the lady......DAPHNE GUINNESS

Museum at FIT, Special Exhibitions Gallery

September 16, 2011 – January 7, 2012

 

While there have been many exhibitions devoted to great fashion designers, only a few have focused on individual women of style. Yet certain singular women play a crucial role in fashion. Known as fashion or style icons, they are a special type of fashion insider, one who not only inspires designers and brings their clothes to life, but actually creates a look that affects the way other people dress and/or think about dressing.

 Daphne Guinness, one of today’s most original fashion icons, is the subject of the upcoming exhibition Daphne Guinness at The Museum at FIT. Opening on September 16, 2011 and on view through January 7, 2012, the exhibition will feature approximately 100 garments and accessories from Guinness’s personal collection, plus films, videos, and images, of and by her.  

From her platinum-and-black striped hair to her towering 10-inch heels, from her to-die-for couture collection to her amazing jewelry, Daphne Guinness completely embodies the rarified personal style of a fashion icon. “She is one of the – if not the – most stylish women living,” says designer and film director Tom Ford. Her fans in the blogosphere describe her as “the ultimate fashion fantasy.”

 Daphne Guinness will reveal how Guinness, who is not only a serious collector of couture but also a creative force in her own right, uses fashion to transform herself. As her friend, art historian, John Richardson, puts it: “She’s the object of her own creativity. Her persona is her own masterpiece.”

Although Guinness has inspired some of the world’s greatest couturiers – from Karl Lagerfeld to Valentino – she says that she is “not a muse,” but more like “a bee” flitting from one designer to another. This is proven by the array of designers whose work will be on display. A close friend of the late Alexander McQueen, the exhibition will include more than two dozen McQueen garments which have never been displayed. Also featured will be extraordinary haute couture from Chanel, Dior, Givenchy, Lacroix, and Valentino, as well as demi-couture by Azzedine Alaia, Tom Ford, Dolce & Gabbana, and Rick Owens, and futuristic styles by young designers such as Gareth Pugh. Clothes that Guinness has designed herself will show her love of uniforms.  

Another exhibition highlight will be a wide range of extraordinary accessories, many of which were created in collaboration with Guinness. These include Philip Treacy’s hats and Shaun Leane’s “armor” jewelry, not to mention towering platform shoes made especially for her by Christian Louboutin and Noritaka Tatehana.

 Several of Guinness’s films will be shown, including The Phenomenology of the Body (which explores the politics of clothing), Mnemosyne (which was inspired by her perfume), and Tribute to Alexander McQueen, as well as numerous images and videos.

 Daphne Guinness will be co-curated by Daphne Guinness and Valerie Steele, director and chief curator. of The Museum at FIT, with the assistance of Fred Dennis, senior curator of Costume. The exhibition’s design, by Ken Nintzel, will be inspired by Guinness’s New York apartment.  

The exhibition will be accompanied by a book, also titled Daphne Guinness, written by Valerie Steele and Daphne Guinness, and published by Yale University Press. All royalties from sales of the book will benefit the Fashion Institute of Technology. The museum’s annual Fashion Symposium will take place on November 3-4, 2011 in conjunction with the exhibition, Daphne Guinness. The topic of the symposium will be “Fashion Icons and Insiders.”

FASHIONABLY Meow!

Mulger would have been the PERFECT CHOICE to take over Dior, not Marc Jacob!

Marc Jacob signs with DIOR!!!!

BAD MOVE for Dior! I want MULGER for DIOR!

simply divine Ms. Vreeland!

"Why don't you... wash your blond child's hair in dead champagne, as they do in France?"- Diana Vreeland

Harper's Bazaar 1937-1962Her publishing career began in 1937 as columnist for Harper's Bazaar. In 1937, the Vreelands moved from London to New York City. They found New York City to be extremely expensive. Carmel Snow, the editor of Harper's Bazaar, was impressed with Vreeland's clothing style and asked her to work at the magazine. From 1937 until her resignation, Diana Vreeland ran a column for Harper's Bazaar called "Why Don't You?". One example is a suggestion she made in the column, "Why don't you.... Turn your child into an Infanta for a fancy-dress party?"  According to Vreeland, "The one that seemed to cause the most attention was **** "[Why Don't You] [w]ash your blond child's hair in dead champagne, as they do in France." Vreeland says that S.J. Perelman wrote a parody of it for the New Yorker magazine that outraged her then editor Carmel Snow

