by The retailing – and wearing – of French fashions shaped San Francisco’s cosmopolitan identity in the early 20th century, so much so that the first French dresses were imported after World War II, including Jacques Costet’s 1946 velvet and Little Black Black dress on display to I. Magnin was its retail, and it was front page news in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Bay Area department stores, notably I. Magnin, signed agreements to copy and retail French couture to the society set. The museum’s clothing collection benefited in particular from the patronage of Grover Magnin (founded by his parents I. Magnin) and his wife, Jeanne, a former model and close friend of Christian Dior. Among their gifts are the stunning Venus and Junon dresses from Dior’s 1949 couture fall collection, which toured the West Coast as part of the store’s traveling fashion shows. With their petal-shaped skirts and glittering sequins, they would look right at home on the 2024 red carpet.
In many cases, local donors had close relationships with designers, supporting them not only by buying their clothes but by funding runway collections and businesses. Georgette “Dodie” Rosekrans financed John Galliano’s early collections, and her Dior spring 1999 couture dress, designed to be worn backwards, is among her various avant-garde looks on display.
Two promised gifts from Hale are on display, including a dress by Irish designer Sybil Connolly, which the philanthropist and Best Dressed Hall of Famer wore when Queen Elizabeth visited the museum for a state dinner.
And Tatiana Sorokko, Ralph Rucci’s model and muse, is shown in her Fall 2007 digitally printed baby dress, worn at the San Francisco Symphony’s Opening Night Gala. Another big donor, Christine Suppes has shown several looks by Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood and Rodarte, which she supported.
“A lot of women here are interested in not just fashion as wearing clothes, but actually supporting the industry,” Camerlengo said.
Although many of the city’s fashion patrons were white, and born or married into wealth, the exhibition aims to show how that is changing by including two Christopher John Rogers looks donated by Black tastemaker Sherri McMullen, who supported the designer from start to finish through a. Oakland store. Also included is a dramatic gold-embroidered green dress with puffed sleeves by Edwin Oudshoorn worn at a ballet gala by Silicon Valley executive Tanum Davis Bohen.
One wishes, however, that there was space dedicated to the biographies of all these women, perhaps with more photos of them wearing the designs of Chanel, Bill Blass, Yohji Yamamoto and many others.
Around the world, Camerlengo considers the enduring influence of the Pacific Rim on the inspiration (and appropriation) of European and American designers, and on local immigration. It looks at the work of two leading San Francisco Chinese designers – Kaisik Wong, who emerged from the art-to-wear movement of the 1970s and is best known for a patchwork vest copied by Nicolas Ghesquière at Balenciaga, and no more. Richard Tam’s traditional costume.
“By the 1960s and 70s Richard Tam emerged as the best designer in the United States making clothes for women here but also Ethel Kennedy and Dinah Shore,” said the curator. “He worked as a couture designer, and I’ve seen things on the market attributed to Balenciaga that were designed by Tam, going back to the 1960s.
“It’s a great opportunity to celebrate their work,” she told Wong and Tam. “Both designers died very young, and their stories have been somewhat lost in history and traditional narrative, and they are also very meaningful to our communities who still remember them. I would love to have a large exhibition of Tam’s work, which is housed in the Met, the museum at FIT and other major museums but has never been comprehensively studied.”
Here are the other Asian American designers, including Derek Lam and Alexander Wang, both from the Bay Area.
Camerlengo isn’t ready to define San Francisco’s style, she said. “There are people who buy the best French fashion imported into the city and there are women who make their own clothes, and women who can’t work with a hustle and bustle and use newspaper to stuff a skirt, and those who wear their traditional clothes. clothes,” she said of the range. “That’s a reflection of how San Francisco continues to dress up today. What you see on the timeline are people like Sherri McMullen and Tanum Davis Bohen, self-made women, and how they reconnect with the long thread of women emerging in the public sphere in San Francisco in ways different.”
Another such woman today would be Anna Chiu, co-founder of San Francisco fashion brand Kamperett, who recently dressed Awkwafina, Abby Elliott and Diane Lane for awards season events, and whose dress full volume organza silk and blouses with estimated details, such as qipao-. style makers in the Bay Area and beyond love tie-inspired closures, architectural sleeves and intricate seams.
“It’s exciting. the level of sophistication and imagination of the people who wore these,” said Chiu as he viewed the collection on Wednesday morning.
It would be interesting to see the exhibition dialogue continue with contemporary Bay Area labels, she agreed, including sustainable ones coming up with solutions to today’s natural disasters, and b maybe Levi’s was born in San Francisco, which has done more than almost any brand. fashion to democracy.
For now, visitors in search of that can take advantage of the museum’s partnership with tech firm Snapchat for a virtual trial of an experience featuring three AR mirrors with show-stopping looks from Dior, Valentino and Wong.
As Thomas P. Campbell, director and chief executive officer of the Museum of Fine Arts in San Francisco, said, “As we try to make museums open and friendly, fashion can be important…and with all these fragile clothes that cannot be be. contacted her, it seemed like a great opportunity.”
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