Azzedine Alaïa Exhibition

Azzedine Alaïa in the 21st Century is the title of an exhibition that opens sunday 12th of december at The Groninger Museum in The Netherlands.

The exhibition displayes the most fantastic of his creations from the last decade. It is a continuation of the exhibition that were shown in 1998 at The Groninger Museum, that went on to be displayed at The Brant Foundation in New York 2002.

Azzedine Alaïa is one of the last major couturiers still alive. He stands for glamour, sensuality, style, cut, confidence, comfort and sex appeal of course.
His range of clothes have been available since 1980 and is very popular among celebrities. Check out my previous post on Alaïa.

I would really love to go there and study all his creations. Lets see how it goes. . .

HISTORICAL CORSETS

My previous post reminded me of these historical corsets from the late nineteenth century. I took these pictures at The Danish Collection of Costume at The National Museum in Brede Værk, that I once visited.
I used to link back, but the collection does not seem to be available anymore.

The corsets were not used as outerwear back then, but for the women to show more delicate when they were taking off their clothes. 

Notice the meticulous details and just imagine how much work that went into these corsets.

Photos: John Frantsen

THE HOUSE OF WORTH

Was very influential in the last quarter of the 1900 century. The House was founded by the Englishman, Charles Frederick Worth, 1825-1895.

Worth started out working for Gagelin, a prominent Textile Company in Paris, where he founded a small dressmaking department.
Eventually when he wanted to open his own house, they found it to risky to support and he was backed by Otto Bobergh, an investor from Sweden instead.
In 1858 The house of Worth et Bobergh was a reality. Worth is considered to be the first real couturier, because of the way he was promoting the house.

He was the first to put labels in his clothes and to present his collections on real models and he set the standard by putting the business into a system.

Of course there were tailors before that. But people had to go around and buy the fabric and trimmings they needed and then explain to the dressmaker, what they wanted. Worth was bringing it all together and was offering it as a total concept.
Customers could choose from the designs of his collection and have the dresses made-by-measure afterwards. That is how Haute Couture still works today.

He was famous for his bold and opulent dresses in rich fabrics and delicate trimmings, as you can see here.

This particular dress by Worth from around 1890, was made for the late Queen Alexandrine of Denmark

Photos from The National Museum, Brede Værk

 

 

Photos from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

His sons Gaston-Lucien (-who by the way was the founder of Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne) and Jean-Philippe took over by his death and the house continued with his grandson, Jean-Charles until he retired in 1952 and The great fashion House closed.

Today the revival of the first Haute Couture house continues, with ready-to-wear, lingerie, accessories and perfume.
It was relaunced last year as the House of Worth Ldt., a company created by Indian fashion entrepre-neur Dilesh Mehta and Martin McCarthy with Italian Giovanni Bedin as designer. Read more here and take a look at his latest collection.

I have to say, the collection of corset/tutu dresses inspired by the past looks nice, but not very contemporary. My interpretation would have looked different. What are your opinion on this subject ?

WINTER COAT ALTERATION

The time has come to finish up an old project, that I started about 4 years ago. Can you believe that?
Since I need a "new" coat for the cold holidays, I better finish it right away. -And since I am posting about it, there is no way out!

My coat is made out of fine cashmere-wool with a different kind of underlining to give it structure, a silver lining and a black velour-collar.

At first it was very long, but I decided to shorten it to make it more usable. Now I have to assemble the coat with the lining before all the finishing touches. I am going to show you the result when I am done.

THE BLACK SUIT

I have just finished the last commission for now, so it´s time to catch up posting here.

Meanwhile I hope you have explored some of my previous post.

The order was a complete black wool-suit for a disabled woman. It took time, because I have a hard time to compromise on the fit and execution.
It has to be perfect inside out. Here is a few pics from work in progress and how it turned out. The customer was very happy with the result.

Next up, is a few of my own projects and more post will follow the coming days. Have a great day and thanks for stopping by everyone.