Charles James: Beyond Fashion

CHARLES JAMES: BEYOND FASHION

(Charles James Audio Quotes- in CI Stairwell)

“The best design reveals itself during a long fatiguing process of digging into the subconscious.”

“When I got the Neiman Marcus prize in '53, I pretended to lose my luggage and wore blue jeans with a white silk tuxedo and pumps. Mr. Marcus then was obliged to explain that this was the new style--he simply meant that blue jeans were far better cut than the average trousers of that period. They’re functional and, being functional, highly sexual.”

“Did you know that the dressmaker Paul Poiret wrote me a marvelous letter once saying, ‘I give you my crown: you do in cut what I have done in color.’ ”

(CI Stairwell Image)

Photo: Michael A. Vaccaro, 1952

GALLERY 1: Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery

(Intro Panel)

Charles James: Beyond Fashion

Charles James (1906-1978) is an artist whose mode of expression was fashion. As with every artist, James has an autograph—a distinctive pattern of details and signature flourishes that distinguishes his work. Whether for day or evening, draped or tailored, a James design often shares an approach to, or characteristics of, his other creations. Essentially self-taught, he was someone for whom a compelling idea or innovation could be subject to a lifetime of revision and refinement. Even after the closing of his house, he continued to perfect designs from his earliest collections.

Among the hallmarks of his work are his architectural cut, seen most clearly in his ball gowns. In this gallery, his spirals and wrapping of the body, his use of draping and folding to resolve the aesthetic disposition of excess material of a pattern piece, and his insistence on transforming the conditions of the natural body into his platonic ideal are explored. His preference for the elimination of conventional darts and seams—or their use in unprecedented ways—together with a clear predilection for asymmetry suggest his direct hands-on approach. Paul Poiret noted that because of his beginnings as a milliner, James, in addition to being a master at color, addressed fabric with an aggressive vigor that set him apart from his contemporaries. Certainly, Jamesian leitmotifs can be seen at every stage of his development as a designer—from his hats in the 1920s to his dresses in the 1950s. For James, the creative process was one of constant evolution. metmuseum.org/charlesjames

#charlesjames

(SPIRALS & WRAPS GROUP)

Taxi Dress, ca. 1932 Black wool ribbed knit Purchase, Alan W. Kornberg Gift, 2013 (2013.309)

Catalogue text: James considered this dress one of his most important designs, both commercially and artistically. Though difficult to manufacture—one side of the top and the spiral wrap-over skirt being made without seams—it was the first dress to be sold in a department store’s accessories department, along with sweaters, in sealed cellophane packages. It was made in two sizes and sold at Best & Co. in 1933–34 for twenty-two dollars. James conceived the spiral design in 1929, and this sample piece in a novel ribbed wool appears to date from before his commercial version for Best’s, exemplifying how the designer continuously refined his ideas.

Dress, ca. 1950 Navy brushed wool twill Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. Joseph Love, 1967 (2009.300.592)

Catalogue text: A James pattern is challenging to understand, not because it is complicated but because it defies convention. This dress demonstrates his impulse to eliminate superfluous cut lines and, when possible, merge separate pattern pieces into one. Its two-piece skirt has one center back seam. James eliminated the right back waist seam, resulting in an eccentric construction where the left bodice is a continuation of the right skirt panel. Graduated buttons, a curved lapel, and a single patch pocket shaped like an apostrophe are the only ornament other than the arcing seams.

Evening Coat, late 1920s-early 1930s Black silk velvet and fox fur Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.418)

Catalogue text: This elegant minimalist construction is the earliest example of James’s spiral draping in The Costume Institute’s collection. The main body of the coat is one piece of silk velvet, horizontally wrapped counterclockwise. The long sleeves are a simple raglan construction with a triangular, fur-edged piece contour-seamed to the coat’s body along the shoulder line. The piece is balanced and draped to give the impression from the front of a wide-cuffed sleeve and, from the back, of a scarf.

Cocktail Dress, 1936 Black silk satin Courtesy of Sir Brendan Parsons, 7th Earl of Rosse, Birr Castle, Ireland (SL.8.2014.7.2)

Catalogue text: A black metal zipper at the left side of this elegant dress emphasizes the oppositional spiraling seams that crisscross from the front neckline, continue around the waist, and meet at the center back. Crisscrossing folded extensions of the front bodice pieces continue the theme and form the high-throated neckline. In other James designs, similar wrapping elements of the front bodice serve as a neckerchief-like drape or a more conventional halter.

Scarf Evening Dress, 1937–38 Black silk crepe Purchase, Annette de la Renta Gift, 2013 (2013.301)

Label text: James’s writings indicate he conceived the design for this dress as one piece that spiraled around the body with a single diagonal seam running from the knee to the shoulder. The logistics of fitting and the limitations of fabric width, however, necessitated that it be cut in three pieces—the scarf/front bodice, the skirt/back bodice, and a triangular piece that extends the skirt into a wrap—thereby allowing, as James put it, “for a leg to emerge while seated.

Catalogue text: This dress with an integral scarf is draped on the semi-bias, with a diagonal seam across the front from underarm to knee. The seam begins several inches forward of the usual side seam. That subtle shift appears to narrow the bodice and skirt panels and thus became known as the “false profile” seam. The individualized fit of the unforgivingly narrow sheath was achieved by first making a conventionally cut organdy sheath to the client’s dimensions and proportions. The crepe was then draped and manipulated through calage (molding by pressing, pulling, and steaming the cloth “off-grain”) to conform to the undersheath’s measurements. In 1976 a popular design by Halston incorporated James’s asymmetrical neckline, formed when the scarf wraps over the shoulder.

