Orientalism in Fashion - Essay Example

?Discuss the significance of ‘Orientalism’ in the haute couture designs of Paul Poiret and include some reference to relevant art works from the sameperiod leading up to World War One. Orientalism as a fashion theme has been in existence since the beginning of the last century. The French haute couture designer Paul Poiret deserves major credit for kick starting this genre into mainstream fashion. Today we see symbols and artifacts from Orientalism in a variety of places – “from second-hand and junk shops to Miss Selfridge and Liberty, there are knot-and-tie fastenings, kimono sleeves, satin pyjama trousers, mandarin collars, cheongsams and Western-cut clothes in Chinese silks." (Butterfield-Rosen 2009) One can attribute this invasion of Oriental elements into European art and fashion to Paul Poiret and his imaginative and bold style that he pioneered in the decade leading up to the First World War. After inaugurating his fashion house in 1903 on the rue Auber, Poiret’s business grew quickly. Parisian women found the clear lines and simple forms of his designs very appealing. Poiret is the first couturier to “raise the waist in women's dresses, recalling Empire lines and thereby creating an elongated silhouette, like a cue stick.” (Blanchard 1994) The invasion of oriental elements into Parisian fashion was so pronounced that by 1913, one can see everywhere loose-fitting waists, oriental chemises or Russian blouses, drawn into “a sash of velvet or satin, or where there is no sash, a band of embroidery encircles the hips to give the same effect." (Roman & Marquardt 1992) At the time Paul Poiret was establishing his career in fashion design there was a sense of stagnation and limitation in fashionable expression for women. At the turn of the century when Poiret opened his couture house, women’s figures “were not only divided in two by a whalebone corset, but also constrained by masses of fabric”. (Web 2007) Poiret went about changing this condition and hence freed a generation of women from constricted dresses. His wife and muse Denise was also his foremost model for trying new design prototypes. What Poiret wanted to achieve was to bring back the classical dressing sensibilities that he so admired and assimilated into his aesthetics. He first encountered classical paintings at the Louvre as a school boy. His unique design style shifted the emphasis to the shoulders; the waist was raised to a considerable degree. His style reflected the neo-Grecian Directoire sensibilities of erstwhile art patrons Empress Josephine and Lady Hamilton. To accentuate the contours of the body Poiret employed fine fabrics such as silk, tulle and muslin. He also reduced the hemline into that iconic model called the hobble skirt. (Web 2007) The Oriental elements to Paul Poiret’s designs were manifest in his use of gold, fur, fringes and turbans – some of which are being reinvented contemporarily at Prada. Poiret’s embrace of Oriental elements reached its peak in Paris with the unveiling by Leon Bakst of the Ballets Russes. One of the stand-out designs in the years preceding the First World War is the Persian themed designs that were seen during the 1002nd Night party in 1911. Exhibiting his showmanship during the event, Poiret dressed up as a sultan and locked up his wife in a golden cage. As usual she modeled his latest creation: harem pants. Poiret was flooded with orders for these pants. Women saw in them an avenue for liberty, if only to let them dance to the emergent cultural craze for the tango. (Web 2007) Art 1. Two Dresses by Paul Poiret (Plate 2 from Les Robes de Paul Poiret), illustrated by Paul Iribe, 1908. The significance of Poiret’s Orientalist designs emerges from their widespread cultural effects. For example, the sultan harem pants were in such vogue that respected architecture journal commented and illustrated Poiret’s works through the artful photographs of Edward Steichen. The journal article went on to praise Poiret’s work as an “aesthetically unified modernity”. (Dopp 2007) The participation of photographers such as Paul Iribe and Georges Lepape stand testimony to the importance of Poiret’s work. The endorsement of Poiret’s Oriental designs by the popular arts magazine La Gazette signifies the popularity and acceptance of Poiret’s style in the decade preceding the First World War. Thanks