Thursday, 3 April 2014
Wednesday, 2 April 2014
The Glamour of Italian Fashion 1945 - 2014 / VA London / 5 April - 27 July 2014
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A Gianfranco Ferre advert from 1991
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Lead
sponsor
Bulgari
The Glamour of Italian Fashion 1945 - 2014:
About the Exhibition
5 April - 27 July 2014 / http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/exhibition-the-glamour-of-italian-fashion-1945-2014/about-the-exhibition/
This major exhibition is a glamorous,
comprehensive look at Italian Fashion from the end of the Second World War to
the present day. The story is explored through the key individuals and
organisations that have contributed to its reputation for quality and style. It
includes both womens and menswear to highlight the exceptional quality of
techniques, materials and expertise for which Italy
The exhibition examines Italy 's dramatic transition from post-war ruins
to the luxury paraded in the landmark ‘Sala Bianca’ catwalk shows held in Florence Italy had an enormous impact on fashion as stars
like Audrey Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor became style ambassadors for Italian
fashion, fuelling a keen international appetite for luxurious clothing made in Italy
Return to Luxury
In 1945, Italy Italy
In 1951, Giovanni Battista Giorgini
launched Italy Florence ’s Pitti Palace
As clothing designers and textile
manufacturers gradually resumed trading, their stylish designs responded to a
hunger for glamour after years of wartime deprivation. Italian high fashion and
fine tailoring became popular exports.
The Italian stylist Valentino poses among
his models near the Trevi fountain, in Rome
From bomb sites to Bulgari:
V&A falls under the spell of Italian glamour
A new
exhibition charts how postwar Italy
Jess
Cartner-Morley
The
Guardian, Tuesday 1 April 2014 /
The word
glamour originally meant magic or enchantment: to "cast a glamour"
was to cast a spell to make something appear different from reality. And it is
glamour in this sense – what the author Virginia Postrel calls nonverbal
rhetoric – that is at the heart of the V&A's new exhibition, The Glamour of
Italian Fashion 1945-2014.
Not that glamour
in its modern, mainstream sense is in short supply: there is, naturally, a
leopard-print gown by Roberto Cavalli, and a devastating cutaway cocktail dress
by Donatella Versace.
There is a
stunning 1950s silk cocktail dress in millefeuille layers of scalloped violet
silk by the largely forgotten Roberto Capucci, and a floor-length gown of
beaded silver by Mila Schön that was worn by Princess Lee Radziwill to Truman
Capote's Black and White Ball in 1966. (Both of these dresses are displayed
with their matching evening coats: violet velvet and silver bead-edged white
silk, respectively. That's glamour, right there.)
There is a
slinky black silk dress worn by Ava Gardner, a pristine white gown made for
Audrey Hepburn, and a sumptuous silver evening coat made for Maria Callas
But the
central message of this show is a serious one, about how fashion was used to
transform the image and fortune of Italy
The first
image is of a bombed street in Florence
The next
room introduces as protagonist the figure of Giovanni Battista Giorgini, with
letters and photographs chronicling how this exporter of Italian homeware
persuaded his contacts in US department stores to travel by boat and train to
Florence for fashion shows that brought together designs from all over Italy.
Against all odds, the shows were an instant hit: after the first, in February 1951, a Womenswear Daily
headline ran: "Italian styles gain approval of US buyers."
In the next
room, the story has moved on a decade, to the golden era of Hollywood-on-the-Tiber:
Rome
On to the
walls of this room are projected images of Taylor
and Burton Italy
This bold
storytelling, casting the invention of "Italian style" into a simple
narrative, is the exhibition's big strength.
In the second half of the exhibition, where
the modern Italian ready-to-wear industry emerges, the clothes are familiar and
compelling but the story loses some momentum.
This is in part because the cast list
changes so dramatically: of all the designers who showed in the 1951 show, only
the house of Pucci remains in business today. But apart from a few Benetton
adverts, there is an absence of cultural context around the more modern clothes
– a lack that is keenly felt after the gripping drama of the Hollywood
years.
The exhibition's sponsor, Bulgari – whose
diamonds are worn by Elizabeth Taylor in a 1967 photograph that has been one of
the most reproduced images of the show so far – must be thrilled.
The show is beautifully and intelligently
staged. A display of Italian textiles, which uses a digital map to show areas
of wool, silk and leather production, has a subtle soundtrack of machines and
looms.
The last and biggest room, devoted to the
cult of the designer, has a vaulted, church-like, curved ceiling – but in silk.
And classic pieces, including a Prada dip-dyed dress from 2004, an Armani man's
suit from 1994, and a 1995 Fendi Baguette handbag are spotlit from below so
that they throw soft, ecclesiastical shadows across the white silk above.
It is a smart trick, to depict these modern
pieces as classic Italian artefacts. But while this makes for a soaring finale,
the heart of this show is in the Roman Holiday glory years.
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Fashion show in Sala Bianca, 1955. Archivio
Giorgini. Photo by G.M. Fadigati © Giorgini Archive,
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A jewel-bedecked Elizabeth Taylor at the
masked ball in Hotel Ca' Rezzonico, in
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Tuesday, 1 April 2014
Competing with the incorrectness of "uncle Matthew"? (the famous Mitford father ) ... F *** ing FulFord / VIDEO BELLOW . Re-ordering the aristocracy
Francis Fulford of Great Fulford, Esq.
(born 31 August 1952) is the 23rd Fulford of Great Fulford. He is a member of England 's untitled Landed gentry and an esquire
in the classical sense of the word, the most senior member of an ancient
armigerous landed family who once possessed vast estates in Devon
and Lincolnshire.He is a TV personality, property commentator, farmer, and
regular contributor to radio and television.
