When you are on Pinterest you sometimes find a great board. And my advice would be to also see who these people are following themselves. But anyway, apart from that, here are some great people on Pinterest who have gathered lovely boards and research images, and I am specifically looking at millinery and headdresses, and so inevitably also interested in fashion, costume and styling.
Judith M millinery supply
A selection of millinery and headwear boards put together by somebody who clearly has a genuine interest in millinery and isn’t just in it to sell materials. One of her boards is about carving hat blocks, another about crin, another about veiling, another about cut and sewn hats plus much more.
I believe the internet is a wonderful thing! Here are a few of the facebook communities who love hats and costume. If you can recommend others then feel free to add them in the comments below!
Facebook:
On facebook in 2017 you have pages that you can ‘like’ and get regular news and updates. And you also have ‘groups’. Groups are basically forums. Some of them are closed and you have to submit a request to join them and some of them are open. If you have a friend on facebook you can usually click on their profile somewhere and find out what groups they are part of – a great way to discover new groups!
If you are still not sure what a facebook group is, then join one and have a look. You can always very easily leave again. It’s kind of a bit like being in a room with lots of people asking for help or telling you about interesting things, crossed with the old fashioned classified section at the back of the newspaper in ‘the olden times’ lol.
Going through my archive of photos, I found some wonderful examples of embellishment techniques at the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition from 2014. This amazing exhibition ‘The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier, From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk’, was on at the Barbican, London, from 9th April 2014 – 25th August 2014. It was packed full of beautiful clothing and was really forward thinking because you could take as many photographs as you liked – bravo!
What I also thought was brilliant was that each look had a label that not only described the materials, but in addition many of them detailed how long each piece took to make. It’s something that made me really happy because it helps to dispel the myth that creatives are not also business people. Jean Paul Gaultier clearly has a great business brain as well as fabulous creativity, and has a clear idea of how much it costs to produce his creations.
I was looking at the huge exhibition for several hours and one thing that struck me was just how many processes there were in the different collections. So many materials and techniques, with each one pushed past its boundaries with imagination.
For this post I have decided to hone in on one element and concentrate on the beading, embroidery and other embellishments that I noticed in some of the pieces.
↓ Tuxedo style satin jacket; silk jersey toreador trousers with silver-thread, beads and jet embroidery ↓ ‘Calligraphy’ collection. ‘Enluminure’ ensemble. Haute couture spring/summer 2009. Time needed to create 56 hours. Ensemble worn by Arielle Dombasle in her video for ‘Porque te vas’ 2011.
↓ Beaded skull top ↓ Sadly I did not write down the information about this one! If anybody knows please leave it in a comment below and I will update the post. I think it might be one of the ‘Gaulthique’ from the 1980s, as I did photograph the information about the red piece that you can just see on the right hand side of this image.
“Some pieces I designed in the 1980s were a kind of haute couture: unique, embroidered pieces for both men – my ‘Gaulthique’ sweaters for example – and women, a number of them involving a great deal of work. Without officially doing haute couture, many designers at the time presented it in their prêt-à-porter collections: Vivienne Westwood, Thierry Mugler, Azzedine Alaïa, Claude Montana. Such pieces were all out couture, with incredibly sophisticated finishing.” Jean Paul Gaultier.
↓ Tattoo beaded silk blouse ↓ ‘Confessions of a Child of the Century’ collection. Haute couture autumn/winter 2012-13.
↓ Cut velvet gown with cross-stitch embroidery and ribbon with glass, crystal and jet beads ↓ ‘Tribute to Russia and Ukraine’ collection. ‘Gaïna’ gown. Haute couture autumn/winter 2005-06. Time needed to create 242 hours. Hairstyle by Odile Gilbert.
↓ Long denim coat with jet beading ↓ ‘Haute couture salon atmosphere’ collection. Haute couture spring/summer 1997.
If you would like to see more of the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition, there are many images on the web. The corset display was divine. One corset was made of straw – a crafted work of beauty.
Below is a link to a youtube film, filmed during the installation of ‘From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk’ at the ‘Kunsthalle München’ (translates to ‘Art Museum Munich’). The work was exhibited there from 18th September 2015 – 14th February 2016.
Mohicans! Need I say more?! I will let the photographs speak for themselves. Here are some of the mohicans that caught my eye at ‘The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier, From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk’. Barbican, London, 2014.
It’s next on at The National Gallery of Victoria, 17 October 2014 – 01 March 2015.
Catch it if you can, a real treat.
I did look for credits on who made these impressive creations, but there weren’t any. I think they might have been made especially for the exhibition display, because they were not listed as being part of any collection or from a particular year.
If you know, please leave a reply in the comments!
I like the way the edges of the pieces have been finished off with a plait, at the point where the hair sits on the mannequin head.
Walking through London last week a couple of window displays grabbed my attention. The first was Liberty’s. The mannequins had lace masks, and the one pictured below is my favourite. Click on the images to enlarge them.
