Research Paper Topics
An evening coatdress designed by Elsa Schiaparelli in collaboration with Jean Cocteau in fall 1937. I have chosen this dress because earlier on in the 1900s, dressmakers fell under a different category than artists, but here we are slowly seeing the merge of the two. The decorations on the dress aren’t basic embroidery patterns but are of a symmetry of a woman’s side profile, conjoining down to the details of the skirt that tricks the eye, looking like pleat details. It is a step forward into modern art. The two faces is also an optical illusion of a vase that drags down from the top where the roses are. Not only that, the eccentric color of the fabric really caught my eyes. The silk flashes various colors at once, giving off a hint of blue and pink. I have never seen such a stunning dress in the early 20th century that connects the arts to garments.
The Skeleton dress also designed by Elsa Schiaparelli in 1938 is part of the Circus Collection. It is a product of her surrealist fascination in the human bodies. The dress successfully shows the details of the ribcage, spine and leg bones. Despite the unique designs on the dress, the shape of the garment itself still follows the leading silhouette of the 30s. This dress was created during the same time as the Great Depression and speaks beyond a dress or a decoration of a woman’s appearance. Schiaparelli demonstrated how clothing could be used to create a metaphor of the social issues of the art world. She exaggerated the shoulders to help create a masculine appeal – “power dressing”. She was definitely not afraid to question the ideas of sexual identities and go against the norm and “captivated the new woman of the depression-era”. The empowerment of the dress is a lead to modern thinking and feminism.
A dress designed by Emilio Schuberth, an Italian designer, in 1958. I chose this dress because not only did he play with the prints on the materials; he also played with the garments itself, imitating a necktie and magnifying it into a one shoulder strap, using it for both purposes: decorations and functionality. The hemline has blatantly been brought up and the strapless style has become more acceptable than just a few decades ago. It is shown through the dress that the designer has a new and innovative way of thinking. Though the dress isn’t just any other replicas of those among that time, it is in a silhouette that is still stylish, revealing the shape of the body by having it tight around the torso, and puffing out on the hips, making it more of an illusion of that ‘womanly’ body.
