The Genius of Charles James is about the America’s most notorious couturier of the 20th century, cataloging his work, his life and career, and his ideas.

James is one of those rare, truly iconoclastic designers.  He was fascinated with cut and construction, experimenting with new shapes.  Above, this dress travels between the legs in the pattern of a “figure 8″.

Above is one of his clients from his early period in London – later Anne, Countess of Rosse, the very same who so carefully documented her own wardrobe in A Family of Fashion.  James had a very stormy career as an entrepreneur – despite the support of great patrons like Anne, he was unable to manage his finances and professional relationships, resulting in a string of failed businesses throughout his life.

What he was brilliant at was developing new forms in fabric, often his work is compared to that of a sculptor or an architect, which is apparent in garments like the one above with the distinctive, unusual, “arc” sleeve.

This book is full of delightful memories and candid recollections from those who knew him, including friends like photographer Bill Cunningham, who tells of James’ working relationship with the famous fashion illustrator Antonio towards the end of his life, when James lived in relative obscurity in the famous Chelsea hotel.

The collection of images and stories is a fascinating way to learn more about a designer who was ahead of his time, greatly concerned with posterity but unable to achieve it because of his personality.  His story, more than anything, reveals that personality may be the x-factor of success, what separates the icons from the also-rans among the talented and driven.

For Library Finds, I take a few books out of the library and share with you photo of a page or two or perhaps a random excerpt with brief comments of my own.

Today, two books based on museum exhibitions.

The House of Viktor & Rolf. I was curious about Viktor & Rolf, because I love their designs but I don’t know much about them. So I was excited to find this book, which is a thorough retrospective of the first ten years of their career.

The biggest treasure in this book is an interview with Viktor & Rolf and images of their early collections, student work and even (above) images of them in their tiny Paris studio apartment when they were just starting out.

Its an amazing story of manifesting ambition.  Their 1996 collection, “Launch”, was an art gallery exhibition of their fashion dreams in miniature – a tiny photo shoot, a tiny showroom, a tiny runway, and even an empty, sealed perfume bottle. Over the course of their career, these things became real.

You can right-click any of these photos to see them a bit larger.

In the retrospective, they went back to the beginning in a way by meticulously building their most iconic looks on small hand-made dolls. V&R have so many fascinating ideas, executed marvelously.  I love this collection “Russian Doll”, where Maggie Rizer is dressed in layer after layer of couture garments, one on top of the other.

“Blue Screen” is just brilliant – a collection of blue garments, during the runway they were simultaneously projected with moving images using the blue screen technique. You can see the video on Viktor&Rolf’s website.

A Family of Fashion: The Messel Dress Collection, 1865-2005. This is a remarkable collection of clothing from a family of women, especially a mother Maud Messel and daughter Anne Rosse, showing some of the most amazing artistry of London and Irish fashion from the 1890s to the 1960s.  These were well off, cultured and chic women who were passionate about expressing themselves through dress and also preserving their clothing for posterity.

The family had a passion for fancy dress, especially in 18th century and traditional Chinese styles.  Maud was an organizer of a needlework guild, and both she and her daughter Anne showed a remarkable amount of creativity in their dress. Maud was a lover of everything picturesque and was greatly influenced by the past in how she dressed.

Anne was a patron of notorious couturier Charles James before he relocated to America. Her collection of James dresses are avant-garde and yet like her mother, with a great appreciation for history.  Anne was an exceptionally beautiful and poised woman throughout her life, with great confidence in how she dressed.

These are such fascinating books.  There is something about investigating the dimension of time which deepens the perspective on fashion; current fashions and collections are much more interesting when you have a sense of all that came before.

For Library Finds, I take a few books out of the library and share with you photo of a page or two or perhaps a random excerpt with brief comments of my own.

Having perused through many of the shinier books already I have taken to opening up the older books, with their dull covers and plain spines, to see what I can find.  Often the insides are just as dull as the outside, but The American Way of Designing by Gertrude Cain (1950) delighted me.