to the popularization of Oriental design the public demand for chinoiserie grew rapidly in the years leading up to the Great War. Artifacts and accessories such as paper parasols, lacquer boxes and simple tunics of ornate silk brocade became quite common. For the first time the clothing monopoly held by Oriental Warehouse has been challenged and dismantled. The warehouse had been the de facto fashion house for importing and dispensing Chinese silks, Indian shawls, carpets and jewelry from the East for well over a century. But the Bakst and Poiret costumes that were inspired by the Ballets Russes loosened the hold of Oriental Warehouse. What was special about Poiret’s productions is their unique fusion of East and West, especially the irreverent manner in which clothes are mixed and matched. For example, A Japanese kimono could be paired with work boots, a sizeable Chinese shawl could be matched with a tunic and trousers. (Blanchard 1994) Women who are far removed from the Far-Eastern gene-pool can yet look fantastic in the multi-layered Kimono suits, as the following illustration depicts. Art 2. Fashion Designs by Paul Pioret (Plate from La Couturiere Parisienne), illustrated by Paul Iribe, 1908. One of the accomplishments of Poiret’s designs is its freeing of women from corsets. With the introduction of harem pants and pants-skirts into the women’s range in 1910 Poiret had fully embraced Oriental exotica. He created “semisheer harem pants, introduced turbans with egrets, pearl necklaces, and lampshade- like skirts.” (Vassiliev 2000) There were definite Bakst influences in terms of the fiery color tones he utilize: for example, carmine combined with ultramarine, orange aligned to emerald, and pink fused with gold. Further, “using theatrical trims of fur and fringe and embroidery of beads, jet, and stone, Poiret achieved unusual effects and great commercial success.” (Vassiliev 2000) Though Poiret never admitted in public to Bakst influences, it is fairly obvious to Parisian fashion aficionados of the 1910s. There is irony in Poiret’s success with Oriental themes, for they were reintroduced and appreciated in certain regions of the East. Russia is a good example, where the acceptance of Poiret’s designs closed “the circle of the metamorphosis of prewar fashion”. (Vassiliev 2000) Although the Russian high society, including the aristocracy were at first indifferent to Poiret’s work, they soon warmed up to its charm. In contrast, the stage actors and other entertainers took up more readily with Poiret. National and provincial actresses including “the operetta prima donna Irina Orlova, and the dramatic actresses V. A. Mironova, E. V. Stefanovich, A. P. Milich, E. T. Zhikhareva, B. I. Rutkovskaya, and Maria Verdinskaya had themselves photographed dressed a la Ballets Russes.” (Butterfield-Rosen 2009) Paul Poiret’s adoption of Oriental elements in his designs had significant cultural repercussions. For example, after his 1002 Nights Ball, given in his Paris townhouse in June 1911, Oriental balls became a rage. Countess Klein Michel tried to imitate this grand exotic event at St. Petersburg. Countesse de Clermont-Tonnerre followed suit in Paris. These balls brought the lampshade skirt to the limelight. It consisted of “semisheer muslin harem pants and a short skirt with a hoop, like a lampshade.” (Vassiliev 2000) Not only was the model popular but also its exotic context. Suddenly even ladies from elite societies wanted to dress up like slave girls or concubines to an Arabian emperor. These cultural currents seeped into other visual arts. The great fashion illustrator George Lepape, for example, depicted women in Oriental erotic settings wearing some of Poiret’s designs. Art 3. L'Embarras du Choix. Costume Tailleur de Paul Poiret (Plate VI from Gazette du Bon Ton No. 3), illustrated by Georges Lepape, 1913. In order to fully comprehend the cultural significance of Poiret’s Oriental style, one need to look at their influence on other artefacts of the pre-war era. For example, their influence on interior decoration was quite profound. As a consequence, bright colors and shiny tones became the norm. The smallest of style elements in people’s bedrooms and halls were touched by the exotic aesthetic. Draperies that were modelled on the large Persian curtains became commonplace. Even carpets and pillows were not spared the Oriental