. Diana Vreeland "discovered" actress Lauren Bacall in the nineteen forties. A Harper's Bazaar cover from the early forties shows Lauren Bacall posing near a Red Cross office. Based on editor Vreeland's decision, "[t]here is an extraordinary photograph in which Bacall is leaning against the outside door of a Red Cross blood donor room. She wears a chic suit, gloves, a cloche hat with long waves of hair falling from it". Vreeland was noted for taking fashion seriously. She commented in 1946 that "[T]he bikini is the most important thing since the atom bomb". Vreeland disliked the common approach to dressing that she saw in the United States in the forties. She detested "strappy high heel shoes" and the "crêpe de chine dresses" that women wore even in the heat of the summer in the country.
Poor, darling fellow - he died of food. He was killed by the dinner table.

 Until her resignation at Harper's Bazaar, she worked closely with Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Richard Avedon, Nancy White and Alexey Brodovitch. Diana Vreeland became Fashion Editor for the magazine. Richard Avedon said when he first met Diana Vreeland and worked for Harper's Bazaar, "Vreeland returned to her desk, looked up at me for the first time and said, 'Aberdeen, Aberdeen, doesn't it make you want to cry?' Well, it did. I went back to Carmel Snow and said, 'I can't work with that woman. She calls me Aberdeen.' And Carmel Snow said, 'You're going to work with her.' And I did, to my enormous benefit, for almost 40 years." Avedon said at the time of her death: '"She was and remains the only genius fashion editor."

 In 1955, the Vreelands moved to a new apartment which was decorated exclusively in red. Diana Vreeland had Billy Baldwin[disambiguation needed] decorate her apartment. She said, "I want this place to look like a garden, but a garden in hell."Regular attendees at the parties the Vreelands threw were socialite C.Z. Guest, composer Cole Porter and British photographer Cecil Beaton  In 1957's Paramount movie musical Funny Face, the character of Maggie Prescott (as portrayed by Kay Thompson) was based on Vreeland   

In 1960, John F. Kennedy became president and Diana Vreeland advised the First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in matters of style. "Vreeland advised Jackie throughout the campaign and helped connect her with fashion designer Oleg Cassini, who became chief designer to the first lady." "I can remember Jackie Kennedy, right after she moved into the White House. It wasn't even like a country club, if you see what I mean-plain." Vreeland occasionally gave Mrs. Kennedy advice about clothing during her husband's administration, and small advice about what to wear on Inauguration Day in 1961.  

In spite of being extremely successful, Diana Vreeland made a small amount of money from the Hearst Corporation, which owned Harper's Bazaar. Vreeland says that she was paid eighteen thousand dollars a year from 1937 with a raise finally in 1959 of one thousand dollars. "San Simeon must have been where the Hearst money went, I certainly never saw any of it."  Vogue 1963-1971 and the Metropolitan Museum of ArtAccording to some sources, hurt that she was passed over for promotion at Harper's Bazaar in 1957, she joined Vogue in 1963. 

The only real elegance is in the mind; if you've got that, the rest really comes from it. 

 She was editor-in-chief until 1971.Vreeland enjoyed the sixties enormously because she felt that uniqueness was being celebrated. "If you had a bump on your nose, it made no difference so long as you had a marvelous body and good carriage."    During her tenure at the magazine, she discovered the sixties "youthquake" star Edie Sedgwick. In 1984, Vreeland explained how she saw fashion magazines.

Elegance is innate. It has nothing to do with being well dressed. Elegance is refusal.

"What these magazines gave was a point of view. Most people haven't got a point of view; they need to have it given to them-and what's more, they expect it from you. It must have been 1966 or '67. I published this big fashion slogan: This is the year of do it yourself. E]very store in the country telephoned to say, 'Look, you have to tell people. No one wants to do it themselves-they want direction and to follow a leader!'"

 Balenciaga did the most delicious evening clothes. Clothes aren't delicious any more.    

After she was fired from Vogue, she became consultant to the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1971. By 1984, according to Vreeland's account, she had organized twelve exhibitions.Artist Greer Lankton created a life size portrait doll of Vreeland that is on display at the museum.   Later years In 1984, Vreeland wrote her autobiography, D.V.. At age 86, she died in 1989.