Not only does each chapter start with a little cartoon (and the humour is pure garmento) and the writing is wonderfully candid as Gertrude Cain tries to set wannabe fashion designers straight so they’ll be prepared to design for mass-manufacturing – “the American Way”.

It seems to me that the number of potential designers must be reaching astronomical figures. Yet I know a manufacturer of a nationally advertised popular-priced dress line who would hire a designer tomorrow if he could find one who could fit the bill.  He would pay her more than $100 a week, give her a bonus at Christmas, and she would take two or three trips to New York each year.

By the way, you can right-click on these spreads to see a bigger image.

Interspersed between insights on the fashion business as it used to be is a lot of timeless advice for anyone who wants to design clothing, no matter what the whims of fashion are at the time.

Mme. Helene Lyolene, who has been my friend for many years has often said, “Listen to the fabric; it will tell you how to make it.” Satin asks to go dancing; taffeta wishes to dine out; gabardine would go to school or to work.  … Some materials combine and some do not.  Mme Lyolene said “Do not marry materials that fight.  No one will like them.”  The ability to determine whether two materials will marry is instinctive.

The author also takes us on a tour of the now-uncommon American factory, tells tales of her own early career successes and mistakes.  Though it is a short book it contains a great overview of the post-war fashion industry and makes me marvel at how  so much has changed in sixty years – and how some things never seem to change.

I leave you with the somewhat unencouraging ending to the book:

As Norman Douglas said in South Wind: “Has any man ever attained inner harmony by pondering the experience of others? Not since the world began!  He must pass through the fire.” Although I am rather inclined to agree with this cynical philosophy – human nature being what it is – I hope this book may temper the fire at leas a few degrees for those who must become designers.

I discovered Figleaf: The Business of Being in Fashion when reading a quote by Eve Merriam in another book, so I went straight to the source – this 1960 book is a literate, high comedy diatribe against the ills of the fashion industry from the inside.  The copy at the Ryerson library looks like it has been well-loved for the past 50 years.

What is fascinating is how little has really changed in half a century – Merriam’s gripes have not been solved, in fact they’ve been exacerbated, inflamed and revved up.

It’s great to be a celebrity, but in order to become one, you’ve got to exploit every medium there is, latch onto it, use it for all it’s worth – and get yourself used up in the process.  There seems to be no way to avoid the speed-up process of penetrating the market through advertising and publicity; and paradoxically, those twin riders that take you there are due to dump you off so the next comer can mount.  There are no loyalties owed to past successes, no respects or tributes offered.  There are only the profits in our own country to be made, now, and we the people, the paying customers.  No quarter can be given, no mercy extended.

The deliberate turning upon the fashion past increases people’s feelings that we ourselves cannot judge, that we have little taste of our own.  So we become even more dependent on experts to form opinions for us.  And so the next fashion can be foisted all the more readily.

It seems like the only thing that hasn’t been inflated in fashion is the price – in 1960 a $50 dress is a cheap dress, and an expensive dress is over $300.  The sum of the equation is not encouraging – if it seemed like fashion was going downhill then, it seems to be plummeting towards utter devaluation now.  Not a cheerful book and no solutions are offered – but a refreshingly clever and clear eyed take on the industry from someone who obviously loves fashion, and despairs for it.  I would love to see a similar book (or blog!) written today.

For Library Finds, I take a few books out of the library and share with you photo of a page or two or perhaps a random excerpt with brief comments of my own.

Fashion Victims: The Catty Catalogue Of Stylish Casualties, From A to Z by Michael Roberts.

I love this book. It is painstakingly cut paper collage fashion cartoons, with a clever impish quality reflected in the ryhming poems that go with them.

This title plate I found particularly amusing.  Guess WHO?

The illustrations are amazing, amusing, je t’aime.

