Fashion Passion: 100 Anos De
Moda Na OCA
15 September – 5 December
www.brasilconnects.org/fashionpassion
São Paulo is a sprawling city, home to 14
million official residents and countless others. It feels like New York City
on speed, multiplied by ten, and makes Bangkok seem quaint. In the middle of
this traffic-riddled urban chaos is the Parque do Ibirapuera, a green refuge
from the city, masterplanned by Berle Marx, Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer,
and home to several significant Niemeyer buildings, including the signature
pavilion that houses the São Paulo Biennale. Across the path from this
building is the OCA, a white dome-shaped building that looks like a giant
cereal bowl placed upside down on the grass. Also designed by Niemeyer,
Brazil’s patron saint of architecture, it caught my eye as I left the
Biennale building because I saw shapes sliding down the slides of the bowl,
which turned out to be people coasting down. It has a space-age look, which
comes as no surprise, as it dates from 1951, an era in which Brazil was at
the forefront of modern architecture. The futuristic feeling continues on
entering the building, as one is issued a plastic credit card that is put
through a turnstile to gain access to ‘Fashion Passion’.
‘Fashion Passion’ presents a cross-sectional history of the exuberance and
creativity of fashion in the twentieth century. The exhibition is organised
around ten themes including ‘Dolce Vita’ [The Sweet Life], ‘O Mistério Do
Vestido Cinderella’ [The Mystery of Cinderella’s clothes], ‘Ä Costura
Sublimada’ [The Sublime Costume] and ‘Ode Ao Corpo’ [Ode to the Body].
Within each theme the work of fashion designers, photographers and artists
is explored through garments, vintage and contemporary photographs, videos
and installations. Its holistic approach is laid out in an elaborate
labyrinthine style, yet the clearly sign-posted sections make it easy to
progress through the exhibition. Indeed, its design is one of the most
impressive features of the show.
The journey through the exhibition begins with a ramp that leads the visitor
into the floor below ground. This level is painted red, floor to ceiling,
providing the perfect backdrop for the exotic theatricality of John
Galliano, Paul Poiret and Christian Lacroix. Steven Klein’s lush photographs
of a Lacroix-clad Madonna are a highlight; even if you’re not a fan of the
material girl one marvels at the sumptuous images. A section featuring
Chanel presents designs from three pivotal periods of the classic French
fashion house: the roaring 1920s and ’30s, the modern ’50s and ’60s and the
current state of affairs with Karl Lagerfeld at the helm. Another section on
this floor, themed ‘O Espetáculo Está No Guarda-Ropa’ [The Spectacular
Wardrobe], groups works such as Viktor & Rolf’s skeleton suits with classic
Yves-Saint Laurent, while photographs by Inez van Lamsweerde provide a
quirky context.
Returning to the ground floor one encounters more delights, including a
section on designers who focus on the sensuality of the female form:
Azzedine Alaïa and Madeleine Vionnet. It was an enlightened curatorial
decision to pair the iconic late 1980s designer with the early
twentieth-century Parisian, who was the first to cut dresses on the bias.
Horst P Horst’s photograph of Joan Crawford donning one of Vionnet’s
creations reminds that fashion and celebrity have always been intertwined.
This is shown alongside Cecil Beaton’s fashion photographs, which further
establish the era of impossibly glamorous sophistication.
Also on the ground floor is the Cinderella section, which features Olivier
Theyskens, Christian Dior and Dior por John Galliano. All three designers
pillage historical periods and literary references in their work and create
garments more akin to theatre than life. One of the successes of ‘Fashion
Passion’ is that designers such as Theyskens and Galliano are integrated
with more traditional couturiers to good effect. Nothing seems to jar or
stand out, although each designer’s individuality is emphasised.
On the first floor the effects of Niemeyer’s open-planned design can be felt
by looking down into the vast dome of the building. This level contains the
‘Dolce Vita’ theme, which pairs Gianni Versace and Pucci designs with
photographs by Guy Bourdin, whose work always looks fresh and contemporary.
The most exciting aspect of this level is ‘Da Desconstrução à Reconstruçao’
[From Deconstruction to Reconstruction]. Here the Japanese maestros Yohji
Yamamoto and Comme des Garçons are paired with their European counterpart
Martin Magiela. Even diehard fans of old-fashioned glamour must marvel at
the ingeniously constructed creations here, including Yamamoto’s impossibly
layered and bustled dresses.
On the second floor the vertiginous effects of Niemeyer’s building are fully
experienced. A suspended walkway provides a clear view of the interior of
the building and leads into the exhibition area. This requires steady nerves
to cross. On this level the exhibition designers opted for an open floor
plan, in which about 50 mannequins are lined up in militaristic fashion, as
in Rem Koolhaas’s Prada shop in New York. These feature specially created
bikinis by Brazil’s hottest designers, although this hardly challenges the
architectural spectacle of Niemeyer’s sculptural elements.
‘Fashion Passion’ is a good example of a successful interdisciplinary
exhibition. Its combination of media, from garments displayed on mannequins
to videos of catwalk shows and vintage photographs, fuses the worlds of
fashion, art and architecture. The impressive list of sponsors (Chevrolet
and American Express, among others) attests to the theory that this new
breed of exhibitions – as witnessed in the Armani retrospective and the
Harley Davidson exhibitions at the Guggenheim – is the way of the future.
Yet ‘Fashion Passion’ does blockbuster exhibition with a bit of an edge.
Just witness the range of related merchandising, from notebooks shaped liked
t-shirts to specially designed Havianas flip-flops and umbrellas, which
evidently targets a savvy, sophisticated audience including, of course,
Biennale-goers.
Kathy Battista