Welcome to The Museum at FIT's
"Reinvention and Restlessness: Fashioning the Nineties"
virtual symposium.
My name is Tanya Melendez-Escalante
and I am senior curator of education and public programs.
It is my honor to introduce Patricia Mears
who will present "Spectacle: Fashion On Parade."
Patricia Mears is deputy director of The Museum at FIT.
She has curated over a thousand exhibitions
and written the accompany books,
including "Ballerina: Fashion's Modern Muse,"
"Expedition: Fashion From the Extreme,"
"American Beauty: Aesthetics and Innovation in Fashion,"
and "Madame Gres: Sphinx of Fashion."
We hope you enjoy the show.
[Patricia Mears] "Spectacle: Fashion on Parade in the 1990s"
Throughout the 20th century,
runway shows became increasingly vital components
of the modern fashion industry.
The presentation of seasonal collections
grew from intimate affairs for discerning clients and journalists
to extravagant public events.
It was during the 1990s that this phenomenon reaches apex
as fashioned catapulted to the cultural forefront.
Sandwiched between the 1987 stock market crash
and the attacks on the world trade center
on September 11, 2001
catwalks, as they became known,
were transformed into eye-popping theatrical productions
to showcase equally dramatic
and often one-of-a-kind garments.
They also became increasingly celebrity-driven
as well as a form of entertainment for the masses.
Fashion was suddenly the subject of popular reality television programs
and movies watched by millions.
Ironically, the 1990s was also a period
in which fashion studies, long marginalized
and even disparaged by academics and museum professionals,
ascended and became an increasingly serious field of study
while the number of fashion exhibitions
and related publications exploded.
My own career as a curator began in 1990,
and I witnessed the growth of the fashion industry
and related studies firsthand.
This talk is an intimate account of several runway shows
I witnessed firsthand as well as those I did not attend,
but had nonetheless a profound influence
on my burgeoning understanding of fashion.
For me, the fashion show that baptized my entry
into the field was staged by Michael Kors in 1991.
Standing in the back of a midtown loft.
I watched as part of the ceiling caved in
plaster fell on journalists,
such as Suzy Menkes and Carrie Donovan.
Although the show went on,
the unnerving implosion inspired
the centralization of New York fashion week
into a temporary tent complex in Bryant Park,
known as Seventh on Sixth.
That same year Gianni Versace,
famed for his vibrantly, sexy and opulent designs
staged his "Freedom" show,
named after the George Michael's hit song that played in the background.
But the show also crystallized the 1990 supermodel moment
when Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell,
and Christy Turlington strode arm-in-arm
in the runway finale.
Like many leading Italian designers
Varsace was based in Milan,
a city with a diverse array of creators.
On the opposite side of the fashion spectrum from him
was the geek chic look popularized by Miuccia Prada.
Along with Rei Kawakubo and Vivienne Westwood,
Prada was one of the reigning queens of high fashion during the 1990s.
Heiress to an exclusive accessories company
founded by her grandfather,
she transformed utilitarian basics,
such as knapsacks made with industrial grade nylon,
into fashion must haves.
With fashion designer Mark Odibay,
Prada updated 1960 silhouettes using geometric
and abstract floral prints in so-called "ugly" acid green
and muted purples.
If Prada's hallmark look was a revamp of the 1960s,
then American transplant Tom Ford,
the creative director of Gucci,
spearheaded the 1970s revival.
Like Prada, he was not a trained designer,
but instead possessed an unerring eye that brilliantly
appropriated the era's sexy and loose style
while simultaneously reviving the lackluster Gucci label.
His first breakaway hit was the fall/winter,
1995 presentation.
Although not his debut,
it "was the season he really arrived."
Against a dark, strongly spotlighted runway,
Ford's jewel-toned satin blouses,
mohair coats, and velvet bell bottom pants, shimmered on models,
Amber Valletta and Shalom Harlow and Kate Moss.
The following year Ford presented a show that was even more
emblematic of the new Gucci look,
a glamorous and sexy version of minimalism.
An homage to Halston,
America's first superstar designer,
Ford sent fox-trimmed coats, velvet suits,
and sleek, white jersey evening dresses
with cutouts showing both hardware
inspired by Elsa Peretti, Halston's close collaborator,
and flashes of skin down the catwalk.
I never attended Milanese shows,
but I felt their tremendous impact nonetheless.
One of the biggest fashion events of the decade
was the reverse migration of Helmut Lang
who moved from Vienna to New York city in 1998.
It was the first time a major fashion house made
a trans continental move.
Lang's embrace of technology
was reflected in his futuristic collections
that blended unisex minimalism with artisnal flourishes.