Figure-Eight Dinner Dress, 1939 Green-gray silk satin Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.406)

Label text: This ingenious design introduced both modesty and freedom of movement into eveningwear. Lore has it that James first conceived it by cutting a crescent shape in the center of the long end of a beach towel, centering it between the legs, and wrapping them in the form of a figure eight. In this more resolved version, the two sides of the fabric wrap counterclockwise around the body, starting from the leg division, extending far enough to cover the center front and back: the front half wraps around the left leg (ending at right back) and the back half wraps around the right leg (ending at left front), causing the hem to form a figure eight. The waist piece, which starts at the right side, is separate and does not take part in the figure- eight movement.

Catalogue text: A series of wrapping pattern pieces is incorporated in both the bodice and skirt of this dinner dress. While the bodice discloses the complications of its cut, the greater innovation is in James’s novel construction of the skirt. It was conceived as a figure-eight spiral, beginning at the right front side it wraps around the left leg, passing between the legs, then wrapping over the right leg to cross to the left side back. As with many of James’s constructions, the skirt is only comprehensible when the garment is taken apart.

Evening dress, 1932 Black silk-rayon satin-faced chiffon crepe Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.401)

Catalogue text: James was expert at the implementation of bias, but often deviated from the use of “true” bias, or the angling of the fabric 45 degrees. In this rare instance, he describes his design as “pure bias” with the exploitation of the natural draping qualities of the luxuriously supple satin-faced crepe. The gown’s surplice top has an extended shoulder-line creating the effect of short cap sleeves. James notes that unlike typical kimono-sleeve constructions that angle 90 degrees from the body, he has draped his design with the front of the sleeve line at a precise 33 degrees and the back sleeve edge at 45 degrees from the body. In addition, rather than a shoulder seam, James has used a short neckline dart in a practice he calls “à cheval” to leave the main body of the sleeve undisrupted. The skirt is no less considered with a center front and back seam, both originating from the hem to split in a “Y” at the pelvis. The resulting extensions are two sets of criss-crossing waist ties that cinch the gown and end in small bows with asymmetrical streamers. The designer was especially proud of the fact that the dress, made in two sizes, was protean in its accommodation of a large range of figures.

Dinner Dress, ca. 1950 Brown silk faille Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. William Randolph Hearst, Jr., 1953 (2009.300.167)

Catalogue text: The bodice of this dress is asymmetrically draped to form a diagonal neckline with the effect of a stole at the back shoulders. Although the bodice is built on a symmetrical understructure, the grain of the fabric angles off the straight grain at the center back and joins the side seams in what James called the “A grain.” By introducing the bias, James eliminated the need for darts. The skirt has no side seams, except for a join seam to extend a panel forming the flared, curve-hemmed back. Its center front is true bias. Exploiting the elasticity of the bias, James cleaved the fabric to the waist while introducing fullness at the hips to diminish the wrinkling across the lap that occurs when sitting. This dress served as the prototype for one of twenty designs James adapted and sold to Orhbach’s in 1950. In 1951 its pattern was sold to Lord & Taylor and was the basis for commercial applications of asymmetrical dresses and the use of “off-grain” cuts.

Cocktail dress, 1953-54 Navy silk faille Purchase, Gretchen Jordan Gift, 2013 (2013.315)

Dinner Dress, 1952 Brown silk taffeta Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. R.A. Bernatschke, 1955 (2009.300.213a, b)

Catalogue text: The skirt of this dress is an especially exuberant rendering of James’s spiral draping. He cut away the below-knee- length hem as it winds clockwise over itself until it terminates in a disengaged point at the left front waist. The narrow underskirt, barely visible, suggests a continuation of the spiral but is cut separately. Here James exploited taffeta’s natural body and ability to hold its form to exaggerate the skirt’s animated and layered effect.

Dinner Dress, 1950 Dark red silk taffeta with black pinstripes Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Arturo and Paul Peralta-Ramos, 1954 (2009.300.180)

Label text: The wrap effect and the asymmetrical neckline of this bodice are formed by identically cut interlocking pattern pieces. The front bodice extends to form the upper right sleeve, and the back bodice extends to form the upper left sleeve, each with such an excess of fabric that a deep horizontal fold across the bust and shoulder blades creates a blouson effect. The unconventional yet luminous pinstriped silk fabric was typically used in menswear coat linings.

Catalogue text: This design was worn by one of James’s most important clients, Millicent Rogers, a woman of exceptional chic. The asymmetrical neckline, a James signature, is formed by two interlocking pattern pieces. The front bodice extends to form the upper right sleeve, and the back bodice extends to form the upper left sleeve, each with such an excess of fabric that a deep horizontal fold across the bust and shoulder blades creates a blouson effect. The waist seam, pointed at the center front and curving low at the back, is typical of James, who asserted that a straight line cutting across the waist did not reflect anatomical reality.

Evening Dress, 1951 Brown silk taffeta and green silk satin Gift of Eleanor Searle Whitney McCollum, 1975 (1975.246.7a)

Catalogue text: The slightly structured strapless bodice is overlaid with a diagonal panel originating at the right side waist, which is draped loosely around the back to curve in a fan over the shoulder. The skirt is similarly unconventional. Many of James’s other draped effects are made from continuous panels, but this asymmetrical skirt has multiple parts, each seamed in a pronounced curve. The seams lightly buttress the final draping. The effect may appear spontaneous, but the construction reveals James’s deliberate intentions.

Coq Noir Evening Dress, 1937 Black silk rep Courtesy of Sir Brendan Parsons, 7th Earl of Rosse, Birr Castle, Ireland (SL.8.2014.7.3)

Catalogue text: At once lithe and sculptural, this dress includes a number of Jamesian preferences: Asymmetrical, it is uninflected by traditional patternmaking practices; it eliminates the side seams; and it incorporates the excess fabric that results from the draping (what Schiaparelli called the “super flou”) in the finished design. Here James buttressed the super flou with canvas to form a dramatic flute at the right back hip.

