Balenciaga and His Legacy
Dallas
February 4 – June 17
The Meadows Museum, in association with the Texas Fashion Collection at the University of North Texas, highlights the phenomenal legacy of 20th-century master fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga. The exhibition presents more than 70 of his creations, along with some 20 dresses and accessories by other famous designers whom this Spanish icon inspired and mentored such as Oscar de la Renta, Emanuel Ungaro, Hubert de Givenchy, and André Courrèges.
Also Dances: The Films of Fred Astaire
San Francisco
June 03 - June 28
Hollywood legend reports notes from an early Fred Astaire screen test for RKO Pictures as reading, "Can't act. Slightly bald. Also dances." And dance he did. Astaire broke with existing formulae for musical films and offered a purer, freer alternative to the spectacular and highly regimented productions of Busby Berkeley and others. His work is distinctive for the minimal camera movement required to film his body in action — dances often were recorded in a single shot by a stationary camera — and for the ways in which song-and-dance is fully integrated into the narrative. The major part of Astaire's movie career, from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s, spans the Depression through World War II and the political antagonisms of the Cold War; typically romantic and comic, his films provided an escape in dark times and became essential to the cultural memory of 20th-century America.
Sphinx
New York City
May 3 – June 30
Sculptor Marc Quinn’s recent series of life-size bronze sculptures of fashion darling Kate Moss.
Poiret: King of Fashion
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York City
May 9 –August 5
Paul Poiret (1879–1944), who called himself the "King of Fashion," is best remembered for freeing women from corsets and further liberating them through pantaloons. However, it was Poiret’s remarkable innovations in the cut and construction of clothing, made all the more remarkable by the fact that he could not sew, that secured his legacy. Working the fabric directly onto the body, Poiret helped to pioneer a radical approach to dressmaking that relied more on the skills of drapery than on those of tailoring. Focusing on his technical ingenuity and originality, the exhibition explores Poiret’s modernity in relation to and as an expression of the dominant discourses of the early 20th century, including Cubism, Classicism, Orientalism, Symbolism, and Primitivism.
Chanel Store
Los Angeles
August
The store will have art! WWD reports that art, luxury's new must-have accessory, will get prominent play at the redesigned flagship store at 400 North Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills in August. Five specially commissioned art works referencing the house's DNA will be scattered around the shop, including a Johan Cretan porcelain torso with camellia flourishes and a François-Xavier Lalanne bronze sculpture of a stag, inspired by a piece that belonged to Coco Chanel. Peter Dayton, Jean-Michel Othoniel and Paola Pivi round out the house's artistic stable. Furniture designers Patrick Fredrikson and Ian Stallard also created a piece. Architect Marino modeled the store's façade after a Chanel No.5 perfume box, carving out two separate entrances for the contiguous fashion and fine jewelry outposts
Jean-Paul Gaultier /Regine Chopinot
Musée de la Mode et du Textile
Paris
March 22 – September 23
Jean-Paul Gaultier designed the costumes of some 18 ballets choreographed by Régine Chopinot from 1983 to 1994. To celebrate the couturier’s thirty years of creation in 2007 and the costumes’ transfer from the Centre Choréographique de La Rochelle to the Musée de la Mode et du Textile, this exhibition will retrace the history of this assiduous collaboration between couturier and choreographer for the first time.
Luxury
New York City
May 23 - November 10
The first exhibition to analyze the changing meaning of luxury within the context of fashion history, it begins with an exploration of the politics of luxury in the eighteenth century. Against the traditional idea of luxury as excessive and morally corrupting, there developed a new belief that luxury could be a positive force contributing to the wealth of nations. The exhibition Luxury will include more than 150 extraordinary objects - ranging from the most aristocratic luxury fashions from the 18th century through the artists of the couture (Worth, Poiret, Chanel, Dior, Balenciaga, etc.) to accessories by Hermès, Lanvin, Chanel, etc.
Nan Kempner American Chic
Golden Gate Park San Francisco
June 16 – November 11
Kempner was born in San Francisco and became the toast of the New York social scene. She was known for her sharp wit and love of parties; her legacy is one of the finest private couture collections ever assembled.
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