Dream On

Viktor & Rolf / Fall / Pret-a-Porter 2008

First notes about Fall / Winter 08

Hello. I've gotten a few questions since publishing my collection images online...

Yes, these clothes are a little bit unusual for doll clothes. No, it's not an accident; I design them like I'm doing real runway clothing and not so-called doll clothes.

Yes, I sometimes design and enjoy a bit more conventionally glamorous and pretty clothes. No, for this particular collection I wasn’t trying to design clothes merely to be traditionally pretty, as such.

Yes, I drew upon my artistic and theatrical sensibilities with this collection… the goal was designing striking, mysterious, haunting couture-type fashions that tell a story and describe a set of emotions, memories, and aesthetics. No, these aren’t for everyone and they’re not meant to be.

Yes, I am truly happy with them. No, these particular designs will not be for sale, although I may eventually create some related pieces in ultra-limited editions.

Yes, doll fashions can be as intriguing as human fashions, and I want to help make that happen. No, I probably won't sell doll fashions in the immediate future because I want to get back to writing for a while.

Yes, I have specific plans for more doll couture, and will be happily attending the International Fashion Doll Convention this July in Las Vegas. No, I certainly don’t mind if people contact me. Yes, all of my contact information is on my main website. No, it’s not a sales site.

Yes, I believe doll fashion can be as original, exciting, and varied as true haute couture when doll fashion designers take it seriously. What a grand time we could have...

Thank you for stopping by.

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P.S. Clicking on "View my complete profile", on the menu to the right, brings up links to my website, and also my email address.

Jewel of the Collection

This is the design I created to serve as the messenger for a proposed collection. My personal goal was to address several key elements of current couture with a new and unique look that could serve as a kind of signature.

Although it was submitted in the larger doll size for the Project Dollway competition, this photo is in sixth scale, my preferred size.

Again and again on the runways I was seeing a young and leggy look with black tights, and it's something I've always loved. The beret was another key piece this season, one I love to interpret in velveteen. Overlay netting had been used effectively, and I was anxious to work that intriguing look into the collection. Another key look I was drawn to this season was the strapless empire.

Mostly what I worked from was a mood, a feeling. I wanted something that took away the clear line between day and night; I wanted to create a dreamlike look, theatrical without being at all silly, and very luxurious, maybe a little haunting, like the models are heroines of a novel. I wanted something of a rumaging-through-the-costume-trunk feel, but at a couture level.

When designing, first I develop the basic ideas that will define the collection. I knew my fabrics would be essential to creating the posh Bohemian look, and as I looked for fabrics realized how powerful certain muted but still intense jewel tones could be in carrying this out against the black.

The net overlay on the skirt worked out really well for me, and I love the look. What's interesting about the black netting here is its effect on the underlying satin. It emphasizes the folds of the skirt in a very cool way (see photo). Another thing I liked was the way black netting gave a rich dimension to the skirt's color. The peacock taffeta for the bodice actually has fine black threads running through it, so the black netting on the skirt helped the two jewel-toned fabrics click with each other.

What took the longest was probably the fabric selection. But it's something I really enjoy. That, and also feeling like I wanted to design the entire collection on the spot. I decided that even if I got eliminated (which, as always, was entirely possible), I would go ahead and do a collection based on this dress anyway, for my own enjoyment.

For the contest submission, I included an original black and gold handbag. This is really the Golden Age of the handbag, so I felt I should include a really confident-looking one.

Years ago, I heard a phrase that really stuck with me, an idea that could be applied to any number of art projects. The term is "Final Presence", and I wish I knew who coined it.

It's what I try for in an ensemble; I don't always perfectly achieve it, but sometimes I do. Something greater than the sum of its parts, something that looks meant to be.

Mattel's "Silken Flame" for the old Barbie doll had that quality. Everything clicked together in a perfect way, the red velveteen against the white satin, with just the perfect amount of gold metallic.

Designs like that have stayed with me through the decades.

The Power of the Collection

More often than not, I'm the first to awaken in my household. I love the quiet time alone while it’s still dark out. With a cup of steaming coffee in my Cafe du Monde mug, I check my calendar, read my email, and come up with a To-Do list for the day.

Then, it’s time to look at fashion. Creativity coach Julia Cameron calls this kind of thing “filling the well”.