(DRAPES & FOLDS GROUP)

Evening Dress, 1948 Black silk satin and velvet Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Millicent Huttleston Rogers, 1949 (2009.300.734)

Catalogue text: Retaining some of the fluid characteristics of James’s 1930s designs, this evening dress is among the most unstructured of his volumetric silhouettes from the postwar period. The high bateau neckline is almost modest in its coverage, in contrast to the exposed back, which is crisscrossed by acute triangles of black velvet. James incorporated into one gown crisp, graphic outlines (the harnessed back) and soft, airy fullness (the poufed skirt).

Cocktail Dress, ca. 1944 Dark brown silk satin Polaire Weissman Fund, 1997 (1997.193.1)

Catalogue text: Although the bodice of this dress has center front, center back, and side seams, its second-skin fit was accomplished by molding the bust à calage (steaming in the shape) and using back shoulder darts. The body of the dress has center front and center back seams. A long dart curves from under the arm over the front hipbone and into the low front cowl. With its high neckline, shoulder line extending into a cap sleeve, and sheathlike fit, this James design suggests the exotic influence of the Chinese qi pao, a style promoted at the time by another American couturier, Mainbocher, on his client Wallis, the Duchess of Windsor.

Incroyable Suit, 1933 Black brushed wool Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.412a,b)

Label text: The coat of this suit references the jackets of the Incroyables of the French Directoire and the dandies of the English Regency. The collar, cut high as in the historical precedents, falls in soft folds and wrinkles like the neckerchief of a fop. James seamed together the “tails” of the coat to form a low back cowl drape. Of the style, James wrote: “The cutaway look was at this time [1933] not at all in the ‘market’....It simply looked well and gave the wearer a distinction.”

Catalogue text: In a typically subversive gesture, James skewed the double button closure at the neck to suggest a deliberate nonchalance. The narrow sleeves are on the bias and cut in one with the front and back. James seamed together the tails of the coat to form a low back cowl, like a deflated bustle. The skirt has a calculated displacement of fullness, introducing ease and amplitude at the abdomen and the front of the hips but cleaving sensuously to the back of the thighs because of the fabric’s angled pitch.

Evening Coat, 1947 Yellow satin-back silk faille lined with pale blue silk duchesse satin Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.383)

Label text: James exploited the contrasting textures of the glossy satin and the ribbed silk faille that comprise the two sides of this fabric to highlight his ingenious pattern cutting. The origami-like satin collar folds to expose the reverse matte interior, and the slick-surfaced satin of the back collar yoke and sleeves shines against the faintly dull sheen of the coat’s flaring body.

Catalogue text: A complex mix of textures distinguishes this evening coat. James pieced the flat ribbed silk faille with its reverse, a glossy satin, to highlight his ingenious pattern cutting in this coat, with its origami-like folds at the high portrait collar and eccentrically constructed bishop sleeves. The contrast is especially pronounced at the back, where the slick-surfaced satin of the collar yoke and sleeves shines against the faintly dull sheen of the coat’s flaring body.

Evening Dress, 1945 Peach silk charmeuse Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Arturo and Paul Peralta-Ramos, 1954 (2009.300.1860)

Catalogue text: A center front seam and side seams that originate from the back armholes and then arc to the front hipbone create streamlined front panels that cleave to the torso. The panels split into a deep neckline at the base of the sternum, split again at the shoulder, wrap over the cap of the arm, and then form an open halter-like collar. Three tucks on either side of the pelvic area—a zone of interest for James, who believed designs should endow a procreative allure—gather fullness and focus decorative interest on an otherwise uninflected design.

Evening Dress, 1952 Ivory silk satin Gift of Eleanor Searle Whitney McCollum, 1975 (1975.246.8a, b)

Catalogue text: The asymmetries of this evening dress begin with the diagonal seaming of the bodice and the tucks at the bust and resolve in an arcing peplum that is integral to the skirt. The two-paneled skirt is constructed with a left front and right back seam, which narrow it despite the fullness at the thighs and the flare below the knees.

La Sirène Evening Dress, 1941 Black silk crepe Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Bequest of Marta C. Raymond, 1989 (2009.300.576)

Catalogue text: This sensuously shaped dress, popularly known as the Lobster dress, is essentially a gathered tube. With the exception of the draping to create the bust and back bodice, the gown is a series of horizontal release tucks.

La Sirène Evening Dress, 1951–52 Ivory silk crepe Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. Emmet Whitlock, 1983 (2009.300.2915)

Label text: This sensuous yet oddly crustacean-like dress is essentially a tube cut on the grain of the fabric that is draped by way of a series of horizontal upward tucks sewn onto a padded central spine. The ingenious design allows for the individual topography of the wearer’s body to give it shape. James continued to make variations of the dress for nearly twenty years.

Catalogue text: The fabric is shirred into the seam at the center back, stopping below the knee to open in folds that accommodate movement.

Evening Dress, 1937 Black silk-viscose velvet Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.399)

Catalogue text: This dress with its minimal cut is the result of several iterations in muslin, in which the many original seams were eliminated one by one at each fitting. James described the pattern of the skirt as a long triangle, cut on the bias, with one seam at the center back. The graceful taper of its silhouette is created by pulling up the front waist, which also produces the pocket-like side drapes. The dress is slashed at either center shoulder line, resulting in triangular extensions that form a small halter and sleeves cut in one with the bodice.

(PLATONIC FORM GROUP)

Beetle Evening Dress, 1935 Black silk compound weave with blue-green and pink metallics Courtesy of Sir Brendan Parsons, 7th Earl of Rosse, Birr Castle, Ireland (SL.8.2014.7.1)

Catalogue text: The dramatic shoulder line of this dress introduces the square shape that Schiaparelli and other designers achieved with padding, which James avoided in his eveningwear. The unusual fabric, with an iridescent mix of synthetic threads in a black grid, has a crisp hand that holds its shape. Soft gathers cradling the bust contrast with the flattened folds over the square capped sleeves, suggesting the fabric’s mutability. James claimed that the folding and pressing in shape was done before cutting the sleeve, a more complicated process than if he had simply draped it to fit. Two finishing details are James signatures: the lack of a lining and the folded edges of fabric to avoid a facing. Though the latter technique was typical of the ready-to-wear industry, incorporating it here allowed him to add release darts and angled pleats perpendicular to the fold edge, creating shape without the seam lines that were anathema to him.

