Dresses and Prints: A Trip to the Denver Art Museum

Lotus and I went down to the Denver Art Museum yesterday and saw the Dior show, billed as the first major retrospective of this fashion house in the United States.   There were over 150 dresses on display, all a treat for the eye.  Check out this beautiful evening gown.  

Or this lovely evening dress.  Can you see all the detailing that went into these designs?  The red gown has simple but very effective seaming across the bust, while the lacework on the black dress is complex but looks deceptively simple and elegant.

In addition to dresses, the show featured many accessories.  I think these shoes would look great with the black dress. 

In general the exhibit was a chronological presentation of the work of the house under its different directors, starting with designer Christopher Dior in 1947 and ending with Maria Grazia Chiuri, the current designer.  But there were several interesting pairings of art and dresses,  including one devoted to designs influenced by historical French fashion ....  

 ....and another which showed how flowers and gardens are reflected in many of the dresses.

Here's a detail of this "garden dress"  showing the wonderful couching of threads which comprised its fabric.

The exhibit also provided an overview of the design process, from the initial sketches to the runway shows where the finished products were presented.  The photo below shows mock ups of dresses, an important step in the design process.   Made from a special white fabric, these mock ups revealed how the flat 2-dimensional garment would work as a 3-dimensional object.

But even the 3-dimensional mock ups didn't show how the garment would work as a piece of clothing that would actually be worn on a woman's body.  To show that the exhibit included many videos of women modeling the final garments during fashion runway shows.  

But what I liked the best was the room filled with about twenty dresses while a movie above them showed actual people wearing those dresses.   Here, for example, you can see Jennifer Lawrence (star of Hunger Games) wearing the white strapless gown to the left below her.  Amazing how these videos brought the dress to life.  

After the Dior show we saw "Rembrandt: Painter as Printmaker," a display of over 100 prints, which was very enjoyable. 

To accompany the show the museum has a printmaking space and invited guests to try making a print, which we did.  My little print was quick and simple but effective in teaching me something about how prints can be made.  

It was a fun and stimulating day at the Museum!