influence. The extent Orientalism’s cultural significance can be ascertained from the popularity of oriental interiors by Louis Sue. His “Atelier Francais was exhibited at the Salon d'Automne. The popularity of such interiors lasted well into the twenties as exemplified by the oriental boudoirs that Poiret's AtelierMartine was still designing in 1925.” (Vassiliev 2000) Art 4. Illustration of three Paul Poiret Evening Coats (Plate from Les Robes de Paul Poiret), illustrated by Paul Iribe,1908. Poiret’s Oriental theme spilled over into his cosmetic creations as well. Such perfume varieties as the Maharaja, Chinese Night, Forbidden Fruit, and Golden Chalice became household names just as the war was breaking out. Drawing upon Poiret’s success competing perfume firms “created spicy scents like Sacuntala and Nirvana. Even the magazine advertisements for the famous German cologne Troica began using scenes from Scheherazade.” (Vassiliev 2000) The influence of Poiret’s Oriental style percolated even into stage productions. For example, oriental costumes were prepared for “Nabuchodnosor ( 1911) by Marie- Armand Michel Maurice Faramond de Montels and for LeMinaret ( 1913) by Jacques Richepin. Jacques Dresa's costumes for La Nuit Persane ( 1911) and Georges Lepape's illustration La Comedie Persane ( 1912) show similar awareness of Poiret’s designs for the theater. Critics noted that designs for the Le Dieu Bleu ( 1912), and L'Oiseau deFeu ( 1910) caused the new richness in fashion and interest in oriental styles.” (Roman & Marquardt 1992) The Oriental world of early twentieth century Paris left a mark on the advertising industry too. Inspired by Poiret’s fashion and the craze for harem-like interiors, commercial artists grew their business by linking products with the intrigue and exoticism of the Orient. (Roman & Marquardt 1992) Finally, the significance of Poiret’s Oriental fashion continued through and after the Great War. During this period he popularized l'art negre which incorporated elements of Far Eastern and North African artistic styles. Poiret was the central figure in this movement supported by connoisseurs like Jacques Doucet. In 1919 Poiret undertook a 60 day tour of the Morocco (which was then under Protectorate status). He returned from there in a ship full of exquisite artefacts, including, antique pottery, priceless carpets, veils, scarves, belts, and embroidered dresses. He then channelled the aesthetics of all these handicrafts into his new Moroccan range. The extent of Poiret’s success is to be gleaned from Doucet’s endorsement of his works from this period. The wealthy collector invested in Oriental and African visual art, especially in the form of textiles, furniture, and ceramics. His technically advanced modernist studio in Neuilly (France) valued and exhibited colonial arts on par with the masterpieces by Matisse, Picasso, and other leading School of Paris painters and sculptors. (Benjamin 2003) Bibliography Bellow, Juliet. "Fashioning Cleopatre: Sonia Delaunay's New Woman." Art Journal 68, no. 2 (2009): 6+. Benjamin, Roger. Orientalist Aesthetics: Art, Colonialism, and French North Africa, 1880-1930. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. Blanchard, Tamsin. "The Silk Route Revisited." The Independent (London, England), December 9, 1994. Butterfield-Rosen, Emmelyn. "Chic of the New: Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen on the Ballets Russes Centennial." Artforum International, May 2009, 154+. Craik, Jennifer. The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion. London: Routledge, 1993. Dopp, Bonnie Jo. "Classic Chic: Music, Fashion, and Modernism." Notes 64, no. 2 (2007): 288+. Roman, Gail Harrison, and Virginia Hagelstein Marquardt, eds. The Avant-Garde Frontier: Russia Meets the West, 1910-1930. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1992. Vassiliev, Aleksandre. Beauty in Exile: The Artists, Models, and Nobility Who Fled the Russian Revolution and Influenced the World of Fashion. Translated by Antonina W. Bouis and Anya Kucharev. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2000. Web, Iain R. "Poiret Mystery ; He Freed Women from Corsets, Invented Lifestyle Brands, and Dressed the Best. So Why, Asks Iain R Web as New York Celebrates the Great Innovator, Did He Die Forgotten and Broke?" The Independent (London, England), May 7, 2007. Read More