Vêtements

Insight and artifact.

Evidence of a once time and place, garments are invitations for discovery. 

Duchesse satin is one-hundred percent silk, heavy and lustrous. Craftsmanship inherent in the art of draping, and in the fineness of a given material, is noteworthy.

I appreciate the quintessentially-Italian embracement of exaggeration, made manifest in bold color and form. Swaths of vermilion; gold’s glint. Through attention to artful tailoring, French maisons define understatement. Complex construction and the ephemerality of garments complicate their preservation, making display impressive. 

Editor’s Note: COSTUME ON DISPLAY

There are many repositories that memorialize the evolution of taste and costume. In narrating fashion’s history, they regard haute couture as insight. A few favorites:

Palazzina della Meridiana — at Piazza de' Pitti — The first State museum in Italy dedicated to the history of fashion and its social significance. A gem of their permanent collection: the 16th-century funeral clothes of Cosimo I de’ Medici.

Museo Salvatore Ferragamo — at Palazzo Spini Feroni — Cataloging the life and travel of a visionary in footwear design.

Gucci Garden — at Palazzo della Mercanzia — Concepted by Alessandro Michele, and housed inside the Palazzo della Mercanzia, is a celebration of the label’s color-forward approach.

The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan — on Fifth Avenue — Exquisite holdings supported by the foremost fashion library and costume conservation laboratory.

Musée Yves Saint Laurent — on Rue Marceau — Exhibiting the couturier’s body of work on the legendary premises of his former haute couture house.

Musée Galliera — on Rue Pierre — Exceptional heritage collections housed within a palace commissioned by the Duchess Galliera in 1879. Elsa Schiaparelli's hat-shoe, a noteworthy collaboration with Salvador Dalí, is on display.

Contemporary arbiters of taste vis-à-vis their respective global domains include Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, and the Council of Fashion Designers of America. My favorite ateliers for a curated, studied wardrobe: Lanvin, Officine Générale, Schiaparelli, and Elie Saab.

All share rich, plural legacies and a capacity for world-building that make getting dressed an occasion.