What would you expect from someone who makes stuffed toys for a living? Cute and lighthearted, I’d really like to kn ow what was used to make the skirt hold its shape. A Hoop skirt? Petticoats? Crinoline? Or something else. The tag says that only 4 sweaters, 7 pairs of jeans and 100 buttons were used to make this dress. But I suspect that there were some other things involved as well.
It actually looks like it could be worn, but I’m not 100% convinced I would be able to survive the constant barrage of cuteness. Maybe if I was partial to dressing up for Halloween, I’d be more open to a dress that had a hood with ears and some sort of bear-like soccer ball protruding from the crotch.
Detail of Plush Empress By Majorie Labrèque-Lepage
The Outfits from a New Era exhibition were designed to highlight “cast-offs from our society in a whole new light” and while the vast majority of them were made from waste products, four appeared to be made from new material. Of the four, the two following were notable examples.
WFA - With Fixed Address By Stéphanie Lévesque
Another fantasy dress, another material list that isn’t quite complete. That bodice is not made of plywood (unless that’s the thinnest plywood ever – or perhaps it should be the veneer used to make plywood). Although I kind of like the concept of living in your dress. Once you glom onto the idea behind this dress there isn’t an awful lot of depth to it. But I bet you that it is well insulated (yuck, yuck, yuck!)
Of all the dresses in the exhibit, I would guess that this one is the most structurally sound. But probably the most difficult to modify if you gained a couple of pounds. Although I think Stéphanie Lévesque should try to get someone from Mon Plan Rona to wear it as a publicity stunt.
Grand Design By Isabel Vinuela
This, I think is the weakest of all 16 dresses. Made out of canvas its “twist” is that the drawing and the stickers are supposed to be part of it as well. More of a coat than a dress, it’s kind of difficult to pick out from the drawing, which while obviously the intention, doesn’t make it any better in my eyes. It’s not like I’m going to be walking around wearing the drawing when I put on the dress (or coat).
Wall tag explaining how to interact with Grand Design By Isabel Vinuela
Sorry that my picture is so blurry.
I can’t quite accept that the backdrop for a dress is as important (or even more so) than the actual dress.
Now those are some shoulder pads I can really get into… Or if you would prefer less colloquial phrasing, I get a big kick out of this dress as well. Although I’m not certain I would ever be invited someplace where it would be formal enough to wear. And while I would venture a guess that most of the pieces that were used to make it came from sports cars, it is not a “sporty” outfit in the least.
Dress the Part by Isabelle Bérubé
Ms. Bérubé appears to have turned this concept of transforming old car parts (or more precisely old car seats) into fashion accessories fulltime. Although I think she should exhibit her work at the auto show.
Detail from Dress the Part by Isabelle Bérubé
I can’t imagine that a car tire as a corset or belt would be all that comfortable, however choosing it was an inspired choice. Clearly marking the difference between bottom and top, while at the same time hitting you upside the face with where the materials used to make the dress came from. Without the tire, it would be like some sort of overwrought futuristic ball gown suitable for the cover of a Harlequin Romance about a 22nd century debutante.
Although now that I have gone to the Harlequin Romance website, I have discovered that in fact they do not publish any science fiction, but that they do have a series called Harlequin NASCAR (The rush of the race car circuit; the thrill of falling in love®.) So maybe I should change the lines above to read something like “with the tire it is perfect as the ballgown of Dr. Nicole Foster, the heroine of Running Wide Open.
Naw, not even close.
Detail from Dress the Part by Isabelle Bérubé
And I’m also not certain what to make of the wires…
Pillbox Dress By Marie Line
Surprisingly, this dress is badly translated. In French it is called “Ordonnance Royale” a pun on the multiple definitions of the word ordonnance. A) a prescription and B) a law. Since it is made up of melted down plastic pill containers and made to look like a ballgown. I think I would have called it something like Royal Script, playing off the multiple definitions of the word script, ne of which is “prescription.” But nobody asked me.
