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[Hamish Bowles] "Of course one's image of the 30s is perhaps a cinema satin and furs and
feathers and a sort of Harrell type glamour, but I think that, for me, I think
the 30s is so much more interesting than that because I think you had so many
designers and creative visionaries looking at the past
but reinterpreting it in a way that is iconoclastic and startling."
[Patricia Mears] "Though the 1930s was thought
of as a period of great modernity in clothing, many of the sources for their
aesthetic appeal came from the ancient past.
So we see it in all sorts of ways.
A rediscovery of the natural balanced body.
The sort of languid, long, lean lines,
clean elements, things that were stripped of superfluous ornamentation.
So all of these things come together and really form the bedrock or cornerstone of the
aesthetic ideas that define especially the early years of the 1930s."
[Hamish Bowles] "I think neoclassicism reaches its apotheosis in the work of
- in the earlier 30s work - of Madame Vionnet."
[Patricia Mears] "She's considered arguably the greatest
couturier of the 20th century.
She was as much an artist as she was a technician."
[Hamish Bowles] "On the whole, clothing had been cut on the straight grain and a fabric used
that way does a certain thing and stands away from the body and Vionnet suddenly turned
her fabrics a 45 degree angle, which meant that they had much greater
elasticity and just clung to the body.
It seems such a simple idea but it was very
powerful and provocative and a little bit subversive really."
[Beverley Birks] "So the neoclassical is really about women.
Women's bodies are wonderful and they should be exhibited for what they are.
The bias cut fabric falls softly along them.
If you put a corset under a bias dress, it would show.
It's also the period in time when Hollywood actually makes a deal with the swimsuit industry to have
stars pose for publicity shots in bathing suits.
And this body exposure is something that was still shocking
and it's that really pivot point where women's bodies,
for the first time, are going to be used to sell product.
And it's the beginning of a slippery slope."
[Patricia Mears] "Vionnet was a pioneer of the bias cut
but she was by no means the only couturier using this technique.
One of the most important of them was Augusta Barnard.
She was a couturier who very often draped on the straight grain, but when she did do the bias,
it really was a tour de force and this particular dress is a great example of that.
Basically this dress is made from one piece of fabric.
It has a slit down the middle that has slipped over the head and then the dress is basically wrapped
almost like a double helix on the bias or on this oblique angle around the body.
It's gathered and tucked to give it shape and form but would have been
draped completely by hand by the couturier herself and it demonstrates
the incredible technical abilities of couturiers like this as well as
their very, very strong visual imagery and understanding
of how they wanted to highlight the female form."
[Beverley Birks] "Different couturiers were learning - literally learning - how to use the bias.
The training for this had not yet developed.
They were in a free-for-all."
[Patricia Mears] "This particular garment illustrates
many of the great elements of the 1930 style but many of the problems as well.
It's obviously cut on the bias, but the problem is that the fabric is very loose and unwieldy.
This type of tweed is probably the worst type of fabric
you could choose to cut on the bias and when Charles James did so, I don't think he
realized the amount of stretch that would incur.
So he decided he would try
and correct the looseness of the bias by inserting a silk organza panel on the
inside to keep its shape.
Unfortunately, that didn't work and that particular element has completely ripped overtime.
Now, if Vionnet had made this particular coat,
it would not have suffered from these technical difficulties.
She would have probably applied the same sort of technical elements she did
to her evening gowns, meaning that she would cut the fabric on the bias, then she
would weight the fabric to pull out the natural stretch over a number of weeks, often,
and then the garment would then be recut and then finished
so that all the stretch would be eliminated.
You would get the sinuous shape from the bias but
none of the sort of pitfalls that normally come with it.
James, at this point in his career, had yet to understand the physics of the bias cut."
[Beverley Birks] "It's like learning about gravity.
Gravity is not a technological innovation.
The understanding of it led to technological innovation
and the 30s is really a flowering of that understanding."
[Patricia Mears] "Classicism was by no means the only
historical referencing that was important in 1930s fashion.
As the decade wore on and the depression wore on,
many, many designers started to look back to the 19th century.
The Neo Romantic revival in clothing became
very important and the smaller fitted waist and the fuller skirts.
Those particular types of elements that defined
Victorian era clothing started to find their way back into fashion.
I think it's very hard for us today to understand how devastating the Great Depression was.
How many millions of people were out of work,
how many people went hungry, how few resources existed."
[Beverley Birks] "The Depression was a dominant feature of society,
so when you ask about the average person, I think Hollywood provided the dream."
[Patricia Mears] "It was something that was accessible
to everybody, high and low, and it brought these elements of glamour and style and
fashion into the lives of so many people."
[Hamish Bowles] "You know, every little stenographer is going to the movies and dreaming about Fredric March
sweeping her off her feet or whatever
and wanting to dress like the heroines in those movies.
Sometimes the Hollywood studios actively marketed interpretations of
their in-house designers."
[Patricia Mears] "Probably the most famous dress that stands out
as an example of this is the Letty Lynton dress."
[Hamish Bowles] "Probably one of the most copied dresses of the decade
that had literally hundreds of thousands of iterations all across America."
[Beverley Birks] "That dress was out on in mass production,
you know, within days of the film opening."
[Hamish Bowles] "I think that Hollywood does set trends.
I think, occasionally, those trends are even reflected after the fact on the Paris runways
because, of course, the Paris couturiers are going to those movies too."
[Beverley Birks] "There is a very strong argument that the greatest designer of the 20th century,
the man with the most influence is Adrian,
because he had every great film star wearing his
clothing in films that were seen around the world.
The haute couture could only dream of that kind of publicity and access.
Jean Harlow in her white satin bias cut dress is really the bias cut image of the era.
It's not Vionnet."
[Hamish Bowles] "Ticket-carrying patrons just wanted exaggeration.
They just wanted escapist fantasy and that's what the great Hollywood designers
like Travis Banton and Adrian were giving them.
Real fashion is very much marginalized."
[Beverley Birks] "The haute couture produced beautiful dresses.
Film produced graphic impact
and some of the tricks that Adrian uses are very important
because they read on camera,
whereas the refinement of a curved seam is lost.
One of the arguments that clothing is art,
is that there's a real dialogue going on with the past.
Thirties are really the basis of much that we see in modern dress."
[Hamish Bowles] "You know, 30s Hollywood is a potent idea for lots of designers.
Certainly in the 70s and 80s, that was something that people were
thinking about and were looking at."
[Beverley Birks] "Halston was copying it and he was the
icon of the 70s in terms of contemporary design,
so those who couldn't afford Halston were buying 30s printed chiffons
and wearing them, myself included."
[Patricia Mears] "Today in the 21st century, we do understand that when you dress up,
you inadvertently, psychologically bring up this idea of
wanting to look well proportioned and you want to look elegant.
If those are your hallmarks, you have to go back to the 1930s.
No period did it better."
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