I miss Richard Martin.
The first installment of selected fashions from LACMA’s permanent collection displays some exquisite frocks but almost no curatorial principle beyond the brainstorm of arranging the outfits chronologically by decade. The first due that something’s amiss is in the brief press release, which includes the phrase “installed in four rotations . . . on view through January 6, 2003.” There is no indication here or elsewhere why certain dresses or designers were selected (or by what criteria they will be “rotated”). It’s certainly not that each piece of clothing embodies the quintessence of a moment or even of a designer; some bear only the label of a smart department store, such as the sleek but deliciously garish gown in “silver” (though it shimmers like twenty-four karats and was shown with gold pumps) lame and red silk velvet, with an attached stole, from Henri Bendel, c. 1930. There is no program of day wear or evening wear or national origin. Some hats were accorded the dignity of wall text; no shoes were. Are we to suppose that cobblery is less designed than millinery? Master shoeman Roger Vivier would blanch as pale as young Roy Halston Frowick, busy in the tiny hat workroom at Basil’s salon in the Ambassador Hotel in Chicago. Perhaps predictably, not a single item of menswear was on display, because everyone knows that real men don’t participate in fashion.
Beginning with a c. 1905–07 three-piece suit in curlicued ecru-embroidered ivory wool serge and silk, from “Frances” [a dressmaker? a small boutique? The accompanying texts, generalized so that they won’t have to be changed for two years, provide no clue), and ending with Yoshiki Hishinuma’s 1998 three-piece ensemble in black laminated and burnt-out rayon and polyester with small white gestures, the first rotation could have considered the century as a progression from off-white to black, three-piece to three-piece. The still fresh, still chic 1950 Claire McCardell “Monastic” dress in slate wool jersey—a masterpiece of draping and pleats with sleek cording wrapping the waist—would have made a perfect midpoint.
LACMA has some truly superb pieces in its collection—but you’d never know how or why some rather than others were chosen to represent it. There are four curators credited for this exhibition: Dale Gluckman, Sandy Rosenbaum, Kay Spiker, and Sharon Takeda. Maybe they played a lot of bridge. Since they wouldn’t dare show how any of these looks might work now—I’d love to spruce up the 1987 hot pink Lacroix pouf affair with thick knitted leg warmers (isn’t it time someone truly reconsidered the Flashdance look?) and beige orthopedic shoes (pace Imitation of Christ’s recycled avant-gardism, the house stylizing of the chic-mavens at Purple and Jeremy Scott’s idea of fantasy, a certain “retardation” in dressing is currently the living end)—let me recommend a more involved, learned, and hands-on approach. Go to the Paper Bag Princess on Santa Monica Boulevard and talk to the shrewd Elizabeth Mason, proprietress of what is properly acknowledged as one of the greatest vintage couture shops anywhere. She’ll pull out a Norell or Galanos coat, perhaps a dizzying gold lamé YSL number, and tell you why she chose to have it in her store; she’ll point out its her details, its provenance and historical relevance; she’ll even let you try it on and walk out the door with it if you’ve been saving your gay pennies. Like Richard Martin, she shows why she cares and how you might. That’s all I ask.
—Bruce Hainley
