Piece 1:
- This is Iris Van Herpen’s Splash dress. It was made in 2013 in the Netherlands using acrylic glass.
- Van Herpen says this dress symbolizes the “magic of the body”. She often wonders whether we will wear fabric as clothing in the future, or if we will wear something intangible, like water.
- This piece stood out to me the most in this exhibit because of how unique and different it is. It looks more like a sculpture that a piece of clothing, which is one reason I was so attracted to it. I was also attracted to it because of the questions it came with. All I wanted to know was how it was made.
- This piece is fake because it is a fake splash of water. Of course it is supposed to and does look like a splash of water, but it is not, so it’s a fake.
Piece 2:
- This is Elsa Schiaparelli’s butterfly dress. It was made in 1937 with silk crepe and plastic.
- Schiaparelli was fascinated in metamorphosis. That fascination is reflected in most of her designs. Butterflies are animals that symbolize metamorphosis which is why many of her pieces are covered in them. Schiaparelli often expressed how an ordinary piece of clothing could become beautiful and whimsical by simply adding a pattern or print, for example, the butterflies. The basic structure of this dress is very mundane, but the butterflies make it special.
- I was drawn to this piece because of its cleanliness. It’s simplicity made it stand out. We like to see new, crazy, wild designs, but sometimes a simple piece like this is refreshing.
- This dress was probably the least fake out of everything in the museum. There is nothing extra or useless. It is a dress and that’s it. A lot of the designs we saw had attachments or layers that served no purpose. This dress has none of that making it the most real piece in the exhibit.