Evening Coat, 1946 Black silk satin Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. Joseph Love, 1967 (2009.300.457)

Catalogue text: This dramatic evening coat introduces cartridge pleats, a simple technique, along the front waist as its primary decorative focus. The bodice, however, is a masterpiece of dressmaking. The front bodice, collar, and shoulder yoke are cut in one. The draped sleeves are also cut of one piece of fabric, with shaping introduced by short darts. Because of the satin’s directional surface, James was able to convey his design’s complicated organization through the light that catches the pattern pieces’ shifts.

Cocoon Evening Cape, 1957–59 Red wool broadcloth Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Muriel Bultman Francis, 1966 (2009.300.403)

Catalogue text: This evening cape is related to James’s sculptural designs shown in Cecil Beaton’s surrealistic 1936 photograph of the actress Ruth Ford and others posed both facing and with their backs to the camera. In the earlier designs, however, the coats are fitted to the back in the fashion of the 1890s. Here James reversed his earlier strategy, giving a glancing fit to the upper front of the torso while creating a back that suggests the tucked wings of a bird.

Trapeze Coat, 1947–48 Black silk bengaline Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.376)

Catalogue text: This coat alludes to the body at the bust and ribcage, then extends away from it with two deep reverse pleats at front and an unfitted and flaring back. The perfectly mounted sleeves are cut in one piece, without the undersleeve panel seen in custom tailored coats at the time, so their forward-angled curve occurs not with shaped panels but with the introduction of darts at the inner elbow. Though this is primarily a tailored garment, James introduces soft release darts, a dressmaking detail, at the bust.

Gothic Evening Coat, 1954 Black wool broadcloth and silk satin Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Erik Lee Preminger in memory of his mother, Gypsy Rose Lee, 1993 (2009.300.582)

Catalogue text: Completely suspended from the shoulders, this coat barely suggests the dimensions of the bust and upper back. The shape established by the designer obliterates the wearer’s flaws or, in this case, attributes. The coat belonged to Gypsy Rose Lee, the statuesque ecdysiast, who wore James’s Sirène gown with seductive glamour. Like a tuxedo, which uses similar materials, this coat is an elegant equalizer of women of every size and shape.

One-Sided Collar Coat, 1951 Navy wool melton Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.367)

Catalogue text: The great art patron and collector Dominique de Menil was among James’s most loyal clients. To what was for him a surprisingly traditional swing coat he added a charming innovation for her: an asymmetrical collar. The collar was cut narrow at the left and fanned wider at the right, specifically so that Mrs. de Menil might raise it as she disembarked a plane to protect her face from the wind generated by the propellers.

Dolman Coat, early 1950s Dark green wool tweed Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.380)

Label text: James’s approach to dressmaking as a sculptor envisioning a design in three-dimensional terms is evident in the construction of this coat. Each side is composed of two main pieces—the body and a deep raglan sleeve—that theoretically could be cut in one piece, enveloping the body and arm in a single gesture. Like Paul Poiret’s capacious cocoon coats of the 1910s that were cut without the complication of a separate sleeve, the James design is also meant to conceal the figure completely. James claimed that the cut eliminated the need for fundamental changes in proportion, no matter his client’s shape, size, or height.

Catalogue text: Constructed of exaggerated raglan sleeves, with a center back seam but no side seams, the coat has been draped to create a deep dolman and to taper to the hem.

Great Coat, ca. 1961 Red and black wool plaid Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Muriel Bultman Francis, 1967 (2009.300.451)

Catalogue text: The complex cut of this coat is reflected and amplified by the fabric’s pattern. The plaid makes it possible to see the disposition of the lengthwise and cross grains, and it also emphasizes any deviation of the seams from the linear and orthogonal. But for all the curvature he modeled into his design, James never lost control of the pattern, which aligns symmetrically, both vertically and horizontally.

Bluebell Coat, 1954 Red brushed wool Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. William Randolph Hearst, Jr., 1960 (2009.300.274)

Label text: James considered this coat, with its form-fitting empire bodice and stand-away bluebell-shaped skirt, one of his six most important shapes. He accomplished the fit of the bodice by dissecting it across the bust apex and upper back and molding the fabric over the breasts through steaming, pressing, and pulling. The skirt shape derives from its remarkable cut: an L-shaped panel from the back yoke seam wraps to the princess seam at the torso and continues from the lower hipline around to the center front skirt in one piece.

Catalogue text: A recurring Jamesian detail is the placement of a seam across the apex of the bust and back. This coat’s remarkable silhouette evokes the paintings of Lucas Cranach. It is accomplished primarily by princess seams that curve from the bust to the side hip and disappear into pockets, and by the molding of the fabric over the breasts through steaming, pressing, and pulling. The bell-shaped silhouette is the result of especially eccentric patternmaking. An L-shaped panel from the back yoke wraps to the princess seam at the torso and from the lower hipline around to the front skirt in one piece, thereby avoiding the introduction of side seams.

Gothic Coat, 1954 Pink cashmere Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. John de Menil, 1957 (2009.300.3572)

Catalogue text: One of a series of high-waisted, bell-shaped coats, this design alludes to James’s affinity for William Hogarth’s theory of the serpentine line of beauty. The collar cut in one with the front shoulder yoke suggests an Empire Spencer jacket and introduces a sinuous curve where it pulls away from the body of the coat. But the most graceful detail is obscured by the arms: The elegant back seam of the underarm panel scrolls in a reverse S-curve over the hip. The fullness of the coat is so balanced that it falls in symmetrical flutes at the back.