And while it does look like it would be suitable for a princess, I would hate to ask Kate Middleton to have to wear it. As I don’t think melted plastic is the most malleable of materials and according to the tag beside the dress, it weighs in at a little more than 200 pounds.
Detail from Pillbox Dress By Marie LineScanty Attire By Jeanne Cirume
I’m not sure what to make of this one. Despite using Styrofoam from packaging for the socks and the collar it is mainly made out of what they call a “vacuum bag” but is actually a Madvac Collector Bag. You know one of those little four wheeled buggies with a vacuum tube that looks like an elephant’s trunk that sucks up the garbage from the sidewalk? Well, the bag that is used to collect the trash was used to make this dress.
Bird's Nest made from Margie Gillis' hair from 1984
As I’ve mentioned before, there are signed objects from Quebecois vedettes displayed alongside the dresses. Some have obvious connections, some less so. This is one of the more obvious connections. While Margie Gillis has cut her hair (for a very long time she didn’t) this bird’s next comes from the period when she wasn’t cutting it. At the Biosphere they have a very nice story explaining how it came to be.
The reason it is an obvious connection is that the nest is displayed next to this dress.
Hairdress By Roxane Cheibes and Amélie Bruneau Longpré
It can’t be that comfortable to wear even if they attached the hair to a nylon hairstyling cape, I also would love to know how the hair was attached, colored and how much hairspray was used to keep the hair in place. And while it looks really cool, I’m not entirely convinced that hair counts ass garbage.
It also can serve as an example of how unreligious Quebecois culture has become. As recently as fifty years ago, a hairdress would have been worn by someone feeling particularly guilty about some thing (or things). But this exhibit makes no mention or reference in any way shape or form to the religious nature of wearing hair. Which is apparently still done by Carmelites.
Rear view of Hairdress By Roxane Cheibes and Amélie Bruneau LongpréDetails of Chapter Ten: Words & Wonder By Geneviève Oligny
Another impractical dress, especially since it is lit from within. You can see it in full here. I do not know, but I would imagine that this dress was possibly responsible for the Dramatic Lighting! (with the capital “D,” capital “L” and an exclamation mark) and as with the hairdress, I’m not convinced that books qualify as garbage material.
That all being said, an upskirt shot of Chapter Ten is a very abstract thing.
Details of Chapter Ten: Words & Wonder By Geneviève Oligny
I’ve been meaning to write this one for a fairly long time, since August actually. But seeing as how I took 104 pictures, getting them all organized, uploaded and labelled seemed like a daunting task, so I did what anybody else would do, I put it off. Until today. If you click through to see all the pictures, it’s going to take a while to load, sorry in advance.
Bag Garment By Mélanie Casavant and Bullet Dress By Geneviève Dumas and Geneviève Flageol
In short, since the Biosphere is an “Environment Museum” it only makes sense that they mount exhibits designed to promote environmental awareness. And some bright wag decided to commission 16 clothing designers (I think all women) to create dresses using refuse material.
Now while I am an environmentally aware person and keep a fairly sustainable lifestyle, I’m not big on preaching about it. As a consequence what really struck me about this exhibit was not its Green-ness, but that while everyone was going gaga over the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal here was a truly original fashion exhibit that was not getting any press anywhere.
Light Switch Wall Plate autographed by David Suzuki
And while I might not proselytize about sustainability, like certain people, I do champion the underdog and Outfits from a New Era at the Biosphere is definitely underdog material if there ever was. The museum probably counts the number of daily visitors in the high two figures, has some breathtaking views of Montreal and is a charter member of the Cult of Bucky. What more do you need?
Anyhows, while I do not consider myself a fashionista, nor an authority on fabrics and style, instead of viewing these as liabilities I figured (like usual) that instead, if I approached this as a learning opportunity it shouldn’t be a hindrance to writing about it and taking some pictures. Right?
Mermaid Skin By Geneviève Bouchard
To me it was more of a compare and contrast situation. While it seemed like everyone and their mother was raving about how original and inventive M. Gaultier’s dresses were, here were some truly original and inventive dresses that weren’t getting any attention whatsoever. And while I’m certain that at some point M. Gaultier did in fact actually touch the dresses on exhibit that bore his name, I’m fairly convinced that he didn’t actually do much (if any) of the sewing, knitting, weaving, embroidery or any of the other tasks involved in making the dresses.