The Fashion World, it’s often said,
Has wasted space inside its head.
And when it comes to introspection
Prefers a mirror for reflection.

–

Scenes from the Fashionable World by Kennedy Fraser.

So far I’ve only read the first chapter of this book, a series of essays on the fashionable social scenes for The New Yorker from the early eighties.  Reading the accounts of a social scene in the distant past makes me really question how fleeting the relevance is of most social scenes – they’re really only important at the time they happen, to the people they happen to, and even the accounts of very active and privileged social lives can seem terrifically mundane.  The remarkable thing about the book (so far, I am part way through) is the reassurance that all the social preoccupations have all been done before and it doesn’t really matter for very long anyway.

Thankfully, the later, longer chapters seem to get more lively and fashiony.  Looking forward to long profiles on Issey Miyake in his early days and Estee Lauder in her later days.

Loving the bit on Norma Kamali…

Norma Kamali is the first fashion designer of recent times to have achieved an international reputation without giving a single fashion show.  The presentation in the Space at the Hanae Mori Building was to be her first…

The video image of Norma Kamali blossomed once again all over the space.  “Spare me,” the real Norma Kamali said, with a groan.

For Library Finds, I take a few books out of the library and share with you a photo of one spread or perhaps a random excerpt with brief comments of my own.

Vogue: Even More Dash Than Cash

I have picked this one up a million times, attracted by the terrific title, but never actually took it out for closer inspection.  Besides gorgeous photos from the height of the supermodel era, and a few very dated takes on archetypes (see below, “The Dance Girl”), it still offers useful advice that stands the test of time.  This is probably because it came from an era that celebrated healthy, independent strong women.

That Vogue: Even More Dash Than Cash talks about tackling the wardrobe problem in terms of budget, in an era before fast, cheap trends were as ubiquitous as they are now, particularly appeals to me. The emphasis on quality, attitude, and improvisation is refreshing rather than the modern obsession with sales, knock-offs and cheap stuff.

The idea that you need plenty of money to look distinctive is an outdated concept.  There are advantages in a small budget.  It forces you to be disciplined, to think hard about how much you really need each article you buy.  A large wardrobe can be more of a hindrance than a help; the wider the choice, the harder it is to establish a consistent style.  Wearing different clothes every day is not a sign of being well dressed.

Digital Fashion Illustration with Photoshop and Illustrator

Besides one course in university, I am entirely self taught on the Adobe Suite.  Its interesting to see I have arrived at the same techniques as some other illustrators but of course there is a million different ways to use these incredibly versatile tools, and its fascinating and fun to try new stuff out.  This book has brief tutorials and examples from many contemporary fashion illustrators, focusing more on creative work rather than technical or croquis.

The Way We Wore: A Life In Threads
by Robert Elms

This is another sartorial life story, this time an autobiography.  British street style with a playlist to match… planning on filling up the iPod this weekend and taking it on the bus with me.

… He said, “You’ve got to come and see this band, they’re fucking terrible but somehow they’re fucking brilliant.”  I remember the words exactly because they were exactly right.  Much of the audience at early punk gigs was made up of people whose musical taste, like mine, was towards well-made, well-played funk records and a bit of highly polished glam dance from Bowie and Roxy.  Most of them rarely went to see bands at all, and some of them weren’t particularly into music.  They were drawn into the Sex Pistols and the Clash and all the rest of the emerging gang by the way they looked and the attitude their attire embodies.  It was the almost narcotic pull of their shocking glamour which drew you in.  The barbaric howl took some time to tune into.

Each week for Library Finds, I will go to the library, take out two books and share with you a photo of one spread or perhaps a random excerpt with brief comments of my own.

