Swiss Textile Collection - a great undertaking and wonderful things to see

Last year, I was alerted to a TV news program here in Switzerland about a unique couture collection that had all belonged to the same woman, that had been bought up in bulk by Rosmarie Amacher of à ma chère Haute Couture, Zurich's one and only couturière. Unfortunately, the program can't be viewed anymore online, but it was pretty spectacular. From what she said then, they were looking at housing this amazing collection in a historical building in Rorschach, and making it accessible to fashion students and professionals for study etc - and maybe even putting it on show for the general public.

Whilst poking around on Facebook recently, I came upon her page and actually found out what has been going on with this collection. First of all, I have unknowingly already posted a few photos of items from this collection on this blog - turns out that the couture items on show at the Textile Museum in St. Gallen last winter came from there - have a look at my original post: http://dollsfashionart.blogspot.ch/2013/12/exhibitions-at-textile-museum-in.html. A new association has been founded to own the collection, called the Swiss Textile Collection, and if you click through their website, you will spot a close-up of the amazing sequinned accessories that I photographed then:

Their goal is still to make the whole thing accessible in some way to people to not just look at the things, but to touch them and see how they're constructed - which is a great idea. The collection offers a membership for CHF 150 a year which also includes interesting visits to textile producers and other acitivities - definitely worth a thought about joining!

What's still written in the stars though is if the collection will really ever be housed at the said building in Rorschach - apparently it's pending a local referendum what actually happens to the building. So the collection is currently housed somewhere very different, at the TMC in Zurich. The TMC is a wholesale center for the fashion industry - companies hire showrooms there to show their new collections to buyers a few times a year. Unless it's an "ordering day", it's closed to the public. As it happens, this month, Mondays are ordering days, and the collection is open for everybody to go and have a look!

Well, of course that's one thing I couldn't let go buy, so my mom and I paid a visit to the collection recently. There were a few items on mannequins that we were free to examine (yes, touch, turn up hems etc.). Most of it is safely stored though in big cardboard boxes, carefully numbered and with a photo of the contents on each box. Stuffed with tissue paper, some things are on hangers, some in boxes on shelves - very well cared for. There were two other visitors beside us, who arrived almost at the same time, and then the action got underway! The lady lookin after things that day pulled things out for us to look at - touch, examine, see how it's made. In short - it was amazing. I've never seen couture like that upclose like this, and I feel like I've learned a ton of things!

The main part of the collection is made up of the collection I mentioned above, but they are also buying other items to add to it. The initial collection was a rich industrialist's wife's wardrobe, ranging in styles ca. from the 1950s to the 1980s from what I could see, and she had them all made at the same couture salon in Zurich, often after designs from Paris coturiers. There's obviously a fair amount of evening wear, but day wear too. She really must have had something made for every special occasion. And there aren't just dresses, she also had matching accessories made - hats, bags, gloves and more.

I couldn't take photos - and wouldn't have anyway, we were much too busy oohing and ahhing and examining things! The lengths they went to! There was a suit of a loosely woven bouclé-type fabric of fairly thick threads. To make a matching vest, they actually unravelled some of this fabric to the threads, and someone knitted the vest from them! Similarly, from another ca. 60s item, they had created a contrasting effect for the top of a dress by taking threads out of a similar kind of fabric and thus creating a kind of lattice-work effect (it was lined of course). Incredible work!

Of the things we were show, there was one utterly amazing item, that had also been on show in St. Gallen, and it was definitely the "star piece" of what we got to see:

The white evening dress and coat where the first things the lady drew out of a storage box for us. The dress is a simple, slim column (and it's owner must have been a tall, slim lady!), a deceptively simple design with slim straps, but... it is completely ebroidered with iridescent pearls and sequins! Yes, completely - the whole dress is covered and incredibly heavy. And this was all done only once the dress had been constructed, this was not an embroidered fabric! The coat is made from the same fabric as the dress and closes with two big round buttons at the front. And of course it shows the dress off to great effect! There was a matching clutch bag as well, that was also embroidered all over. Wow!

It really was a great experience, and we wholly enjoyed it. I will be following this what happens further and hopefully there will be more great stuff to report on!

Exhibition report - Les Années 50 at Palais Galliera

And here comes the next one! This was the exhibition that made me want to go to Paris in the first (as if I needed much of a reason anyway...): Les Années 50 at Palais Galliera.
 
Though the title says "50s", it's actually about the the years from 1947 to 1957, from when Dior created the New Look and with it the silhouette of the 50s. The exhibits are not arranged in a chronological fashion, but like a fashion magazine, by theme. The great thing is, nothing is behind glass, and you can get really up close to a lot of the exhibits, and of some things like the evening dresses, you can also see the back of the dress - which is often just as interesting!
So it starts with the iconic design that today is seen as what started the New Look - Dior's "Bar" suit, together with two other late 40s designs that already show the typical line. One is a delicious redingote coat dress by Jacques Fath, that once belonged to none other than Lily Daché. Wow. After that follows a big line-up of day wear - suits, dresses and coats for all seasons. Some are accompanied by photos of models wearing them, one was worn in a French film... All this is accompanied by old fashion magazine covers that also set the scene, small displays of matchin accessories like hats, gloves, shoes and handbags and there's also a nice display of French sewing patterns of the time. The other rooms show cocktail dresses, grand evening gowns (what a joy - the embroidery work on some of them is just crazy, like the "Palmyre" dress by Dior!), a few items of lingerie (a guepière of course!) and stockings, and casual / beach fashion / swimwear. Most items are Haute Couture, but there are a few mass produced items as well as early Prêt-à-Porter, which also started at the time. So there's plenty to see - give it two hours, even though it isn't big by way of rooms. I am also totally in love now with Fath's designs - they were among my favourites in the exhibition. Also, the wonderfully draped, timeless evening and cocktail dresses by Dessès - just breathtaking.

If you want to get a bit of a look, this little film gives you a good glimpse at the exhibition. There are also some great images on this page, just click on the photo on the right at the bottom.

There is also an excellent book to go with the exibition that is well worth the price. One of the two dresses on the book's cover is shown in Vogue of October 1954, the issue of which I have:

Here it's just shown without the shoulder straps. Gorgeous silver embroidery!

If you go, I recommend to buy the ticket online, you can print it at home. It's set to a specific entry time. That way the can make sure that not too many people get in a the same time. As everything stands free and is mostly not behind glass, it is understandable that they don't want too many people go in at once. And the nice thing is, as high-profile exhibitions go, this is not expensive at all - the admission is only 8 Euros!