A Museum visit

Yesterday, my husband and I went to the Bard Graduate center to see French Fashion, Women, and the First World War. The Bard museum is a small one housed in a townhouse on 86th street. I have seen some lovely exhibits there in the past.

Between scrolling through their virtual gallery and looking at my photos you will get a pretty good sense of the exhibit.

One big theme of the exhibit was how the role of women changed because of the war.

In France women took over jobs normally done by men, delivering mail, running the rail system and the transit system, working in the fields ... There is an excellent silent film at the start of the exhibit showing contemporary footage of women at work during the war.

We normally think of Rosie the riveter being a WWII phenomenon but during WWI women donned jumpsuits and kept the home front working.

Both the changed role of women as well as fabric shortages caused by needing to supply the war-front simplified clothing. The Bard site has a better image of this dress Jeanne Lanvin made for herself.

Yes, the dress is embroidered, but it is relatively quick to embroider chain stitch rather than more time consuming stitching. The shape of the dress itself couldn't be simpler. It's a straight cut dress gathered at the waist. You can wear such a dress without complicated underpinnings.

This is another Lanvin dress with a fixed gathered neck and sleeves gathered into a simple cuff.The waist is shaped with a sash.

The exhibit was enhanced with lots of images from contemporary fashion magazines. This dress, despite being made in luxury fabrics, is structurally fairly simple. A base column dress is covered with a square skirt and  a chiffon topper. Trust me, this isn't hard to construct the shapes you see in this dress.

You can see a black and red version on the left in the magazine illustration below.

The designer Paul Poiret donated a redesign of the army coat to the French government. 

His design saved on man hours of production labor and also materials. Unfortunately, it wasn't warm enough and the death of thousands of soldiers was blamed on this coat.

This postcard shows the earlier double breasted version. I think the turn-back hem is dashing looking.

It's easy to see how the stripped down clothing of the war years leads directly ( with an adjustment of waistline placement, from natural waist to hip) to flapper fashions.

 Both of these black dresses are by Vionnet.  The chiffon dress with the appliqued flowers probably could have been worn by it's owner well into the 1920's and not look dowdy. The waist is slightly lowered, the bodice is not all that different that those worn ten years later.

After we all admire the embroidery on this dress, we can take a look at the simple lines.  It is just a straight shot from shoulder to hem. One could see the owner of the dress re belting it at the hip and wearing it to a elegant event  in 1925.

Both of these ensembles could have been worn ten years after they were made with no alterations at all.

I loved this uniform. All of that cording is so elegant.

Look at the beautiful embroidery on this afternoon dress. 

The Bard site has a full view of this dress. This embroidery motif appeared at at the waistline and at the small of the back. It's a mix of wire work and beading.

 The exhibit is open only for another few days. If you can you should go.