What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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September 25-OctOber 1, 2022 What'S up! 9 Guest curator Michelle Tolini Finamore wanted an exhibit that featured some of the lesser known names influential to american fashion. She discussed these patchwork dresses Sept. 8 during a media preview at crystal bridges museum of american art in bentonville. (NWa Democrat-Gazette/charlie Kaijo) Swimwear and intimates are a part of the ready-to-wear movement, which is something that curator michelle Finamore says that america does particularly well. this 1950s gold lamé bathing suit is displayed in the swimwear section of "Fashioning america," on a stage that mimics being poolside, next to a running loop of video from the same era. (NWa Democrat-Gazette/charlie Kaijo) pieces are runway pieces made for a particular size." Many items on display come from private collections, such as that of Hamish Boles, Vogue magazine's editor-at-large and editor-in-chief of The World of Interiors, who has been collecting since he was 10 years old. Finamore says she has borrowed pieces from him for every exhibition she has done, since private collections have things that museums do not and often lend an alternative history. "It's astonishing" what he has, she says. "Mind blowing in many ways." Several core pieces come from Jimmy Raye's of Salem, Mass., known as one of the best private collections of fashion and vintage accessories. So much of what's on display is not made of the highest end materials. Instead, Finamore focused on the American tradition of low key fabrics: denim, gingham, cotton and seeing how various people upscaled them and moved them into a different realm in an interesting way. "Grit and functional, that's what Americans do so well, but designers elevate it into high fashion," Finamore says. Styles by Carolina Herrera are on display, too. As the wife of the founder of Ebony Magazine, Herrera would organize fashion shows, traveling the country to smaller cities to highlight fashion — couture, Parisian and American — in front of a more diverse audience. "Not everybody could attend high fashion shows, that's not the way most people operate," Finamore says. "But (designer) Patrick Kelly attended one of those shows, and it was transformative for him, a Black boy from the South." Among the oldest dresses on display is what Finamore calls a "spectacular" custom-made gown — black covered in multi-floral pass manger (similar to trim that has material balls like you might see on curtain edges), made in the 1860s by Madame Olympe Boisse. While the father of couture touted himself as the first to sign his garments, French-born Mme. Olympe was actually signing her gowns in New Orleans in the 1860s. The "Fashioning America" exhibit has seven sections, walking viewers through historic pieces, American fashion trends and disruptions to those trends. The introductory section includes a Nudie suit, named after Nudie Cohn, the rodeo tailor. Nudie's spangled, embroidered, sequined suits are beautiful and well constructed, Finamore says, and she set it alongside a designer Fort Lonesome from Austin, a woman- owned work following the tradition of the rhinestone cowboy. The "Grit" section addresses the history of denim and displays a pair of rare, vintage gold miner Levi's made in America at Amoskeag Mills next to a painting of the same factory that Crystal Bridges already had secured by loan. Also shown is a denim suit from Ginew Jeans, the only Indigenous-owned denim factory. A "Street Wear" section covers the 1940s to modern times and details how luxury European firms are hiring American designers to bring the street wear vibe to them, starting with the zoot suit. The exhibit wouldn't have been complete without sections for accessories, which includes American creation and creativity in footwear and hats; ready-to wear, which is a strong American contribution to the world of fashion; as well as swimwear and intimates, extending that to Alfred Shaheen's aloha/Hawaiian shirts and many female innovators. "This is one area where women could participate because it was related to women's bodies," Finamore says. It highlights corset inventor Emmeline Philbrook, who filed patents to make them more comfortable, and other designers like Olga Erteszek, a Polish immigrant with an underwear empire. If seeing all the unique clothes gives you the itch for trying something on, be sure to stop at the first-ever interactive digital garment to be displayed in a museum exhibition. The experience is a collaboration with bionic pop artist and futurist Viktoria Modesta. Using your movements, you can help her avatar try on a few outfits. And finally, before you leave, take a walk through glamour on the red carpet, the true American invention. "Hollywood and media are a through line throughout the show," Finamore says. "The music industry and all that profoundly impacted the transmission of American ideas across the globe."