Posts by Paula Baxter

I grew up in a kinder and gentler world (and I’m not that old) where I remember roaming the streets of the various towns I lived in wearing my Halloween costume and ringing the doorbells of strangers for my “Trick or Treat.” I’ve got a particularly warm and fuzzy memory of being a fifth grader when we lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and being dropped off in a posh neighborhood so I could collect great swag from the nice houses there.

Boy, those days are gone! No sane parent would expose their child to the mercies of strangers in these times, and as a 

“I like fashion to go down into the street, but I can’t accept that it should originate there.”

-Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel (1883-1971) The Chanel brand is one of the most famous of all couturier names. Reams have been written about why Coco Chanel’s designs are so classic and immortal. There’s more to this story, however, than simple tribute to an amazing talent. The truth is that Chanel herself achieved a larger-than-life standing exactly because of her life. The 

In the exhibition, “A Rakish History of Men’s Wear,” I tackled the issue of music as a key factor in the development of street fashion. Twentieth century casual sportswear took many cues from hip hop. If you walk the short round through “Art Deco Design: Rhythm and Verve,” you’ll find you don’t want to escape from the twelve-minute tape loop of music in the gallery.

Therein lies a genuine clue. The toe-tapping quality of 1920s syncopation filtered right into the realm of fashion. Jazz 

Having spent a week indulging the collector in me, I’ve returned newly sensitized to the issues behind being bit by the collecting bug. Strangely enough, there are few books that really explore the motivations and psychology behind collecting. While a collector may wax eloquent about his or her objects of desire, that person is often tongue-tied when it comes to explaining just why they had to acquire those items.

A number of the main articles in Art & Antiques and ArtNews often include interviews with wealthy collectors of the fine arts. Yet I’ve usually found that 

By now, you know that when I go on hiatus, it means I head out west. The Southwest, to be precise. I’ll be gone for a week and my destinations are Gallup, New Mexico and Zuni, New Mexico. Zuni Pueblo is centered in the small town of Zuni, located about forty miles southwest of Gallup. These are highly desirable destinations for the collector of American Indian jewelry and arts. Gallup, as an Indian reservation border town, has long played a key role in the Indian arts business. Zuni is a fascinating place, but has suffered from a historical plague of anthropologists poking their 

Back in August, I had the opportunity to do a little background research for a magazine writer who was investigating the origins of the white shirt and black tie. While the tuxedo’s beginnings date to around 1885 and the assistance of England’s then Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, it took the twentieth century for masculine formal wear to really take off. The black bow tie was an innovation of the 1920s and jacket lapels grew progressively sleeker into the 1930s.

In preparing my curatorial lecture on “Fashions of the Art Deco Era,” I 

The French word ‘couture’ represents needlework or sewing. The couture designer uses a toile, made in muslin or fine linen, from which the made-to-measure proportions were devised. France has a union called the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture with rules and regulations for how couture houses are to be staffed and when they exhibit their lines.

I recall reading in The Fashion Conspiracy that the absolute “prize” element of a couture garment was that it would be made from 

 Jacques Doucet, grandson of the founder of the House of Doucet in Paris, was a spirited champion of the new Art Deco style. Doucet was a remarkable art connoisseur and collector of eighteenth century and contemporary French arts. By the time he became active in the firm, around 1874, his encyclopedic knowledge of historic dress expressed itself in fashion references in couture garments. Although in the 1920s he was aging and his couture house merged with another lesser firm, and eventually closed, he never lost touch with 

The first World War was truly traumatic for France, and its great designers were among the first to attempt to rally the nation’s arts in the war’s aftermath. The luxury goods trade had all but disappeared during these years. One of these designers, Madeleine Vionnet (1876-1975), closed her couture house at the onset of the war in 1914 and went to Rome for the duration.