Lyre Coat, 1945 Red wool cavalry twill Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Millicent Huttleston Rogers, 1949 (2009.300.133)

Label text: The beautiful lyre-shaped front seaming of this coat functions simultaneously as a decorative and a structural shaping device. But the essence of James’s ingenious engineering is seen at the back, where the panels from the shoulders are cut in one with the side panels of the skirt, avoiding the conventionally placed seams of traditional tailoring.

Catalogue text: The designer here moved the rigor of traditional tailoring in a direction of personal interest: the elimination of unessential seaming.

Coat Ensemble, early 1950s Purple-brown brushed wool Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.375a, b)

Catalogue text: James was proud of this coat’s tailoring details, especially the use of the hand-stitched welts to highlight the arching curve of the side waist seams. Of greater interest, however, is the coat’s assertion of an amplified hourglass shape onto the body of the wearer. The waist is raised to the lower ribcage, a point on the body with a relatively immutable dimension. The coat then burgeons at the hips with the planarity of a cutout paper doll. The emphatic silhouette makes the shape of the real body beneath difficult to ascertain.

Suit, 1948 Gray wool flannel Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Arturo and Paul Peralta-Ramos, 1955 (2009.300.199a, b)

Catalogue text: This suit made for Millicent Rogers has characteristics associated with Christian Dior’s “New Look”: a full skirt, defined waist, and softened shoulders. (Dior reputedly said that James inspired his influential 1947 collection.) But unlike in a design by the couture at this date, James here introduced the innovative construction details that are the signature of his work. The use of eccentric pattern pieces—often the consequence of a displaced seam—the use of angled darts, and the molding of the fabric by steaming and pressing in shape are hallmarks of the designer’s hands-on reinvention of his métier.

Cossack Coat, 1952 Dark brown wool melton Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Muriel Bultman Francis, 1966 (2009.300.402)

Catalogue text: This design’s beautifully arcing sleeve silhouette harks back to the styles of the 1860s. The wideness at the elbows accommodated movement but also was a foil for the figure: The amplitude contrasted with and optically diminished the dimensions of the waist. The fullness of the skirt is created by shifting the side seams to a center back panel. The seams themselves are hidden in the carefully modulated folds.

(ANATOMICAL CUT GROUP)

Suit, 1961–62 Green wool twill Gift of Lee Krasner Pollock, 1975 (1975.52.5a, b)

Catalogue text: James placed a favored lyre-shaped seam on the suit jacket and mirrored its curve in the opposing cutaway front hem. The cropped front of the jacket then frames two of four splayed release darts from the waist of the skirt, which introduce ease to the zone of the abdomen and hips. Curving side seams shifted to the back result in the skirt’s narrowing taper.

Pear Shape Cocktail Dress, 1955 Red wool broadcloth Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jean de Menil, 1960 (2009.300.3206)

Dress, 1952–53 Green wool mohair Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.334a, b)

Catalogue text: The body-conscious sheath is shaped at the bodice with curving seams that are closer together inside the apex of the bust than the usual placement of princess seams and angled to the center waist. The skirt, with a right side seam conventionally placed and a left side seam shifted far to the left back and hidden in a carefully draped flare, demonstrates James’s typical use of asymmetry and the unexpected.

Dinner Suit, 1956 Black rayon-cotton matelassé Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.281a, b)

Catalogue text: In this black version of the previous design, the resolution of shaping for the bust changes. James eliminated seams wherever and whenever he could, but here he appears simply to have pivoted what was a continuation of a princess seam in a new direction toward the side seam. With that gesture James deviated from the conventional to the ingeniously idiosyncratic. The skirt has a shaped hip yoke but otherwise is cut in one unbroken piece.

Dinner Suit, 1956 Ivory rayon-cotton matelassé Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. John de Menil, 1957 (2009.300.824a, b)

Label text: James designed this dinner suit simultaneously with his Butterfly Ball Gown (on view in the upstairs gallery). He sculpted this full-length blue dress form to develop the shape. The bottom part, with its elegant protrusion, also served as the shape for the skirt of this dinner suit. The forward thrust of the sleeves and the undulation of the horizontal seam across the bust are the structural details James used on the jacket to reference the natural curvature of the body.

Catalogue text: The clean lines of this dinner suit are the result of a complex piecing of the jacket, which hugs the torso in front and across the upper back and flares away from the body at the back hem. The wide winglike collar that extends to the armhole and the canted curve of the jacket’s skirt are prominent aesthetic decisions. Less apparent are the structural details James used to reference the body, such as the forward curve of the sleeves and the undulation of the horizontal seam across the bust.

Diamond Evening Dress, 1957 Ivory silk satin, beige silk twill, and black rayon velvet Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Marguerite Piazza, 1984 (2009.300.1015)

Label text: James accomplished the provocative shaping at the back of this modernist biomorphic version of a late Victorian princess-line dress with a simple realignment of conventional princess seams and the use of contrasting fabrics. The elegant front arc at once abstracts and emphasizes the sensuous forms of the female anatomy.

Catalogue text: The Diamond’s hourglass fit takes its cues from fin- de-siècle fashions and sensual Surrealist biomorphism. This design incorporates a number of nontraditional seam contours, but all that’s required to underscore the provocative shaping at the back are a simple realignment of conventional princess seams and the use of contrasting fabrics. James designs often display a similar, if

22 less explicit, focus on the waist and hips.

Evening Dress, ca. 1960 Beige silk satin, taupe silk faille, and brown silk chiffon Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Erik Lee Preminger in memory of his mother, Gypsy Rose Lee, 1993 (2009.300.589)

Catalogue text: The cuts of this evening dress and the next (the Diamond) are explicit in their anatomical shaping, especially from the back, suggesting the designer’s intention for them to project a procreative allure. This version has a fall-away neckline that discloses a structured, chiffon-covered modesty panel beneath. The horizontal drapery at the pelvis highlights the area around the lap, a James signature. His contrast of fabrics exaggerates the vase-shaped form of the back center panel, which is at once petaline, foliate, and yoni-like.