His hallmark looks, such as perfectly cut man-style trousers,
clinical laboratory inspired coats,
tulle t-shirts and dresses,
and feather plumed stiletto sandals,
were among the most emblematic designs of the decade.
Lang is also credited with two other seismic changes.
One, he broadcast the first ever
internet-based fashion show.
And two,
he restructured the international fashion calendar
by moving New York fashion week from the last
to the first time slot on the international biannual,
ready-to-wear lineup.
Calvin Klein, one of the biggest New York fashion brands,
immediately joined Lang
and the entire industry soon followed.
The largest and most corporate of all the fashion capitals,
as well as the professional media and retail epicenter,
New York during the 1990s
was also the site of important rebellious
anti-establishment runway shows.
A standout example was Marc Jacobs's infamous
1993 grunge collection for the label Perry Ellis.
Inspired by the avant garde music genre,
Jacobs's runway show was filled with vintage-style
printed dresses, topped with flannel shirts,
discordant knitted tops, skull caps, and Doc Marten boots.
While this show made fashion history,
it also got Jacobs fired.
A couple of designers who stood firmly outside
of the corporate fashion system
also used public presentations
to disseminate their artistic ideas.
One was Miguel Adrover,
a Spanish native who became the latest
in a long line of immigrants to enrich America's vast
and innovative fashion industry.
His career, however, was like no other.
A supernova version of the American Dream,
Adrover had a spectacular rise and a whiplash free fall
in just a couple of years.
His first collection presented in 1999 was gritty and edgy.
His fall 2000 collection was even more newsworthy
and included a coat made of old mattress ticking
that belonged to actor Quintin Crisp
and a repurposed Burberry trench coat turned inside out
and warn backwards.
Despite the brevity of his high fashion career,
Adrover collections were amazingly prescient
as he pioneered current trends,
such as sustainability, repurposing, and diversity.
Another nonconformist was Susan Cianciolo
who launched her label in the mid 1990s,
a design polymath, clothing creator, illustrator, painter,
and conceptual artist,
Cianciolo staged her influential collections called "Run,"
and number one through 11, in an array of unorthodox spaces:
galleries, a garage, a playground, even a tea salon.
In them, her pretty friends, fellow creatives,
and the designer herself donned one-of-a-kind, handmade
idiosyncratic garments.
The first "Run" collection I attended was number nine
held in September of 1999 at the Alleged Galleries.
Susan's work was displayed on Easels
much the way traditional kimono were shown.
I later met Susan at her "Run" restaurant presentation
in the spring of 2001, which was again
held at Alleged Galleries.
Shortly after the show I became a client
acquiring pieces from past collections,
as well as newly commissioned works.
Such direct access gave me an intimate view of her devotion to craftsmanship,
women's work, sustainability, and local production
Adrover and Cianciolo embraced the aesthetic of deconstruction
pioneered by Rei Kawakubo
and Yohji Yamamoto in the early 1980s
and later by Martin Margiela in his 1989 debut collection.
Staged in a crumbling building in a Paris ghetto
Margiela's work was brilliantly documented
by Bill Cunningham,
whose photographs, published in Details Magazine,
were tantalizing windows into a magical world.
A decade passed before I finally witnessed
Margiela's unconventional creativity firsthand.
For his spring 2000 collection,
he designed a set of wardrobe staples:
trench coats, men's shirts, and slip dresses
blown up to enormous proportions.
Instead of a traditional runway,
we, the audience, sat like guests at a dinner party
as models stepped onto round table tops
and treated us to an up-close view
of the oversized fashions.
Among the most noteworthy shows of the 1990s
were those of John Galliano.
After a tumultuous few years as an independent designer,
he eventually became creative director
of the venerated Parisian couture house of Givenchy.
Soon thereafter by the fall of 1997,
Galliano was the newly minted creative director
of Christian Dior.
It was there that he staged the most lavish
and memorable couture shows in modern history,
such as his "Disorient Express"
a fusion of looks inspired by Henry VIII,
Pocahontas, and early luxury train travel.
Galliano's magnum opus, set in the marble lobby
of the Opera Garnier,
was inspired by the fin-de-siècle woman-of-style
Marchesa Luisa Casati.
The collection was a luxurious cornucopia of art nouveau
and art deco inspired fashions
that ended with a magical downpour
of pastel-colored ,butterfly-shaped tissue paper confetti.
Part ball, part performance,
Galliano's Garnier presentation was 1990s fashion
at its most creative and flamboyant.
Alexander McQueen was another brilliant visionary,
one who elevated the showing of collections to high art.
While I only attended two of McQueen's runway shows,
they left an indelible mark.
One took place in New York City, specifically in pier 94,
a cavernous space on the Hudson river in September 1999,
during a hurricane.
