So you’re about to be a bride and you’re searching for or maybe you just found your wedding dress? Your appreciation for couture or just plain gorgeous frocks should be heightened!!!
So if you live in Brisbane (wish I did!) you are lucky enough to be able to go and view some of the most exquisite couture creations ever made at the Qld Gallery of Modern Art. The incredible gowns are featured in Valentino, Retrospective: Past/Present/Future
“Valentino The Last Emperor” was one of my favourite films from last year.
This most amazing doco followed around this brilliant but madly eccentric and diva like designer who’s one of the last real haute couture designers in the world. It showed a little glimpse of this retrospective, which was first mounted in Paris. The film includes the most incredible opening night of the show that will take your breath away!! Frock lovers (and even those with just a passing interest) would gasp at the beauty of this event cleverly used as the finale of the film. The combination of the superb gowns and all that theatrical flair is awe-inspiring.
There has been some interesting debate I discovered on the weekend in the Australian newspaper about whether fashion is art. What a great question! Is it more appropriate to see fashion or more specifically dresses in a museum as cultural references of the time then in an art gallery as works of art? Is fashion more a commercial venture than an artistic one? Well as a couture lover I honestly think that the creativity and the aesthetic beauty in a precious couture gown has merit as art. When you think of the imagination & inspiration followed through to the final realisation of all the style elements, the ornamentation, the use of fabric, it seems to me that this is artistic genius at work!
I have always adored couture-wedding gowns for this reason. I admire the beauty and the creativity that leads to the wonderful end result. The perfect delicate intricate details that make them special.
Back to that Valentiono show - and I am seriously thinking about hopping on a plane to go and see for myself - the frocks there include his first collection designed in 1959 through to his final one in 2008 . There’s also some from the Autumn/Winter 2009–10 creations by Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli – who became creative directors for Valentino in 2008. The fact that Valentino’s designs span over five decades is another revelation. What a career! What an inspiration. I love his red obsession too – it’s the wedding dress colour for both Indian and Chinese cultures .....(or girls who want a bit of drama!)
“Valentino The Last Emperor” was one of my favourite films from last year.
This most amazing doco followed around this brilliant but madly eccentric and diva like designer who’s one of the last real haute couture designers in the world. It showed a little glimpse of this retrospective, which was first mounted in Paris. The film includes the most incredible opening night of the show that will take your breath away!! Frock lovers (and even those with just a passing interest) would gasp at the beauty of this event cleverly used as the finale of the film. The combination of the superb gowns and all that theatrical flair is awe-inspiring.
There has been some interesting debate I discovered on the weekend in the Australian newspaper about whether fashion is art. What a great question! Is it more appropriate to see fashion or more specifically dresses in a museum as cultural references of the time then in an art gallery as works of art? Is fashion more a commercial venture than an artistic one? Well as a couture lover I honestly think that the creativity and the aesthetic beauty in a precious couture gown has merit as art. When you think of the imagination & inspiration followed through to the final realisation of all the style elements, the ornamentation, the use of fabric, it seems to me that this is artistic genius at work!
I have always adored couture-wedding gowns for this reason. I admire the beauty and the creativity that leads to the wonderful end result. The perfect delicate intricate details that make them special.
Back to that Valentiono show - and I am seriously thinking about hopping on a plane to go and see for myself - the frocks there include his first collection designed in 1959 through to his final one in 2008 . There’s also some from the Autumn/Winter 2009–10 creations by Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli – who became creative directors for Valentino in 2008. The fact that Valentino’s designs span over five decades is another revelation. What a career! What an inspiration. I love his red obsession too – it’s the wedding dress colour for both Indian and Chinese cultures .....(or girls who want a bit of drama!)
For brides who are immersed in this world of couture and can imagine themselves swanning about in a Valentino – I think check him out – either on film or up close!
Till next time.
Kirstie
P.S. There is a brilliant book as well (see below) – I snapped this up for my coffee table last year. Elegance galore!!
Kirstie
P.S. There is a brilliant book as well (see below) – I snapped this up for my coffee table last year. Elegance galore!!