Ribbon Ball Gown, 1946 Pale yellow rayon-wool satin and pastel polychrome silk faille, taffeta, charmeuse, and satin Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Arturo and Paul Peralta-Ramos, 1954 (2009.300.1187)

Catalogue text: The strapless bodice of the gown appears to conform to traditional techniques, but its innovative seaming is a James signature. Similarly, what at first seems to be a skirt of striped fabric is actually comprised of ribbons of varying colors, luster, and weight. The ribbons, wide enough to be cut in curves, torque into smooth, molded contours where they taper over the hips. In one of James’s more explicitly sexual details, the bodice comes to a point just above the pubis and generates a deep reverse pleat down the center front of the skirt.

Ribbon Evening Gown and Cape, 1937 Multi-color silk plain weave and silk satin Courtesy of The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Costume Council Fund

Ribbon Dressing Gown, 1938–40 Peach, gold, yellow, and ivory silk satin ribbons Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Edalgi Dinsha, 1944 (2009.300.674)

Catalogue text: James posed a challenge to himself to fashion this dressing gown (and the adjacent ribbon cape and evening gown) using lengths of 6 ½- inch-wide antique silk ribbons. The vertical edges of the ribbons, cut to follow the contours of the body, generate the dressing gown’s fit. Additional pieces at the bottom of each ribbon are folded into points to create decorative flares at the hem.

(CI- Quotes by Charles James)

“A design should be fitted away from the figure in order to allow a breeze of air to linger between the body and the fabric.”

“There are not many original shapes or silhouettes—only a million variations.”

“Make the grain do the work.”

“All my seams have meaning—they emphasize something about the body.”

“In fashion even what seems most fragile must be built on cement.”

“Any ‘design’ put out by a top couturier is a blueprint which records a structure from which an infinite number of garments can be evolved.”

“All creative work begins by doing something with the hands. Creation is simply a problem and design is the way out.”

“My designs are not luxuries. They represent fashion research.”

“You should know my most important contribution was always in tailoring; coats, jackets, wool dresses…so few of which went into the magazines.”

“It is a curious phenomenon that my most serious work… relates purely to tailoring…and that the further flowering of a design INTO mousselines must stem from a root planted deep in the soil of cut and form.”

“It’s the air that’s sculptured, not the silk; it touches the body in only two or three variable places. The rest of the silhouette you can vary as much as you desire.”

“Part of what could be called eccentric is my deep involvement in the SHAPE of clothes in movement…and conviction that what is distinguished is often a high form of eroticism.”

“Forget all you know & learn something every day.”

“I have sometimes spent twelve hours working on one seam; utterly entranced and not hungry or tired till finally it had as if of its own will found the precise place where it should be placed.”

“Cut in dressmaking is like grammar in a language. A good design should be like a well made sentence, and it should only express one idea at a time.”

“The Venus de Milo… would be most unfashionable unless she had a good dressmaker.”

(CI Elevator Wall Image)

Charles James with model in the Taxi Dress Photo: Art Kane, 1978 GALLERY 2: Carl and Iris Barrel Apfel Gallery

(Intro Text)

The Charles James Archive

In 2013 Homer Layne, James’s final assistant, donated to The Costume Institute the personal archives retained by the designer until his death in 1978. James had, as early as 1948, begun to ensure his legacy by directing his most important clients and patrons to give significant examples of his work to The Brooklyn Museum. The Museum became the repository of many of James’s exceptional creations, together with newspaper clippings, photographs, pattern pieces, drawings, anatomical studies, dress forms, sculptures, and every variety of ephemera. With the Layne donation, the collection and its supporting archives became exceptionally comprehensive.

While James saw his completed designs as a rich source of inspiration for future generations, evidence of his creative process is also instructive. Working with a mathematical, essentially self-invented system, he attempted to codify and rationalize his approach to design. It is a system with an internal logic, purely Jamesian, that marries fashion with art, art history, musical composition, science, architecture, and engineering, and is, as with all things associated with the designer, wildly original, faintly mystifying, and finally, compellingly seductive.

(Picture rail objects)

Scrapbook, 1930-70 Featured page: Photos by Bill Cunningham Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, The Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0685)

Scrapbook, 1930-70 Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, The Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0686)

Drawing, 1968 Ink and shoe polish on paper Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0566)

Meta Morphology, 1967 Ink, shoe polish and graphite Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0660)

Appraisal notes, 1960-70 Printed paper facsimile Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0791)

“THE FINE ARTISTS who influenced my ‘thinking’…”, 1960-70 Printed paper facsimile Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0793)

Storyboard for Planned Autobiography, 1958-64 Paper, cardboard and plastic Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0708)

Film of Retrospective Showing of Charles James Designs; The Electric Circus, New York City, December 16, 1969 Edited from 16mm film Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, The Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Flexible Sculpture film, June 1969 Recorded by Homer Layne, Produced by Bill Vehr Edited from 16mm film Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, The Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Drawing, 1950-56 Graphite on paper Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. Clive Runnels and Mrs. Edward L. Ryerson, 1957 (2009.300.3764)

Drawing, 1964 Ink on paper Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0778)

Drawing, ca. 1973 Ink and correction fluid on paper Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0563)

Drawing, 1972 Annotated: Paris, 1936 Pastel on paper Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0776)

Drawing, 1964 Ink and paint on paper Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0702)

Drawing, 1973 Annotated: Design London/29 Ink, pastel and graphite on paper Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0782)

Drawing, ca. 1967 Ink and shoe polish on paper with hinged paper flap Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0545)

