Looking for
fashion inspiration over the holiday weekend? The Museum at FIT currently has
the Dance & Fashion Exhibit going on. If you were remotely moved by the
ballet trend of recent years post Black Swan, or gave an exaggerated pose in
slinky disco-inspired knits, this show is for you.
The first
section you encounter is a collection of extraordinary ballet costumes from the
1800’s and early 1900’s. Artisans made amazing creations inspired by the
fantasy aesthetics of exotic cultures. The Ballets Russes and its “Orientalism”
aesthetic in turn inspired many fashion designers like Paul Poiret and Yves
Saint Laurent.
Balenciaga was famously inspired by Spanish Flamenco dance. Following in his footsteps
were designers like Elsa Schiaparelli and Oscar de la Renta.
The
collaboration of fashion designer and dancer has a longtime history. In modern
dance, Halston is often associated with the body conscious look of Martha
Graham’s dance company. The looks then spilled over into high fashion and street
wear. Stephen Burrows capture the disco era with dance-friendly knits. Alvin
Ailey has often taken street culture and street fashion as muse in their
productions.
Designers Christian
Lacroix, Jean Paul Gaultier, Prabal Gurung, Giles Mendel and Olivier
Theyskens have all designed for the New York City Ballet. In turn, their
costume director Marc Happel has paid tribute to designers like Christian Dior
and Balenciaga in his own work for the New York City Ballet. The designers
behind Rodarte were well publicized for their contributions to the Darren Aronofsky
film Black Swan in 2010, and tulle and ballet flats hit the streets in
the seasons that followed.
The exhibit paired the punishing structure of Anna Pavlova's ballet pointe
shoes alongside extreme styles from Christian Louboutin and Noritaka
Tatehana that were inspired by them.
Designers’ fascination with dance is so strong that many have
featured the dancers themselves on their runway, like Zang Toi’s Ballerina Babes collection and Rick Owen’s spring 2014 show featuring African American stepdancers (watch it, it's fierce).
A good fashion designer makes clothing that is
comfortable, functional and beautiful. Dressing a dancer is the ultimate
challenge to test those skills. Maybe all designers need to ask their fit models
to bust a move. The streets are today’s runway. The runway is a stage. Maybe if
all the world's a stage,
all the men and women merely dancers.
Dance & Fashion at the Museum at FIT runs until January 3, 2015.
photos by Mariana Leung