Upon her return, she pressed forward with the revolutionary, often avant-garde direction of her clothes-making. She had apprenticed with lingerie makers, spurring a life-long fascination with the 

I’m slipping off and attending an exciting celebration on Thursday, so my next post will come on Friday. The National Museum of the American Indian in lower Manhattan will be holding an awards event, A Single Thread: Celebrating Native American Design and Style. Five native artists will be honored for their accomplishments, and most of them work in textiles and adornment. I know three of the artists personally, so this will be a fine time to let them know how much their contributions to the arts are appreciated.

Joe Baker, from the Delaware Nation, is one of those natives 

“There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.” -Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

What about the impact of the great modern art movements on fashions of the times? Perhaps the most influential of those movements was Cubism. Fortunately, a long-sighted costume historian addressed this topic in a small but influential exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute back in 1998. Richard Martin organized “

 “Is not the most erotic part of the body wherever the clothing affords a glimpse?” -Roland Barthes (1915-1980)

Social morality and how women dress has greatly affected fashion. Therefore, the modern era has been revolutionary for changes in feminine dress. The most critical development of all—the gradual revealing of the body. A feature story from the website at the University of Texas at Austin sets up this scenario. The Victorian era was 

“Art Deco Design: Rhythm and Verve” is duly installed and opens this Friday, the 12th. It is always thrilling to see something that has been mentally visualized turn into physical reality. That’s one of the pleasures of being a curator. There are the hours of planning on paper, of restless paging through plate books, consulting reference tools, and then making decisions that can all too easily evaporate over time. Above all else, there is the necessity of distilling the exhibition’s premise into several clear, presentable ideas.

I 

The New York Public Library usually offers curatorial and subject-related lectures about its exhibitions. “Art Deco Design: Rhythm and Verve” has a series of three talks on offer. All of these will be held in the Main Library’s South Court Classrooms from 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. on the following days:

Art Deco Design: Rhythm and Verve – September 16 and October 23

Art Deco New York – September 23 and October 30 (I’m doing this with colleague Vinny Rutigliano of Art & Architecture; he teaches the popular class on 

A lot of the stories in The Fashion Conspiracy describe the means whereby the various designers and companies establish their brand. Product branding is extremely important these days, as more and more consumers—especially young ones—pledge allegiance to specific brands. Sneakers are a famous example. Linking fashion and beauty products with famous faces is another time-honored device. If you want to get a good idea of the business process involved in all this, the SIBL Library has a great work:

Reading The Fashion Conspiracy reminded me how the fashion industry has produced its own versions of the Cinderella story. Moving from conspiracies to happy-ever-after stories, I was struck again by the career beginnings of a young guy from the Bronx named Ralph Lifshitz, son of an Orthodox Jewish immigrant from Minsk. He lived in the Mosholu Parkway section and attended DeWitt Clinton High School in New York City. By this time, he’d changed his last name to Lauren. From the very beginning of his modest start in the clothing trade, he preferred the preppie 

“Things are entirely what they appear to be and behind them...there is nothing.” -Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

One weekend this summer, I bought a paperback copy of an amusing book in our collection, The Fashion Conspiracy by Nicholas Coleridge. Published in 1988, the book is still relevant today in the portraits it draws of fashion wealth, 80s excess, and the striking contrasts between high-end designer showrooms and Asian sweatshops. Coleridge, a British 

I’ve always believed that diversity makes for a more beautiful world. I also thought that most people felt that way, these days. Imagine my surprise when word began to leak out this past year that the fashion shows were employing more and more white models, and less of those of other colors. Having only skinny white girls on the runways is far from completing fashion’s dreamscape. I know Naomi Campbell is bad-tempered, but honestly—we need black, white, Hispanic, and Asian (and would a Native American hurt, either?) women to represent our global world.

For 

“A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

Of course, there’s the little matter of how will we pay for our new fall fashions? You’ll be reassured to know that this question won’t bother that sector of the population that attends fashion shows and buys directly from couturiers. For the rest of us who await the trickle-down of readymade fashion must-haves, the question is a little more acute.

One secret of success is to pick and choose. Picking a new