Health & Beauty
Epoch Times
Continued from Page 28
The Zeitgeist of the ’70s
As we walked through the exhibition McClendon
put into perspective just how it came to be that
the two designers were so successful in the early
1970s, explaining that the decade was an incredibly
difficult time in fashion because dress codes broke
down, counterculture really reached mainstream,
and couture had fallen from its dominant position.
“I think that both of them tapped into the
zeitgeist, looking at all the influences, and ended up
pulling out of that very similar styles—as happens
today with designers too,” said McClendon.
Both designers are equally represented by the
approximately 80 ensembles and 20 accessories that
are arranged thematically.
The exhibition gives due importance to Saint Laurent’s Rive Gauche range which is often downplayed
in other YSL retrospectives. Rive Gauche was an
important line for the designer because he used it
as a platform to experiment with non-Western and
vintage influences that were considered “non-couture”, feeling the pulse of the buyers, so to speak,
before dedicating to them a whole couture collection. No doubt it was also a way of conditioning his
clients to accept whatever boundaries Saint Laurent
chose to push in search of a signature style.
The effectiveness of this modus operandi for Saint
Laurent turned out to be a game changer for the
fashion industry. According to McClendon, even
though Saint Laurent is still thought of as a grand
couturier, he was in fact very heavily invested into
designing for women of all types, ages, and classes.
He made a very conscious effort
to create a synthesis between his
couture and his ready-to-wear
lines.
This is very evident in the
exhibition.
But more about that zeitgeist.
Wartime Vintage
(L) Halston, dress,
printed knit cotton, c.1976, USA.
(R) Yves Saint
Laurent dress
in printed silk
chiffon, made in
France in 1971.
A gift of Lauren
Bacall.
Saint Laurent
Rive Gauche,
smoking evening
suit in black
wool, satin, and
off-white silk
crepe, France, c.
1982.
March 20 – April 2 , 2015 29
predetermined and structured fit designed to look
like it has been draped by the wearer.
The vast majority of the pieces are very easily
translatable into today’s styles, made even more
poignant by the fact that we are in the midst of
a literal ’70s revival, judging by the recent Fall/
Winter 2015/2016 collections.
On show is a great cross section of Halston’s
best pieces. The racer back that is so ubiquitous in
modern sportswear can be seen in one of Halston’s
evening gowns—a design element from 1930s
bathing suits. Halston was also influenced by Claire
McCardell—the designer credited with having
created the “American look”—evident in his self-tie
dresses and tops.
Both designers took from the past what they
needed to express the shift toward more streamlined
garments that were also practical. “They created
garments which you could fold up and put into a
suitcase; because their clientele
were jet-setters, but they have this
modernity and functionality to
them as well as this intense and
decorative fashionable quality,”
said McClendon.
The relaxed menswear-inspired separates is where there
is most cross-over between YSL
and Haston, according to McClendon.
It all began during
the ’70s when
women started
to buy 1930s and
1940s clothes from
thrift stores and
started to wear
them both during
the day and out in
the evening.
It all began during the ’70s when
women started to buy 1930s and
1940s clothes from thrift stores
and started to wear them both during the day and out in the evening,
recounts McClendon. Saint Laurent tapped into this trend for vintage dressing quite literally, as was
evident in 1971 when he presented
his 1940s couture collection which
was panned in the press.
“Critics considered it very ‘uncouture’ and deemed it shocking
for him to revive the styles from the war period, to
the extent that people thought he was a Nazi sympathiser, or that the women looked like tramps wearing these clothes,” said McClendon.
Admittedly, the fact that he sent models down
the runway without any underwear in sheer black
lace would not have helped to impress the critics
who were already having a hard time grasping the
concept that vintage is good.
But the young women, for whom vintage clothes
did not have the same negative connotations,
judged the clothes according to their practical
and aesthetic merits alone. So when Saint Laurent
translated these trends into his Rive Gauche line,
such as the chubby and the fun printed shirt dresses
that are on show, the young women whom the line
was targeted at “really went crazy for these vintage
styles”. They started to consume them a such a high
rate that the line was an unprecedented hit.
Prompted by the later success of these Rive
Gauche versions, supposedly, the famous fashion
writer Eugenia Sheppard travelled to Paris to apologise in person to Saint Laurent for panning his couture collection so badly when it first emerged.
Halston also referenced vintage style but he was
fixated on translating the 1930s style into modern,
wearable clothes. His evening wear clearly demonstrates Halston’s interest in showing off the unfettered structure of the human body with all its
curves.
Modern Functionality
McClendon explains how the silk jersey dresses
by both Halston and YSL highlight the different
approaches to design. Halston lets the wearer tie
and wrap the fabric around the body, while YSL
gives the wearer an equally slinky style but with a
Where They Diverge
“As you get into evening wear,
particularly midway through
the decade, that’s when you see
the divergence because for YSL
evening was a time for fantasy
and drama. For Halston, by the
second half of the 70s, evening
was the time for sleek, minimal,
and modern,” said McClendon.
A lot of the garments on show are exhibited in
such a way as to draw attention to how the two
designers treated certain themes. Surprisingly,
many garments are so similar in style that one has
to carefully read the text boxes as to know who
designed what. And although Halston is known as
being very monochromatic, preferring to highlight
the structure of the garment and the body, this
in no way means that he shied away from colour.
Likewise, Saint Laurent, known as a great colourist,
knew how to adapt his colour palette to a more
demure day-wear style.
The highs and lows of the two designers’ careers
is also depicted in the exhibition through a visual
timeline. Of particular note is how their paths
dramatically diverged at the end of their careers.
As Saint Laurent became part of the establishment,
Halston fell from favour. He was the first designer of
his calibre to sign a licensing deal with retail chain
J.C. Penney—which subsequently lead to highend stores like Bergdorf Goodman dropping his
Halston Limited line as they felt that the Halston
brand had been irretrievably damaged.
Of course with the benefit of hindsight, even
in this, Halston was ahead of his time. The list of
American designers names who have collaborated
with retail chain stores like H&M and Target is a
very long one. And nowadays words like “epic” are
used to describe this type of collaboration as in the
case of Alexander Wang’s range for H&M.
Perhaps someone owes Halston an apology as
well. Although, even if Halston were alive, sadly the
gesture seems incongruous with the zeitgeist of the
times we live in.
The exhibition will be on view through April 18.
More information at www.fitnyc.edu/museum.asp