Since I don’t live in New York or Paris or Milan, or dress in anything resembling couture, a big part of how I enjoy the world of fashion is to view the couture and RTW collections online and in glossy magazines.

Now more than ever, since Project Dollway, I think of myself as a designer who happens to be working in sixth scale.

When I create doll fashion I never copy or adapt the designs of others, but I do enjoy the way the art form of fashion collectively explores an array of ideas and directions at any given time. Seeing the work of other designers (both well-known and obscure) is entertaining, educational, and inspirational. I believe it helps us find our way to our own personal visions.

Once I began really studying high fashion, and not just doll fashion or that of everyday people, it changed my vision of doll fashion—and its potential—forever. I do realize this isn’t the way most doll collectors look at doll fashion, for various reasons.

Since a picture is worth at least a thousand words (and after all, fashion is supposed to be art and not literature), I’ve devised a simple exercise.

This little exercise will have more impact on those who don't spend much time around couture but instead spend more time around doll fashion. You hard-core Fashionistas, on the other hand, probably already get the message. Either way, I think it’s worthwhile.

The more unusual, dramatic, or unexpected someone’s design ideas are, the more important it becomes to present those ideas as fully as possible. This is an idea that’s more familiar in the world of science: the more unusual the claim, the greater the burden of proof.

To help me make my point, I’ve shamelessly pulled an image off of Style.com. Style.com is my favorite Go-To site for all the couture and RTW seasonal collections. Any of several collections could have worked here to illustrate my ideas.

What you’re viewing (see photo above) is an ensemble from the Fall 2007 Ready-to-Wear collection designed by Nicholas Ghesquière for the house of Balenciaga.

Not something you see every day, is it? So, what was the designer thinking about; what ideas was he exploring? Viewing a single outfit, it’s not always easy to say.

All alone or in the wrong company swims an awkward and unhappy swan.

With such an outfit as this one, even if the designer satisfied the requirements of a contest challenge ‘on paper’, he might well have been eliminated from a doll fashion competition for such an offbeat offering.

Imagine this outfit next to, say, a series of clean and simple dresses, or everyday street-wear. Hmm.

But wait; there’s more… an entire runway show, in fact. Now, to put the duckling where it belongs, please look at the entire slideshow, and let it sink in. Balenciaga, Fall 2007 Ready-to-Wear. It can be easily viewed at the Style.com website.

Aha.

Even if it’s not to your taste, a well-designed innovative collection can be surprisingly fresh and powerful. You might still decide you don’t personally care for an outfit after seeing it as part of a collection… fair enough. But personal taste aside, it becomes much harder to dismiss it (or diss it) as a failed design.

It’s the nature of fashion, as other art forms, to change, and in changing further define itself.

Careful observation of a well-conceived collection reveals a point of view, a set of ideas, a story.

You may or may not like an outfit even after seeing the whole collection, but at least after learning more about it, your thought process changes: How well did the designer execute what they seemed to be saying? Is it interesting, is it appealing? Does it somehow still satisfy basic aesthetics, but perhaps in a new way? What was their story?

The colors, cultural and historical references, textures, silhouettes, details, wit, and everything else that might be explored in a high fashion collection is there for us to see. When it works, it can be grasped without necessarily being understood or articulated verbally.

Not all innovative ideas succeed... whatever that means. But when they do, they’re often the most memorable designs of all.

Ah, for the Glove of Fashion

Let's talk about gloves. I love them.

An ultra-long black glove turns a graceful arm into a calligraphic brushstroke. It eroticizes the bare shoulder and evokes vintage glamour. In black, it gives unexpected edge and intrigue to any color palette.

A contrasting glove in unexpected color is a bit of theater, sleight of hand, whimsical chic and fashion bravado.

My sister and I had demure white wrist gloves for Easter every year in the late Fifties and early Sixties.

During those same years, my mother explained that a well-dressed woman would never appear on city streets without gloves and a hat. Even as she was explaining this to us, we all knew that was changing.

When I was a young teenager I was desperate for a pair of red leather racing gloves with cutouts. I never got them, maybe because I didn’t even have a driver’s license, and anyway, all the racing I would do was in my mind.