“CLIENTS WHOM I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO DRESS…SOMETIMES COULD HAVE BUT DID NOT,” 1960-70 Printed paper facsimile Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0794)

Workroom notes, 1950-60 Ink typewritten on paper Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0792)

Drawing, 1960-70 Ink and graphite on paper Courtesy of R. Couri Hay – Private Collection (SL.8.2014.10.2)

(Center Vitrine)

Evening jacket, 1937 White celanese satin with eiderdown filling Courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Gift of the Art Students League of New York, assisted by the Marques de Cuevas (SL.8.2014.4.1–.2)

James made this one-of-a-kind evening jacket in response to the boxy fur jackets designer Elsa Schiaparelli and others were showing at the time. He likened the technical challenge of stitching fabric and eiderdown filling into a complex sculptural form to that of a juggler who keeps several balls in motion at the same time. Its biomorphic lines, which James referred to as “large floating arabesques,” speak to his singular affinity for designing clothing in relation to the human anatomy. Similar lines are seen in the drawings and other objects in this room. The jacket is a precursor to two contrasting sartorial genres: textile-based sculpture as wearable art and today’s utilitarian forms of puffed and quilted outerwear such as ski parkas and puffer jackets. 31

(Platform Labels)

Half Muslin, ca. 1950 White cotton muslin Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. William Randolph Hearst, Jr., 1953 (2009.300.2777)

Brassiere, 1956 Pink rayon-cotton satin with elastic Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Erik Lee Preminger in memory of his mother, Gypsy Rose Lee, 1993 (2009.300.2651)

Dress, ca. 1810 White cotton mull with green tambour embroidery and silk satin ribbon Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. William Randolph Hearst, Jr., 1953 (2009.300.2776)

James was a rigorous student of the past. A late Empire/Regency-period gown is the source of his line-for-line reconstruction in muslin of the bodice and sleeve. James was not, however, one to quote historical references directly, as seen in his transformation of the idea of the bodice into his “Josephine” bra. His faithful studies of historical dress led to creative modifications of the originals to be repurposed for contemporary life—in this case, both a stand-alone bra and an underbodice for his empire-waisted gowns such as the Sirène and the Diamond evening dresses (on display in the Tisch Gallery).

Dress form, ca.1956 Ivory and brown cotton muslin, black cotton twill tape, ivory rayon-cotton matelassé, paper, wood, and metal Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009 (2009.300.8507)

String frame, ca. 1950 White and black cotton muslin and twill tape, metal boning Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009 (2009.300.8521)

Dress form, ca. 1950 Ivory cotton muslin, beige nylon mesh, beige horsehair, silk and wool haircloth, black cotton twill tape, metal, wood, and paper Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009 (2009.300.8508)

Dress form, ca. 1950 Ivory cotton muslin and synthetic twill, cotton batting, metal and wood Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009 (2009.300.8511)

James’s approach to shaping his designs was anchored in his manipulation of the contours of the body. In some instances, the additive padding of a form appears to approximate the figure of a client, but that is not necessarily the case. James stated explicitly that he padded out the form to the shape he wished to give to the wearer. The stuffing of crumpled tissue to represent the “wall of air” between the dress form and his pattern development for a short jacket suggests his strategy and hands-on approach. The grain of a garment is penciled in, but important seam and design lines are articulated by black tape. One form with a modified “Josephine” (empire) bodice, which he called his “string frame,” has a skirt with hoops in a silhouette first established by verticals that were splayed open and stapled to the floor in the desired dimension. He then overlaid the form with stiffened muslin to develop his sculptural shapes.

Catalogue text (for 2009.300.8507 only): James made this dress form, padded out into his Empress Josephine, or Empire, bodice shape, about 1956.

Family photo album, 1890-1960 Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, The Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0682)

Family photo album, 1903-16 Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, The Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0681)

Among the memorabilia in James’s possession at the time of his death were four family albums compiled by relatives on his maternal side. The images record exquisite clothing, grand architecture, international travels, and domestic help, providing intimate portraits of the elegant, privileged lifestyle in which James was raised. These influences were later reflected in the fin-de-siècle sense of romance and Edwardian grandeur that permeated his postwar eveningwear.

Infant’s Cape Coat, 1956 Blue wool plainweave with white cotton piqué Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of The Brooklyn Museum 2009; Gift of Mrs. John de Menil, 1957 (2009.300.3580)

Infant’s dress form, 1956 Red synthetic flocked papier-mâché Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of The Brooklyn Museum 2009; Gift of Mrs. John de Menil, 1957 (2009.300.1513)

Cocoon Coat, 1956 Flecked red brushed wool Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.410)

Sewer-Pipe molds, 20th Century Painted wood Gifts of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0678 and CJ.0518) Label text: The birth of Charles and Nancy James’s first child, Charles Brega Haweis James, inspired the designer to create a line of clothing for infants and toddlers that included this powder-blue cape coat. It is an adaptation of the nineteenth-century wide-sleeved wraps known as dolmans, whose cut restricted the arm position to forward movement. In his miniature interpretation, James cut the armholes elliptically to train the infant to reach forward in what he considered a positive gesture. When the design for his subsequent adult version necessitated further development of the sleeve form, he looked to his collection of sewer-pipe molds for inspiration, choosing the larger of the two examples on display as the template for the sleeve shape. James also designed the red dress form with a child’s characteristically rounded belly to display his new line.

Catalogue text (for 2009.300.3580 only): The Baby Cape coat of 1956 was inspired by the cut of mid-nineteenth-century dolman wraps.

Fixed fan, 1935-50 Olive-green feathers applied to cotton gauze and batting with metal wire Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Brooklyn Museum Collection (2009.300.2244)

Fixed fan, 1935-50 Yellow feathers applied to cotton gauze and batting with metal wire Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Brooklyn Museum Collection (2009.300.2245)

Like Elsa Schiaparelli, James was involved with Surrealist artists in 1930s London and Paris. His work is suffused with the displacements and subversions associated with that movement. A feather fan in the form of birds’ wings, which Vogue referred to as “two magpie wings” in 1935, were his signature evening accessory for the next 15 years.

