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If you order from NEW DOMINION BOOKSHOP in Charlottesville, Va. Message me and I’ll be happy to sign your copy or mail you a signed bookplate.
NEW YEAR, NEW ADVENTURE, 2024.
In which the author goes to Paris for two weeks, midwinter, in search of inspiration, fashion history, and caramel.
In mid-December, I applied for a library card. In French. Thank god for Google Translate. I typed out my requests for entry and specifics of what I wanted to see in the Bibliothèque Forney, which was originally a 15th century home of a cardinal called the Hôtel de Sens. It’s one of the rare remains of Gothic architecture in Paris and became public property following the French Revolution. In 1911, when the government bought the mansion, it was in disrepair and 20 years of restoration work were needed. Since 1961 it has been home to an archive with collections dedicated to the decorative arts, the art and craft professions, fashion, advertising and design.
When I arrived in early January, the librarian spoke no English and with my limited French I ended up typing out my mission in Google translate on my phone for her to read. We eventually understood what I was there to see and I was sent up a winding stone staircase in a turret to the top floor, which you see above, on the right. I saw 18th century paper dolls and the original designs for Chanel No 5 bottles. They brought out cartons of magazine pages and photographs.
On another trip to Paris in 2021, I wrote ahead to do research in the library of the Palais Galliera, which is the museum of fashion. In January, I visited the museum again. They had an exhibition of the couture collection of the late designer Azzedine Alaïa, who died in 2017. As a fledgling designer in the late 1960s Alaïa began to collect garments at auctions, and when Balenciaga couture closed in 1968, he was offered the remaining fabric. In addition, he took and preserved the vintage garments, starting a collection that would grow to over 20,000 couture pieces from the most important designers in the world—as well as many of the smaller couturiers who produced exquisite work but aren’t remembered, like Charles James (below).
Alaïa’s collection is more expansive than those of any museum, including the Costume Institute at The Met.
For many years, designers kept no archives of actual garments. They finished a season, sold the clothes, and moved on to the next season. They kept sketches and maybe fabric swatches.
Very recently, Apple TV began a series about Christian Dior and his competition, called THE NEW LOOK. Some of you might have seen the 2022 movie, MRS HARRIS GOES TO PARIS, which was adapted from a 1958 novel by Paul Gallico. It tells the story of Ada Harris, a London cleaning lady, who goes to Paris to buy a couture dress in the early 1950s. When the costume designer Jenny Beavan made the dresses for the movie, she worked from Dior’s sketches.
In January, I visited La Galerie Dior, which opened last year.
In addition to the fabulous clothes, you can see how they were made. They have re-created a model’s cabine, which is sort of a combination dressing room-closet, with the tools of the trade laid out (below).
In this same neighborhood, you can visit the Musée Yves St. Laurent. You can see the design studio and showrooms as they were, as well as highlights of the collections through the years. Here, he is at 21, on the eve of showing his first collection when he took over after the sudden death of Christian Dior.
I’ll check back in after my next trip across the pond in May.
Liza Nash Taylor was a 2018 Hawthornden International Fellow and received an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts the same year. She was the 2016 winner of the San Miguel Writer’s Conference Fiction Prize. Her work has appeared in Gargoyle Magazine; Deep South, and others. Her debut historical novel, ETIQUETTE FOR RUNAWAYS, was published in 2020 and IN ALL GOOD FAITH followed in 2021, both from Blackstone Publishing. These received a Booklist star and made lists in Frolic, Parade, Woman’s World, and others. A native Virginian, she lives in Keswick with her husband and dogs, in an old farmhouse which serves as a setting for her novels.
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