Gloves have come and gone from the fashion scene. I picked up some great day-gloves during the Eighties when women were interested in glamour again. You could put a chartreuse leather glove with a wool jacket of plum or teal without apology.

From decades of haunting thrift stores, I have a wonderful collection of vintage gloves, and I do mean vintage: ultra-long buttoned silk gloves from the Teens, thin chamois leather gloves from the Thirties, and soft cotton gloves from the Forties and Fifties.

The little space where we hide our car registration, outdated maps, and dusty tissues is still called a glove compartment.

Recently I saw a publicity portrait of the perennially glamorous Ann-Margret, and noticed she was wearing gloves. It reminded me that gloves are kind to us Women of a Certain Age, an artful concealment of our less than perfect hands.

Young women enjoy gloves as well, although the look is sometimes more tongue-in-cheek, worn with a vampy attitude that comes from the self-conscious appropriation of another generation’s fashions and sentiments. It’s the attitude a twenty year-old with multiple face piercings might have when wearing a Fifties prom dress. We see the wearer’s quotation marks around the item in question.

From what I remember, gloves started showing up on the Runway again in about 2003, a couple of years after design houses like Yves Saint Laurent began suggesting we should all wear Corsets as Fashion (presumably to acknowledge our Inner S&M Goddess). The black-laced look may or may not have made its way into our wardrobes, but the glove did start to become worthy of consideration. When taken in context with the corset, we’re reminded of the darker side of gloves. Like fashion as a whole, gloves can go to the opera, or star in a burlesque show.

For the last few months I’ve been noticing gloves on the runway again, and I’m truly enjoying it. Designers want glamour again. Like today’s glamour, the gloves of today are more dreamlike in their effect than we remember. They seem to combine the many sides and evocations of gloves.

Of late, it's almost harder to find fashion photography without gloves than with them.

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My award for the Most Overtly Glamorous Recent Exhibition of Gloves goes to British VOGUE magazine (Oct. 2007) for their cover photo of Keira Knightley in sequined over-the-elbow tulle gloves to match the sequined dress (Chanel). That entire issue, in fact, is a veritable celebration of the glove. Trust me on this.

One page into the magazine’s glossy pages, we see a long black leather glove accenting a belted wool coat, then again on the next page with a jacket and pants (Gucci).

With one more turn of the page, we see a strapless black cocktail dress worn with over-the-elbow black gloves (Yves Saint Laurent).

Two more pages, and we see scrunched leather gloves in odd quasi-jellybean colors worn as luxurious daywear accents with both matching and contrasting leather handbags (Prada).

Three more pages, and we see long black patent leather gloves looking more like boots with their zippers and flare-shaped cuffs (Burberry). Six more pages, and we’re told by enthusiastic editors we should grab ourselves those same amazing patent leather gloves.

Just six more pages, and we see black wrist gloves worn with a black beret and a knitted gold dress, and appearing again on the next page with a crisp white blouse (Ralph Lauren).

One more page, and we see long silver tricot gloves worn with another crisp white blouse, this time with a gray knit pullover (Luisa Cerano).

Five more pages in, and Versace has gotten into the act with black leather gloves accenting pure white wool in two ensembles.

Just two more pages ahead and British VOGUE is recommending hot new looks for the season, including a long black leather glove by Georges Morand. Continuing this enthusiasm, more gloves are recommended just five pages later: all long, all in colors, all fabulous.

On and on it goes. That issue had over 400 pages, but you get the idea.

I’d say the glove has returned. But then again, did it ever truly leave?

Silhouettes in Black, first remarks

In fashion, black is quietly powerful.

Sometimes it's a welcome refuge, a safe haven.

Black is iconic.

Black is its own category, a challenge for all designers to reckon with. When we allow ourselves to think beyond the typical solutions, it forces us to think about shapes, about silhouettes. It's also about surface and texture, but what strikes us first, and stays with us, is the shape black carves in our visual field.

So does the shape need to follow the figure? This image is a style.com runway photo of a design by Stefano Pilati for Yves St. Laurent's striking Fall 2007 ready-to-wear collection.This is obviously a jacket, not just a dress, but it reminds us the body need not be followed in typical ways. Notice, too, the use of thick black tights to continue the silhouette.

Pure low-key drama.

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