ART FIX | Art entertainment for isolation
“The best things in life are free. The second best are very expensive.”
Coco Chanel
To visit:
1. Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto National Gallery of Victoria
NGV International
Until 25 Apr 2022
Open 10am–5pm daily
This is the first exhibition in Australia to focus exclusively on the significant contribution to twentieth-century fashion culture by the renowned French couturière Gabrielle Chanel (1883–1971).
Curated by the Palais Galliera, Paris and presented in partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, the exhibition features over 100 outfits as well as jewellery, accessories, cosmetics and perfumes.
Please click here for tickets and further information.
2. Yves Saint Laurent Across six Parisian Venues
Locations include the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Pompidou Centre, Museum of Modern Art, Picasso Museum and Yves Saint Laurent Museum
Until May 15 2022
opening hours, ticketing and pricing will vary between venues.
Yves Saint Laurent may be most associated with the Left Bank of Paris, but in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the house’s founding, six of the French capital’s most prestigious museums are paying tribute to the creative legacy of the late designer through a multi-venue exhibition across Paris, with each location sporting a different focus and theme.
The Louvre, for instance, will highlight Yves Saint Laurent’s affinity with gold, while the Pompidou will focus on modernity. The Picasso Museum will showcase the inspiration lent by Pablo Picasso, while the Musée d’Orsay will examine the influence of writer Marcel Proust. Finally, The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition will focus on YSL’s use of colour, before the Yves Saint Laurent Museum goes all-out with its vast collection, drawing largely on Saint Laurent’s personal archives.
Please click here for tickets and further information.
3. In America: A Lexicon of Fashion, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Until September 5, 2022
Free with museum admission
In 2021 The Costume Institute launched In America: A Lexicon of Fashion, a monumental two-part exploration of fashion in the United States. Approximately 100 men’s and women’s ensembles by a diverse range of designers from the 1940s to the present are featured. Organised into into 12 sections, each space explores defining emotional qualities: Nostalgia, Belonging, Delight, Joy, Wonder, Affinity, Confidence, Strength, Desire, Assurance, Comfort, and Consciousness.
The second installation is due to open on 7th May 2022. The exhibition will be organised to resemble a fictional American home, constructed with transparent walls that intersect and overlap, blurring the boundaries of the interior rooms. Examples of 20th and 21st-century fashion will populate the rooms, reflecting the customs and behaviours of the imagined occupants.
Please click here for further information.
4. QUEER: Stories from the NGV Collection National Gallery of Victoria
NGV International
Until 21 Aug 2022
Open 10am–5pm daily
Free Entry
QUEER shines a light on the NGV collection to examine and reveal the queer stories works of art can tell. This exhibition of works from the NGV collection spans historical eras and diverse media including painting, drawing, photography, decorative arts, fashion, video, sculpture, and design and explores queerness as an expression of sexuality and gender, a political movement, a sensibility, and as an attitude that defies fixed definition. The fashion, as you can imagine, is FABULOUS.
Please click here for more information.
To watch:
Fashion in Motion Victoria & Albert Museum
Fashion in Motion is a series of live fashion events presented at the V&A. Featuring some of the greatest designers of our time, Fashion in Motion brings the catwalk experience to a wider audience by modelling it against the beautiful backdrop of the museum.
Milliner Philip Treacy was the first designer to feature, followed – in June 1999 – by his frequent collaborator, Alexander McQueen. Since then, the museum has hosted some of the most exciting work by the likes of Christian Lacroix, Erdem, Gareth Pugh, Molly Goddard, Roksanda, Vivienne Westwood and Yohji Yamamoto. Visit the website to explore the archive including a fascinating article on Harris Reed and the art of menswear and footage from Chinese couturier Guo Pei’s fantastical Alternate Universe collection.
Please click here to explore this incredible archive.
To follow:
@dressedtomatch on Instagram
“While doing some last minute shopping for a dress to wear to an opening in 2013, I stumbled upon a pink ombré Diane Von Furstenberg dress that reminded me an abstraction that was featured in the show. When I arrived to the opening that evening, the likeness was uncanny – it really seemed that a collaboration between the designer and artist had taken place! Needless to say, the match was definitely a topic of conversation that night, so for subsequent openings in 2014 and 2015, I purposely wore dresses that coordinated with specific pieces of art.”
-Michelle Satterlee, @dressedtomatch founder and director of Elliot Fouts Gallery, Sacremento.
Follow this fun fashion feed @dressedtomatch on Instagram.
To listen:
Decoding Fashion in Paintings by Art Matters, featuring Amber Butchart
The Art Matters podcast covers a wonderful variety of topics relating to and about art. In this episode, host Ferren Gipson chats with Amber Butchart, fashion historian and host of BBC’s ‘Stitch in Time’ series, about the hidden meanings we can glean from the fashions in paintings. You can listen to this podcast on most audio websites and apps including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Art UK.
Please click here to listen.
To read:
1. The Glass of Fashion by Cecil Beaton
Originally published in 1954, fashion photographer Cecil Beaton’s The Glass of Fashion is an alluring collection of vignettes from the ’40s and ’50s. Illustrated with Beaton’s line drawings, the book includes witty profiles on everyone from Chanel and Balenciaga to Beaton’s own aunt.
2. The House of Gucci by Sara Gay Forden
The Gucci story is one of glitz, glamour, intrigue, the rise, near fall and subsequent resurgence of a fashion dynasty. Beautifully written, impeccably researched, and widely acclaimed, The House of Gucci will captivate readers with its page-turning account of high fashion, high finance, and heart-rending personal tragedy. In 2021 this tale was turned into a major motion picture, starring Adam Driver and the fashion icon herself, Lady Gaga.
3. 200 Years of Australian Fashion A limited edition book from the NGV
The perfect gift for any fashion fiend, this beautiful volume considers what and who has defined Australian fashion; from the dressmakers of colonial Sydney and mid-century salons of Melbourne’s Collins Street to the inner-city studios of contemporary designers. 200 Years of Australian Fashion celebrates the work of more than ninety local designers and makers.
Presented in a light grey Iris cloth box each limited edition book is signed by Dion Lee and packaged with a stunning digitally printed 100% crepe de chine silk scarf.