Francis Fulford was the son of
Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Edgar Anthony Fulford of Great Fulford by his wife
Joan Shirley, younger daughter of Rear-Admiral C. Maurice Blackman, DSO.
Lt.Col.Fulford had a considerable military career after leaving the Royal
Military Academy Sandhurst, and served in The Great War, Waziristan ,
Egypt , Palestine England
Francis was educated firstly at Sunningdale School ,
Berkshire, where he immersed himself in the novels of G. A. Henty, such as With
Moore at Corunna and With Clive in India Milton Abbey
School in Dorset
where he gained 'A'-levels in Economics, Politics, Art, and History of Art.
At the age of 18 he entered the Coldstream
Guards but having failed to get a Commission escaped to Australia London 3000 acre estate in Devon .
He is a popular figure on TV and known for
his casual swearing in his programmes, epitomised by the name of his Channel
Four television documentary programme: The F***ing Fulfords, directed by Norman
Hull, which attracted an audience of three and a half million and Why Britain's
F***ed (screened on 28 November 2009 on Sky One). Another of his ITV programmes
was Why America
In 2007 he was chosen by the Conservatives
to fight the Teignbridge District Council seat of Teign Valley
Fulford has spoken widely, and on the April
23, 2010 he was guest-of-honour at the Traditional Britain Group's Annual
Dinner at the Charing Cross Hotel in central London
He also writes a blog about life, entitled
Francis Fulford's Blog.
• Fulford,
Francis, Bearing Up: The Long View, Timewell Press, London
In Bearing
Up: The Long View, Francis Fulford looks at the troubled history of landowning
and identifies the characteristics which have enabled many estates to survive
while others have foundered. Surveying the scene today, Fulford draws on his
own experiences to suggest a strategy of survival in the twenty-first century.
There have
been Fulfords living at Great Fulford in Devon
for eight hundred years. If Francis Fulford, the present owner, has anything to
do with it, his descendants will be happily ensconced in the family pile as he
is today. There may even be some new wallpaper by then.
In this
robustly argued book, Fulford demolishes the myth that you need to be rich to
live in a big house: just keep the roof on, the central heating off and the
wife away from the shops. Then sit back and enjoy it, while your children race
their bikes around the Great Hall.
Though
Francis Fulford’s rugged philosophy will infuriate as many people as it
delights, few will be bored as he reveals how one Englishman is making sure his
castle is his home. For keeps.
- See more
at: http://www.greatfulford.co.uk/bearing-up#sthash.rOjV0DAi.dpuf
Passed/Failed:
An education in the life of Francis Fulford, landowner and writer
'I was fat
at school, and very thick'
INTERVIEW
BY JONATHAN SALE
Francis Fulford, 53, has been a soldier,
jackeroo (Aussie-style cowboy), trainee antique dealer, stockbroker and
insurance broker. He is the author of Bearing Up and was featured in The F**king
Fulfords on Channel 4. He presents Why England's F**ked on Monday 28 November
on Sky One and on the same channel, Why America Sucks on 5 December.
I was born in Great Fulford, Devon, on the
edge of Dartmoor , in the bed which I now
sleep. We have been living here since the later part of the 12th century -
since "time immemorial", which means since the reign of Richard I.
You don't know much history if you don't know his dates: 1189 to 1199, very easy!
As far as my education is concerned, my
parents couldn't be bothered to get up in time to take me to a conventional
school. My father didn't come down before nine and my mother would have had to
get up at seven to make the breakfast, which wasn't on. We had a governess
until I was seven: several governesses, completely useless.
My pre-prep school, Leeson in the Isle of
Purbeck, Dorset, was a total shock to the system. It was draconian and the food
was completely dreadful. I was extremely unhappy - but I dare say they did
teach you quite well.
I was there for just over a year and then
went to Sunningdale School in Berkshire .
I couldn't believe the food was so good! I was fat, and thus called Fatty, and
also thick. The school prided itself on its academic standards and its games,
so I didn't shine.
The best thing about the school was the
brilliant library, with all the marvellous stuff by [Victorian adventure
novelist] GA Henty: With Moore at Corunna, With Clive in India
My plan was that I should go to Eton but I failed the exam. (I'm sometimes surprised by
meeting people who passed and thinking that they're quite thick.) It was my
introduction to the word "failure", which would feature quite large
in my life, but perhaps it's better to learn about this early on.
Then I went to Milton Abbey in Dorset . You're not much of an education correspondent if
you haven't heard of Milton Abbey! It was the headmaster's belief that, just
because you didn't shine academically, you shouldn't be written off. I've
always been a "late developer" and I drifted through my schooldays; I
had a few laughs.
We liked the English teacher. He would
recite poetry with his eyes shut and we would shoot paper pellets at him through
Biro tubes. We were streamed into As and Bs and by being in a lower stream some
subjects were barred to you. Still, there's always going to be some hard-luck
stories in any system of education.
O-levels? I've still got my certificates. I
took maths three, maybe four times, and got bored with it. I got an AS in
general studies, a B, I think. I got three A-levels: economics and politics,
art and history of art. I think they were Ds; but probably they'd be As if I
took them today, wouldn't they?
University? I never thought of that. They
were something to be despised: left-wing, sit-ins, anti-Vietnam demonstrations.
The people there seemed like the dregs of society. At 18 I went into the
Coldstream Guards as "another rank" and after nine months I failed my
Regular Commissions Board, so I went off to Australia
When you went to work in the city, you
didn't have exams; you learnt on the job. If you look at all the people who
make money, none of them went to f***ing university! A lot went to Milton
Abbey.
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