Freud of Fashion
Follow this link for an article about me by Suzy Menkes in the International Herald Tribune: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/fashion/11iht-rsteele18.html?_r=2&ref=fashion
Add commentIn Blog Press February 21st, 2012
Kiev Fashion Week
In October, I had the pleasure of attending Mercedes Benz Kiev Fashion Week – or, as I like to think of it, Kiev Fashion Weekend (October 21-23). My sincere thanks to Miss Daria (Dasha) Shapovalova for inviting me to come and speak. Kiev is an extraordinarily beautiful city in the Ukraine with amazing churches and monasteries, good-looking young people, and a small but vibrant fashion scene. There were ten fashion shows by mostly young designers such as Anna October, Sasha Kanevsky, and Anton Belinsky. But my favorite thing was a display of amazing, hand-crafted leather handbags – half kawaii and half steampunk – by the Ukrainian artist/designer Bob Bassett (bobbassett@gmail.com) . If I’d had an extra $1,000 I would have bought the over-the-shoulder bag shaped like a dragon.
Daphne Guinness
My apologies for such a long silence. My mother died last spring, and I fell behind.
It has been a tough year for me, but a wonderful year for fashion exhibitions. Savage Beauty, the Alexander McQueen exhibition curated by Andrew Bolton at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was one of the most beautiful and powerful designer exhibitions that I have ever seen. I was lucky enough to see it three times. But seeing it was a bitter-sweet experience, since it reminded us how much we lost with McQueen’s tragic suicide. Truly, he was one of the greatest designers of all time.
Also terrific is the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition, The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk. I flew up lfor the opening at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and was amazed by the “living” mannequins used to display 140 of the designer’s irreverent, sexy styles – the flesh dress (before Gaga), the sailor suits, the bustiers,…. I was also thrilled to have the opportunity to talk with Jean Paul Gaultier about our forthcoming exhibition, Queer Style, which will open in September 2013 at The Museum at FIT. Amazingly, this will be the first major fashion exhibition to explore the significance of the gay influence on fashion!
This summer, I was in France where I saw Madame Grès: La Couture à l’Oeuvre, organized by the Musée Galliera and presented at the Musée Bourdelle. Then when I returned to New York, it was all hands on deck to finish the Daphne Guinness exhibition here at FIT. It has been a great pleasure collaborating with Daphne on this exhibition, which will run from September 16, 2011 through January 7, 2012.
Sincerely,
Valerie Steele
Add commentIn Press October 10th, 2011
January 23, 2011
I’m busy working on lots of terrific projects – including the Daphne Guinness exhibition and book, and also the museum’s Masterpiece book. Yesterday we threw a “birthday party” for Christian Dior at the Museum; Fred Dennis and I showed five of our beautiful Dior dresses to eight members of the Couture Council.
I saw an interesting show at the Museum of Art and Design on the Global Africa Project, with one of Nick Cave’s art costumes, clothing by Black Coffee, photographs by Daniele Tamagni, and Sheila Bridges’ very-cool Harlem Toile de Jouy.
3 commentsIn Blog January 23rd, 2011
