CHRISTIAN DIOR ET GRANVILLE

CHRISTIAN DIOR ET GRANVILLE

‘Aux Sources De La Légende’

Now open until 7^th January 2018

Musée Christian Dior

Villa Les Rhumbs

50400 Granville

France

www.musee-dior-granville.com

Many museums have close links with their subject matter. Few museums can have such close an association with its ‘name’ as the Musée Christian Dior.  For the villa housing the museum, Les Rhumbs, was where M. Dior spent his early years.

As part of the celebrations for the 70^th year of the Dior fashion house, this exhibition reveals how Granville and the Dior family home influenced and shaped M. Diors thinking and career. 

The clothes on display are magnificent and beautifully set out. Each case is imaginatively set and the information boards are full of detail. The museum supplies excellent non French language notes, so you don’t have to miss a thing.As well as the garments themselves the exhibition enables you to discover what the rooms of the house were used for when the Dior family lived there. I have been to many exhibits here, but this added a dimension to the experience for me. Knowing you were in the dining room or that this room was Christian Dior’s bedroom was delightful.I enjoyed finding out snippets from the past… discovering ‘Miss Dior’ perfume was named after Catherine Dior, Christians younger sister. Reading that the pink and grey colours that figure in Dior history stem from the pink painted house and the grey gravel garden paths. Finding out that M. Dior ‘fell in love ‘with British food and enjoyed a full English and mince pies (though not simultaneously I trust.) It is all background and explanation and the sort of historical detail that is very satisfying to know. As an example of the meticulous and stylish way these exhibitions are managed, one case held a pink day dress from CD’s New York collection S/S1957 and a grey dress from A/W 1951’s Haute Couture. Both perfect examples of the signature colours and as the final touch, the pink dress had a grey card with its details and the grey a pink. A small thing, but very pleasing.

The clothes shown were a mixture of early Dior and later designers who carried the torch onwards.  Marc Bohan…Raf Simons …both had their day. There was too much of Galliano there I felt. His clothes are so OTT and theatrical as to jar against the style and flair of the other designers.

I enjoyed my visit tremendously. Do go if you can…the gardens are (almost) worth the trip alone.

La Villa Les Rhumbs c1920 & present day.
LHS ©Musée Christian Dior.RHS Collection Ville de Granville ©Benoit Croisy.

A Museum In A Shirt Factory. Un Musée Dans Une Usine De Chemises.

Musée de la Chemiserie

Argenton-sur-Creuse

Indre. France

http://www.museedelachemiserie.fr

Shirts in colour and shirts in white

Colourful cufflinks and collars in a box.

The museum of shirts has certainly got shirts, but it also has cufflinks and collars, waistcoats and dressing gowns.

To give it its full title ‘Musee de la Chemiserie et de l’élégance masculine’ (or the Museum of shirt making and masculin elegance if you prefer) is a gem. Single themed museums can be a little specialist, focused if you will, but they can also introduce you to ideas and styles and images that you have missed,

The museum building is a former shirt factory and is large and light and airy.

There are temporary and permanent exhibitions.

Up to the permanent exhibition first.

17thcentury

First you see the white billowing shirts associated with cavaliers and cads.

Then into a beautifully laid out gallery, which gives the impression of a gentleman’s club. Notices are in English and French, ensuring you get all the details.

 

The story of the shirt and its place in society plays out case by case. White shirts, collarless shirts. Colourful shirts.

And a few curios like the shirt worn by Frank Sinatra, designed with a panel from the back buttoning at the front to make sure his shirt stayed neatly tucked in when he was on stage.

There are work shirts and sport shirts and military too, contextualised with notes, ties, and original packaging.

Collarless shirts and collars to go with them abound. A few waistcoats have their place, as does mention of personal hygiene and bathing habits.

Pleasing to note that laundry was sent by to England by the rich in the 1900s. England was considered to be the only country that had the secret of perfect laundering and starching.

 

 My favourite part was the cufflinks.

 The case of 1970s cufflinks speaks volumes about taste in the 70s, not to mention how strong shirt wearers arms where.

Much use is made to very great effect of contemporary publicity materials. From a gorgeous art deco green shirt advertising prop to a Don Draperesque crisp white shirt and tie shop fitting.

       

 There is a marvellous recreated workroom you can walk round, describing daily life in the factories.Sadly it also details how the shirt industry has shrunk. During the Belle Époque (1871-1914), described as the golden age of the shirt factories in the region, 3000 workers were employed in various workshops; by the 1960s 17 workshops employed 1200 machinists. They made for Dior and Pierre Cardin amongst others. No wonder Argenton was known as ‘La Cité de la Chemise’….’The City of the Shirt’.

The temporary exhibition at the moment is about dressing gowns. It is charmingly entitled ‘Home Sweet Home, Cocooning au masculin’, which is a lovely title what ever language you speak.

         

Well worth a visit to this and to the whole museum.

With grateful thanks to the Museum and to the Curator Mme Nathalie Gaillard.