McQueen's show began with models
sloshing through a long shallow swimming pool,
dressed in his signature pantsuits
and wilder looks inspired by the Arabian Nights,
the Marquis de Sade, and the World Wrestling Federation.
For me,
the clothing could not compete with the awe-inspiring finale
in which a strobe-lit trapeze act
featuring veiled acrobats who swung above
silver spikes that sprouted from the watery runway.
More impactful was his fall winter 1999 collection
held in London.
Presented inside a lucite box,
the show was named "Overlook" after the ill-fated hotel
in Stanley Kubrick's psychological horror film,
"The Shining."
It was a poetic show,
set in a wintery fantasy replete with ice skaters,
swooshing around birch trees, and models in chunky sweaters
and cozy sherlings.
It also had stand out pieces, such as the silver metal coil corset,
created by jeweler Shaun Leane.
Although the clothing was first rate,
it was the immersive experience I remember best.
Despite fashion's global expansion,
no city's runway presentations
could match those held in the city of lights.
Joining the stellar array of designers from Antwerp to Tokyo
were native born French talents.
Among them was John Paul Gaultier.
His love of global cultures,
ability to mix disparate elements,
and technical skills was never better than his spring 1994
"Les Tatouges" collection.
It was a high octane tour of the world featuring man skirts,
corsetry, medieval armor, and prints, including graffiti,
and of course, tattoos.
Layered and mixed-in
were elements and accessories culled from India to Africa.
Viewed by some today as cultural appropriation,
Gaultier's use of non-Western elements was lauded at the time.
Thierry Mugler was another French designer
who made some of the most fantastic clothes
of the 1980s and 1990s.
And no runway spectacle exemplified Mugler's extreme vision
better than the presentation of his fall 1995 collection.
A celebration of his 20th anniversary in the business,
it was really a grand party
held at the [undiscipherable].
Models past and present,
former movie star, such as Tibby Hendron,
and even notorious heiress Patty Hearst,
donned Mugler's wasp waist,
fetishistic latex, silver side work costumes,
and couture-worthy capes and flamboyant skirts.
As they mingled with male strippers
and singer James Brown.
No wonder many fashion writers anointed at the wildest of all fashion shows.
The designers whose Parisian shows I rarely missed
from the mid 1990s to the early two thousands
were Rei Kawakubo, her disciple Junya Watanabe,
and Yohji Yamamoto,
as Japanese design has long been a subject
of great personal interest.
As influential as Kawakubo has been to fashion,
no designer moved or excited me as much as Yohji Yamamoto.
Romantic and lyrical,
his most memorable and transporting collections
included his poignant spring 1999,
wedding-themed presentation
and his magical fall winter 2000 show
inspired by Francoise Huguier's photographs
of the Arctic peoples of Siberia.
Yet the presentation that had the most direct connection
was presented in October of 1999.
The inspiration came about after Yamamoto's visit
to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, several months earlier,
where I was the assistant curator of costumes.
He was shown an array of Charles James's
toilles and partially constructed garments.
Along with the head of his atelier, Yamamoto
poured over every scene
of these brilliantly conceived objects.
The end result was his spring 2000 collection
described by one critic as a masterclass in dressmaking.
It was really a curator's dream and a career highlight
to witness the creative process
of a living master firsthand.
One of the two final shows of this period
that were so personally compelling was Ralph Rucci's
haute couture debut held in Paris in July of 2002.
It was the professional culmination
for a couturier who had been working under the radar
in New York since the early 1980s.
Around 1998, I began attending Rucci's fashion shows,
held in his show room.
And, if correct,
I was the first fashion curator to see his work.
Perhaps it was fate that he agreed to be the subject
of a monographic book coauthored by Valerie Steele and I,
and our collaborative exhibition that went on view
at The Museum at FIT in 2007.
Much of what made fashion so special for me,
mainly the celebration of the couturier's art,
had waned significantly by the 21st century.
Perhaps that is why, along with Ralph Rucci,
one show holds a special place in my heart–
Yves Saint Laurent's final couture presentation
held on January 22, 2002
in the ballroom of the Westin Hotel.
Joyful and wistful it marked the end of an era
one which couturier's has channeled their brilliant creativity
into making unforgettable clothes
all presented on a clean, white runway.
Like Ruchi, Saint Laurent eschewed pyrotechnics, acrobats,
and even cavernous arenas
because it was always the clothing and the clothing alone,
that riveted audiences.
As a curator who witnessed a number of the 1990s
fashion shows firsthand,
the finest among them were like the best exhibitions.
The creative mis-en-scene can enrich everything
from a designer monograph to the most conceptual themes,
as long as the fashion stands alone.
Thank you very much.