Up until a few years ago fashion houses and designers considered as a prestigious opportunity the possibility of creating the costumes for ballets or modern dance pieces.
Somehow this is a rather natural connection: designers should know what fits or does not fit the human body and can create garments that could highlight and facilitate the most intriguing steps, creations that at the same time retain the beauty and elegance of rare Haute Couture designs (or at least you would think so...).
The collaboration worked well also for corps de ballet and companies interested in introducing younger audiences to the performing arts and make an old and refined art such as ballet more alive and relevant to our days.
Yet there has recently been a major shift in trends and a few fashion brands moved from costumes to choreographers: the epitome of coolness at the moment is indeed not creating costumes for a ballet, but getting a cool choreographer who can design for your runway show / presentation movements that can go well with the clothes.
As you may remember from a previous post, Phelan's S/S 16 collection opened with a performance featuring four female dancers choreographed by Vim Vigor Dance Company founder Shannon Gillen.
Opening Ceremony turned to the New York City Ballet Resident Choreographer and soloist Justin Peck for their S/S 16 show, while in June we saw Cos launching at the Istituto degli Innocenti in Florence its "Soma" menswear capsule collection with a performance co-ordinated by British choreographer Wayne McGregor.
Gucci's S/S 19 took place in Paris on Monday, but was anticipated last week by a unique performance at the Milan-based Gucci Hub by Michael Clark.
The British dancer and choreographer is not new to fashion collaborations and Alexander McQueen's fans may remember that, in October 2003, he choreographed McQueen's S/S 2004 "Deliverance" collection (McQueen was among the first modern designers who worked with a choreographer on a runway show; while Gianni Versace, a friend and collaborator of Maurice Béjart, mainly focused on creating costumes for performances). That collection, as you may remember, was inspired by Sydney Pollack's They Shoot Horses Don't They? a drama about a dance marathon that prompts many desperate couples competing for a money prize (McQueen's runway featured professional dancers and models moving, dancing and running till they collapsed on the floor with exhaustion).
Clark already collaborated with Gucci earlier on this year, featuring in a video for the series "The Performers" (Act VI) shot in Tokyo.
Clark did not take to the Hub a completely new show, but a combination of his company's performance on Erik Satie's music and his tribute to David Bowie, danced on tracks from "Aladdin Sane" e "Diamond Dogs".
The show was therefore a juxtaposition of two broken narrations – both characterised by all the raw beauty of Clark's performances, but essentially divided in two blocks of living tableaux, one more refined, the other more energetic.
The dancers of the Michael Clark Company were clad in the same costumes they have used so far for the same performances at the Barbican Center with black and white body suits for the first part and in a red body suit matched with a revisioned version of David Bowie's iconic 1973 Ziggy Stardust striped blazer (maybe the inspiration behind Gucci's S/S 19 jacket?).
Gucci fans were probably disappointed as costume-wise there weren't a lot of garments designed by Alessandro Michele, but Clark and other dancers appeared in remixed Gucci tracksuits, nothing memorable.
It was actually surprising that Clark, who has a passion for garments that modify the way the human body moves like the ones made in collaboration with the late Leigh Bowery, went for something rather tamed (why not choosing any of the most outrageous styles from recent collections?).
That said, Clark's choreographies are aimed at showing the body movements and not the clothes, so it was only natural for fashion to take a secondary role in this case (mind you, fashion-wise the company's trademark tomato red body suit matched with Bowie's jacket still seemed more desirable than Gucci's tracksuits).
During Paris Fashion Week also Maria Grazia Chiuri turned to dance and to a unique choreographer to present her new collection for Dior.
The dance reference started outside the venue, the Hippodrome de Longchamp, a horseracing track on the banks of the Seine.
Quotes by assorted choreographers covered the façade of the show space: they went from "Dance is the movement of the universe concentrated in an individual" by Isadora Duncan to "I'm not interested in how people move, I'm interested in what makes them move" by Pina Bausch, "The Story Comes From Inside the Body" and "The most important thing is to enjoy dancing. And research inside your body, feel free – we are perfect as we are" by Sharon Eyal.
The main theme of the collection was actually linked with the history of the French maison: Christian Dior collaborated with Roland Petit on the ballet "Treize Danses" (1947), and one the most famous clients of the house was dancer Margot Fonteyn (Dior himself designed her wedding dress).