The Way She Looks Tonight: Five Women of Style
by Marian Fowler

This is one of my favourite fashion books, ever.  Written by Canadian historian Marian Fowler, it explores the sartorial biographies of five fascinating stylish women.  Two juicy quotes for you:

On Marlene Dietrich…

Critics ignored her singing and praised her gowns.  Each one delivered eros with maximum tease by being transparent enough to make you think you were seeing everything and covered enough, given those coy sequins, to make you realize you were seeing nothing.  One reviewer describing a gown concluded: “Houdini must have designed it.”  When, during a show at New York’s Mark Hellinger Theater, a young man near the front raised binoculars, Dietrich stopped right in the middle of a song and said sharply “You don’t have to do that.  Don’t kill the illusion.”

On Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis…

Jackie became an accomplished speed shopper.  She could be in and out of any store in the world in ten minutes or less, having run through at least $100,000.  “She had an eye for immediately spotting the most precious and expensive object wherever she goes,” sighed Ari, as his disenchantment grew.  She ignored price tags; she just pointed.  Sometimes, at Valentino or Givenchy showings, Jackie would buy almost the whole collection, not just the models that suited her.  Her consumptive fever was now seriously affecting her style.  Truman Capote recalls how sometimes when they were together in New York, Jackie would walk into a store, order three dozen identically styled silk blouses in all the colors available, give an address and walk out.  She seemed dazed, hypnotized, in a trance.  In one binge at Bergdorf’s, she bought thirty-six pairs of shoes.

Lucian Lelong by Jacqueline Demornex

Before there was the house of Dior, the house of Balmain, and the house of Givenchy, these famous couturiers worked for the one of the best pre-war couturiers – Lucian Lelong.  Lelong was incredibly well respected and his entrepreneurial spirit anticipated what fashion would become in the 1960s and beyond even as his own name faded.

This book is beautifully illustrated with stunning photographs (including a few by Man Ray) and a tremendous collection of illustrations for magazines and advertisements including these ones by Christian Berard.  Click the images in this post for big!

Who still goes to the library?  I do – and I pay $50 a year for the privilege of accessing the stacks of my university library.  Its well worth it, as an applied arts sort of school there are books on practically everything (with emphasis on practically) and that includes fashion.

I have decided to start a new weekly column to encourage myself to make this a more regular habit.  Beside that, to share with you some of my library finds.  Each week I will go to the library, take out two books – one useful, one amusing, and share with you a photo of one spread or perhaps a random excerpt with brief comments of my own.

Oh, and you can click the photos for “big”.

Fashion Illustrator by Bethan Morris.

I found this one by scanning the spines in the fashion illustration section for books I haven’t seen before and found this – a relatively new (2006) fashion illustration textbook.  This is one of the better new ones I have found, full of gorgeous colour illustrations by many artists and in many styles.  It has some basic tutorials by different artists on different techniques, as well as brief interviews with many different artists.  As a text it is more of a survey, giving a broad overview of history, technique, styles, and careers.

The best part – and I have not seen this before in an illustration text – is interviews with some clients including Promostyl.  Well worth clicking for big!

Chic Savages by John Fairchild

This book reads like its from another century on another planet.  John Fairchild was born into the publishing business, inheriting Women’s Wear Daily and then launching his own “brainchild”, W, to feature the lifestyles, gossip and fashions of the rich and famous that fascinated him so much.  Enough to write a book about it.

WWD often features sketches from fashion designers and Fairchild cleverly includes some in this book.  I am a great fan of Ferre’s famous fast lines.

It is too hard to pick one excerpt from this book.  Pretty much open any page and you’ll find something snooty, silly or splendid.  Randomly:

At the Ungaro show in the Musee des Arts Decoratifs panic sents in because the security is so tight.  And to make matters worse the Ungaro guards spot outside the door the best copyist in the world: Victor Costa, Texas manufacturer, who has copied from all the top Paris couturiers — particularly Lacroix and Ungaro — and almost overnight delivered their designs to the stores at very reasonable prices.  This time Costa is in dark glasses, leaning against the museum wall and swinging his satchel, which I am sure is full of design goodies from other shows that have already been facsimilied back to Texas, where busy Mexican hands are sewing up all of Paris.