Merci Mme Gaillard. Votre musée est splendide et très intéressant. J'espère que quiconque lira ce blog pensera à visiter le musée un jour. Merci gracieusement.

0917

THE LADIES EMPORIUM

One glass case, some vintage underpinnings, assorted haberdashery and a dash of nostalgia gives you THE LADIES EMPORIUM at HENFIELD MUSEUM.

The Ladies Emporium

I have gathered together a miscellany from Henfields stock that says Drapers Window to me. A drapers with a difference. A drapers window that mixes not just garments but swirls in a bit of time travel too.

                

There are some lace trimmed Victorian unmentionables and a pair of drawers from the 1940s. A Victorian black lace and taffeta yoked cape. 

                            


An Edwardian nightgown, ladies combinations and assorted silk stockings. Shoes from the 1920s. Hat pins from the 1940s . Long steel hat pins with military buttons forming the top. Lace still on its original card from Tobitts Drapers and a  hat brush with ‘Tobitts’ stamped on the handle. This shop was trading in Henfield  from 1858 until the last family member died in 1953. Between 1909 and 1913 Henfield had another drapers and outfitters, ‘Cordery Brothers’. In the case are two pieces of their brown wrapping paper emblazoned with the shop address.   

    

The exquisite detail that home seamstresses sewed into their work stands out in the details on the Victorian and Edwardian underwear and nightgown. There is handmade lace, pin tucks, white work and broderie anglaise. One pair of ladies combinations was made by a Miss Tobitt from the Tobitt Drapers family. They formed part of her trousseau. A trousseau that was never worn. I don’t know why.

                                                                               

In the right hand corner there’s a faded paisley shawl from 1860 that was worn to a wedding, and in the left corner….I couldn’t have a display with out a dress. So a beautiful mauve satin dress is displayed in all its beaded glory. An Edwardian evening gown, the elbow length sleeves are split along their length and gathered together by velvet bands. Gold beads form fringing at the hem and brilliants wind through the beads to create sparkling panels of embroidery.

    

So here is my interpretation of a drapers window. Enormous fun to do and a real pleasure to be had in showing off some of the smaller pieces in Henfields collection.

                    

                                                                                                  

 Incidentally, if you look, the mauve evening gown is priced at a very reasonable Sale Price of 6/11. This dream bargain is courtesy of a sign from Tobitts Drapers that was found when their old premises were being refurbished. 35p is a bit of a snip…..

                                                  

Beau Musée Bowes

Its not often you go to a costume exhibition and come out raving about the transparent thermoplastic mannequins. 

But that is what happened after my visit to the Bowes Museum in County Durham.

Their costume and textile displays have see through acrylic mannequins and innovative peninsula cases, so you can see inside and through and the back of the clothes. What a difference this makes. Seeing something in the round gives a much better picture of a costume. No longer do you have to trade the detail of the back for the detail of the front or vice versa. And you can step back and see the costume from all angles at a distance. This excellent system was developed by Bowes and is now being copied by other museums. I believe that the inspiration for this layout was based on clothes shops in Bond Street in London. Where ever it came from it is a triumph. 

The clothes displayed are arranged chronologically to guide you through the display. A walk through time as it were.

Having by good fortune visited on Bowes 125^th anniversary, not only was admission a snip at £2.50, but there was a programme of talks, tours and music on that day as well. So it was that I had the pleasure of meeting Hannah Jackson, Assistant Curator of Fashion and Textiles, who gave a talk in the fashion gallery about the exhibits (just  2% of their collection is on show) and shared with us her favourite items.

Curators choice.1858-1860 Paletot and carriage boots
 which belonged to Empress Eugenie

Here’s a selection of my favourites.

1815-1820 Scottish Whitework

Day Bodice 1857-1860

1863

1880

  

1919-1920

                                                       

1932

Utility blouse 1941-8

                               

1964 Jean Varon (John Bates)

c1965

I often just walk through a museum to get to the costumes and walk straight out afterwards. At Bowes you cant do that. I was drawn into rooms filled with furniture and paintings and curios and porcelain and a very clever, very famous silver swan. Case after case full of exquisite things. Yes I know that all (most?) museums are like that, but Bowes  is really special. Light airy rooms, quiet nooks with chairs, a wealth of marble staircases, wooden floors and a great sense of space.

And there is still another story to tell from Bowes…the history of Joséphine Bowes and her husband John. The tale of his enormous wealth, a life in Paris, meeting an actress, their love story, a marriage and a zeal for collecting that all came together with their great vision for a museum.  All this is beautifully depicted and described within the museum, along with some eye watering bills from Worth in Paris ‘ 1^st June 1872, Bill for Mme Bowes’ ‘Dress in gauze and lace, Scarf in white crêpe de chine and Valenciennes lace’ etc etc, to a total of 11,184.00 Francs. (£36k today)

Tying the two areas of costume and founders together is a replica of a dress worn by Joséphine Bowes, taken from her portrait and meticulously recreated by Luca Costigliolo. A video of its construction shows in the costume space.

Bowes is exceptional. I have wanted to visit this museum for years.

It did not disappoint.