Whereas even without doing serious research, I’d bet my bottom dollar that each and everyone of the designers who made the “Outfits from a New Era” was significantly involved in the actual fabrication of their dresses. And while I am all for the artist-as-thinker-and-not-necessarily-creator concept (see Andy Warhol’s Red Self-Portraits One, Two, Three, Four, Five , Six, Seven and Eight for a fascinating insight into the attribution of artwork)
Detail from Dress the Part By Isabelle Bérubé
If I’m going to make one complaint (actually as I’m less than halfway through, I imagine that there will be other complaints, let’s just call this one the first. Which is not to say or suggest that the exhibit is bad, just that there is always room for improvement). This contemporary fad, or what I hope is a fad, for Dramatic Lighting! (with the capital “D,” capital “L” and an exclamation mark) drives me up a wall. In general when it comes to art/culture/things to look at or watch, you have two choices if you’re indoors; A white cube or a black box.
White Cubes tend toward being bright and Black Boxes (as you might expect) tend to be dark. Since they are dark, the Black Boxes use highly focused spotlights to draw your attention to stuff that the exhibition designers want you to look at. In contrast to the White Cube where, for the most part, your eye is free to roam where you wish. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I can’t stand exhibits that are housed in Black Boxes. And Outfits from a New Era is, unfortunately in a Black Box, pity.
I don’t know if it is because my eyes don’t react well to large contrasts in brightness, or if because I’m in darkness for the most part I don’t get the nuances of color as well as I would if it were brighter, or if it has something to do with my glasses. But whatever it is, Dramatic Lighting! (with the capital “D,” capital “L” and an exclamation mark) bugs the heck out of me.
I think you can see what I mean by a lot of nuance being missed because of the Dramatic Lighting! (with the capital “D,” capital “L” and an exclamation mark) in the picture above. Light Flow By Chloé B. Fortin is a light, wispy and diaphanous something or other that to my mind would be appropriate in a boudoir or a pornographic film shoot. Apparently made from 2,500 light bulbs and 66 meters of stripped copper wire.
Light Flow By Chloé B. Fortin
One of those garments that professes to show more than it hides, in French it is called “le grand courant lumineux” or in a hackneyed translation “the great current of light,” it was initially called “Le grand souffle” which has more to do with breath and wind than electricity. Which gives a much better idea of the “wispy and diaphanous something or other nature” of the garment.
Detail from Light Flow By Chloé B. Fortin
You can see better detail pictures here> I’m fairly certain that it doesn’t light up or get illuminated from within. But beyond the wispy nature of it, I’m not quite certain what to make of it. While the use of the light-bulbs is alright, there isn’t really anything in it beyond the use of non-traditional materials that pushes any boundaries. And given what has been already done with LEDs and clothing, I’m inclined to think that’s it’s kind of like the clothes your sister’s friend in high school wore. Something designed to make her look good, not making any real statements and not that different from what everyone else was wearing.
This little frock caught my eye, although I don’t know if it was because it’s black, and as you know, black is the new black. Or if it was because it was strapless and since I am not y-chromosome challenged, bare shoulders always make me shiver slightly, even during the summer, even on a faceless mannequin. Or what. I’ll leave it up to your imagination.
Detail from Bag Garment By Mélanie Casavant
Anyhows, this was the first one, where I thought to myself: “I’m not so certain that they actually used stuff from the garbage to make this…” Seeing as how it is made from those plastic bags you take with you when you’re walking your dog and you’re playing State Farm and being a good neighbor and picking up after your dog and everything.
None the less, I like how it incorporates the paw print motif from the bags, is over the knee and has some sort of petticoat action happening. Kind of like being post-modern and anti-nostalgic at the same time.
Detail from Bag Garment By Mélanie Casavant
Although I’m not certain I want to know what’s in the bag…
