think her designs have the same playful escapism as the glittering disco era. Among Coco Chanel, Italian born Schiaparelli was the most influential fashion designer of the time period between the World Wars. As Chanel was a minimalist, Schiaparelli's approach on fashion was flamboyantly artistic and experimental. She was influenced by Surrealism, did experiments with shapes and synthetic materials, collaborated with artist and always caused a stir in the fashion scene.

Perhaps that is just the essence of design: constantly questioning and redefining how things could be. What would happen if it was done differently? There always must be the ones pushing their limits in order to something new to happen. Perhaps design is rebellion. The newness wears out fast and becomes common, but the hardest thing is to go where no-one's been before. Among many innovations and her use of shocking pink color, she is known for being first one to use a zipper as a visible element of design.

As her fashion house closed down in 1954 Schiaparelli is not as widely known as Chanel today, but Schiaparelli is definitely not to be left unmentioned when talking about development of elegance, fashion and design.