Chiuri caught the dance bug last year when she was commissioned costumes for the American Ballet Theatre's Works & Progress at the Guggenheim for the piece "Falls the Shadow", choreographed by Alejandro Cerrudo.
For the S/S 19 collection, Chiuri turned to Tel Aviv-based Sharon Eyal for a unique choreography, performed by Eyal herself and eight dancers from her company.
Clad in their illustrated bodysuits and leggings, the dancers moved beautifully in the hall while petals fell from the ceiling: their bodies seemed to rhythmically flex and pulse when the models passed next to them; at times they marvelled at the models, at others they inquisitively looked at their gowns or accompanied them around the runway.
The clothes were obviously inspired by ballet and the dance world: the show opened on a Pina Bausch note (so apt in these "Suspiria"-Pina Bausch times...), then it moved towards the Greek style tunics of Isadora Duncan and the transparencies of the costumes designed by Lois Hutton for Margaret Morris.
Things gradually transformed maybe hinting at dancers rehearsing and layering their clothes; then came references to Loïe Fuller, in tie-dye motifs in which subtle sparkles of yellow seemed to hint at hand-coloured silent films of the Serpentine Dance.
Accessories were also borrowed from the world of dance, see the elastic headbands and slippers with straps around the ankle. The colour palette remained muted, revolving around beige and nude, with some olive green and navy added.
The best thing about the collection weren't the very literal inspirations to dance (there are umpteenth collections inspired by ballet, among them Galliano's A/W 2011 menswear designs that moved from Rudolf Nureyev and Vaslav Nijinsky), but the way the inspiration was used to create interesting artisanal elaborations such as pleated gowns inspired by Grecian styles, fishnet body stockings and knitwear and coats with a degrading effects, or dresses that were entirely made out of braided tulle that reproduced a sort of macramé-like effect.
The dresses and skirts covered in tiny feathers creating colourful motifs hinted at the feathers in ballerina costumes (think "Swan Lake"), but there were also styles that called to mind Léon Bakst's costumes for the Ballets Russes' "Narcisse" and "L'Après-midi d'un Faune".
Chiuri was making a comparison here between fashion and ballet: the former transforms the bodies of consumers (think about corsets and high heels...), but so does ballet. Yet choreographers such as Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham and Pina Bausch, liberated the body.
The designer proceeded therefore to do the same maintaining Dior's silhouettes, but removing corsets and rigid structures in favour of softer constructions with fabrics such as jersey (a textile that calls to mind Martha Graham's costume in "Lamentation") and tulle on a bodysuit base (or on the popular logo bras with elasticated waistband) that allowed movement.
There were some faux pas: at times the dancers looked more intriguing than the models, and you surprised yourself thinking that the models were just distracting the audience from following a rather entertaining and beautifully choreographed dance show.
The other mistake was the fact that, if this was a collection about liberating the body, it meant liberating it only for those women with perfect bodies like the models on the runway, in a nutshell there was not much diversity.
That said, ballet remains a huge inspiration for the next season (remember Acne's S/S 19 collection inspired by the life of dancers from rehearsals to show?).
Still doubting? Well, Karl Lagerfeld has also designed Chanel costumes for the pas de deux of "Bolero", to be performed tonight by Diana Vishneva, prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Ballet, and Aurélie Dupont, director of dance at the Paris Opera Ballet, at the company's opening gala at the Palais Garnier.
Besides, all these ballet inspirations tie in rather well with two new films about Rudolf Nureyev: the recently released documentary "Nureyev" by Jacqui and David Morris, featuring previously unseen footage of the dancer, and the fictionalised account of the dancer's life "The White Crow", directed by Ralph Fiennes (to be released next year).
In conclusion, as one of the quotes by Pina Bausch read outside Dior's show, "Dance, Dance, Otherwise We Are Lost", as for the clothes, they may be beautiful and cleverly designed or not, but they are simply redundant at the moment. Yes, they are part of a trend, but it looks like the desire to athletically leap in the air like Nureyev at the moment is stronger than the will to rush to buy the next "It" bag or ballerina gown. So side with your favourite choreograopher and, well, just dance!
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