Paul Poiret. Orientalism.

 
Orientalism was one of Poiret’s major influences. Poiret’s signature was sensual, dramatic and seductive garments with his lavish use of exotic fabrics, metallic decoration, beading and embroideries.

I do think exoticism in fashion is influencial—especially back in the early 1900. Work of design can be characterized by uncanny things. It seems like the more unusual the more valuable. His work was extravagan with inspiration in art nouveau, the east, and the exotic ballets of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe, he introduced these layered dresses, his iconic “lampshade” tunic and his “harem” trousersturbans to high fashion. All these these oriental fantasies and lively colours earned him the description, “Pasha Paris”.

The first one is the famous “The Thousand and Second Night”

  

‘Scheherazade’ in 1911 was a very typical exoticism example for reference. ”The  Thousand and Second Night” dress revealed the strong influence of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes on the designer’s imagination.The Scheherazade opened up a lot movement, colours, music for inpiration. It has got a strong sexual motif within and has put forward sex and death on stage. Its incredible success created much fantasy.

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“It is what a woman, leaves off, not what she puts on that gives her cachet” – Paul Poiret

Happened to see this quote of him 😀 though noting to do with orientalism.

Textile and Worldwide Trade

Why did Europeans want Indian textile? Apart from all the spice, tea, coffee, gold and ivory they have imported, they were interested in cotton and cashmere. Cotton can’t be grown in Europe. Moreover, there is something special about indian textile. ‘Muslin’, originated in Bangladesh, is a loosely-woven cotton. European found it a very fine cotton. (But the funny thing is American found it entirely opposite.)

Marie Antoinette in her famous “muslin” portrait.
 

‘Chintz’ is another fabric that European was fond of. Chintz is a printed cotton fabric. Colours is brightened after washing unlike the European linen. European couldn’t dye this well till 1800. In 1620, chintz was so popular in England and 50000 pieces was imported. So they became cheap enough for the middleclass.

In 1800, neoclassicism style of dress and interior based on ancient Greek and Rome became fashionable in Europe. These neoclassical draped clothing were comfortable and flattering. At that time, European mainly produced linen and wool fabrics so they were very keen on Indian muslins and soft Kashmir shauls— all these soft, sheer and transparent textile. 

The trades between East and West changed after 1770 when industrialisation began. Britain has got more advantages —especially when ‘Spinning Jenny’ the machine for spinning cotton is invented. So by 1800 Britain overtook India as major world exporterof printed cotton cloth. The relation of Britain and India changed subtly. People bagan to make textile in Britain for India. The European studied Asian tastes. By 1860, British textile firms sold their printed cotton to India, China, Burma, Wast Africa…

POP UP

It’s been a while since I’ve come up with a post. This new project is something I’ve been rather confused. After all its just the first project… I’m at a state of exploring and learning from each other. The theme of it is about human faces. Well,…intially i was quite excited about this. Cause Im working on  project. All the research and developing and designing we’ll have to do. And of course with supervising from professional and inspiring tutors, and the whole range of machines and facilities we can use. But then after awhile I’ve found the ”faces” didn’t inspire much enthusiasm
in textile designs. To fix this , I was adding more things in the theme. I’m also looking at clown’s face now. Therein lies a bit irony between real and fake , tragedy and comedy. I do want to work more conceptually

At the moment, my work tends to be more illustrative and figurative. I think I’ll be doing something more abstract and vague in shape. I have to train myself to tackle the simpler stuff. Cause a lot of time less is more. Simple things can be very provocative .

African… in comtempary context

This is our lecturer Clare Rose and very often she takes us to different ongoing exhibitions. Talking about ‘Collecting thing,collecting people’, we guys headed off to the African hall at British Museum.

Literally, the idea about collecting thing and collecting people is about cultural exchange as a result of colonialism.

We were on the topic of discussing whether the spectators have neglected the development of Afican comtemporary art and design , while focus tracing back to their traditional craft idea.

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The cultural exchange started back in 1600. The early contact among Europe, Africa and Asia was because of trades. However, often European was in a disadvantage as they have little to exchange. The hierarchical, courtyly society in Asia, Africa and Pacific seem ”normal” to European as those weren’t primitive.

However, after 1700 industialisation went on progress in Europe while non-industrial culture in Africa and Asia seemed old fashion to them. And when the religion war broke out in Europe (from 1600), it made religion a political issue. All the contact with Europeans changed the non-Europe culture. There were new diseases, new weapons, new forms of wealth. They gradually broke up with traditional societies and make them unstable.

The idea about ”collecting people” is after 1850 when Europeans started trading with other cultural places. ” The Pescent of Man ”(1871) by Charles Darwin has discussed on classifying plants, animals ….and people. It is about races, primitivism, ancestors… When European started those trades, they wanted to rule over the import places so as to guarantee stable supply for raw material( such as metal/ ivory/ cotton…). Therefore, there comes COLONIALISM.

If we looked at the colonial war at Benin…. so, Benin and Britain has traded since 1600. But this colonial war began when Britain invaded them due to quarrel over trade. The Benin Royal Palace was destroyed and part of it was brought back to British Museum. Those African artefacts were then displayed in Britain. The British liked it. The way of those African artefacts displayed emphasized ”exotic” and ”primitive”.

These are the Benin Bronzes —typical plaques portraying warriors

All those African culture introduced to Europe was vital. European bagan to take African Art as inspiration. For example, the Demoiselles d’ Avignon by Picasso in 1907.

 

The African culture encouraged a lot of modern art in Europe. European artists after Picasso admired African art as it was primitive. It flourished ! and so all these non-British culture are shown in the museum for us to explore!

This piece of Silk wall-hanging was made by a group of women from Adithi based in Patna, Bihar. The Adithi is an organisation that trains women handicrafts skills. They wanted to address issue such as poverty and social injustice and the spread of AIDS.  This appliqued hanging depicts the different ways AIDS is transmitted: through blood transfusion, unprotected sex, from infected mother to her child. It also shows health worker distributing condoms as a mean of birth control education.