Hats, ca. 1928 Brown wool felt; Blue wool felt Courtesy of Chicago History Museum; Gifts of Mrs. Helen Pauling Donnelly (SL.8.2014.1.1 and SL.8.2014.1.2)

Hat, ca. 1929 Brown plainweave straw Gift of Mrs. John W. Lincoln, Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design, Providence (SL.8.2014.8.1)

James began his career designing hats in Chicago ca. 1926. Approaching his work more as a sculptor than a milliner, he molded and cut felt hats directly on the heads of his more courageous clients. The result was a customized fit and a brim shape that related to the individual’s features. 36

Dress form, ca. 1966 Painted plaster Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0799)

Flexible Sculpture, ca. 1966 Plaster and jute burlap Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0676)

In 1966 James resumed his quest to improve the fit of American ready-to-wear, begun with the invention of his “Jennie” dress form in 1950. His idea was to replace the outmoded dress form used by manufacturers in the pre- pattern design stages with a more up-to-date shape. Taking the development further, James transformed the “Jennie” into a “flexible sculpture” by dissecting its torso into six pieces (eventually to be made of foam rubber) that could move forward, backward, and side-to-side via a central flexible rod. The added adaptability of the form would enable manufacturers to evaluate the effect of different postures on a given design and to cut patterns that could accommodate a greater variety of postures equally well, ultimately resulting in a wider range of better-fitting garments.

Dress form, ca.1955 Blue painted papier-mâché, wood, and metal Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009 (2009.300.8516)

Dress form, ca.1955 White plaster, papier-mâché, ivory cotton muslin, wood, cellophane, and metal Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. John de Menil, 1957 (2009.300.2806)

Label text: The factual details surrounding the production of these forms are imprecise and difficult to establish with certainty. Records indicate they were made to develop the silhouette of the Butterfly gown (on display in the upstairs gallery), reflected in the high bust of the torso. The back hem fin of the skirt, however, is not replicated in the gown, but instead is identical to the shaped silhouette of the lower half of the Pagoda dinner suit developed at the same time (on view in the Tisch Gallery).

Catalogue text: Full-length forms made to the shape of Charles James’s Butterfly gown, ca. 1954. The white one is plaster-covered papier-mâché, wood, and metal. The blue form is papier-mâché and metal.

Sculpture, 1955-65 Pigmented Plasteline, ivory cotton plainweave, wax, metal, and paper Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0677)

Jewelry Maquettes, 1955-65 Pigmented Plasteline, wax, metal, paper, plastic, and glass Gift of Homer Layne, Charles James Collection, Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CJ.0664)

From his very earliest manipulation of hat felts into curvilinear forms in the 1920s, the designer manifested his lifetime attraction to biomorphic shapes. Sine waves appear as the primary graphic motif of his Clover Leaf gown together with the undulating lobed form of its skirt. In this small sculpture and series of jewelry maquettes, James played with curves in three dimensions, suggesting his affinities to Surrealism and early Abstract Expressionism. In typical fashion, the designer mixed an exotic concoction of Plasteline, wax, and nacre to use as his working material.

Dress form sculpture, 1949 White and beige painted plaster, jute burlap and ivory cotton twill tape, and metal Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Charles James (2009.300.2935)

Dress form mold, 1949 White plaster and jute burlap Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009 (2009.300.8498a-b)

“Jennie” Dress form, ca. 1950 Red linen-cotton plainweave, papier-mâché, wood, and metal Gift of Eleanor Searle Whitney McCollum, 1975 (1975.246.7b)

Label text: During one of his most creative periods, James developed a dress form that updated the fashion industry’s outdated version. His design originated from the belief that the standard forms contributed to the bad fit of Seventh Avenue clothes. Called the “Jennie,” the new form reflected the slender long-waisted silhouettes of Millicent Rogers and Jennifer Jones, the actress after whom it was supposedly named. On view here are the original plaster form sculpted by James, the mold made from it, and the papier-mâché final product made in the mold, representing the three-stage production process.

Catalogue text (for 2009.300.8498a, b only): A Jennie dress form and the plaster mold in which it was made. The mold was created by plastering over the original clay or plaster form James sculpted in 1949.

Waistcoat, 1936 Purple silk-cotton millinery grosgrain Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.426)

Evening jacket, 1936 Red rayon-cotton millinery grosgrain Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.288)

Stole, 1936 Yellow rayon-cotton millinery grosgrain Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.415)

Hat, 1936 Black synthetic millinery grosgrain Courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Gift of Charles James (SL.8.2014.4.3a, b)

James liked nothing better than a challenge. In the mid-1930s, the French textile manufacturer Johan Colcombet presented him with a quantity of 18 ½ -inch-wide grosgrain yardage (see stole) used exclusively for making hats. Despite the material’s narrow width, the sculptural potential of its rigidity and stretch inspired him to use it to construct voluminous evening wraps. One cape had a total hem circumference of 315 inches and required 22 yards of the narrow fabric cut in approximately 20 pattern pieces. The success of the evening wraps prompted Colcombet to expand some of his grosgrain looms to produce fabric wide enough for clothing. James considered this one of his most significant design achievements.

Displayed here are four smaller items that he fashioned at about the same time. James shaped the hat with its origami-folded crown from a single length of grosgrain during, as he wrote, “a moment of boredom.” The elegant line of the collar of the red evening jacket is the result of James manually molding the fabric around the neck with steam—a technique he learned as a milliner. With leftover yardage, he fashioned the ten-foot stole by fringing it at each end. 41

GALLERY 3: Special Exhibition Galleries/Service Building B

(Entry space)

Bernard Boutet de Monvel (French, 1884-1949) Millicent Rogers (Dress by Charles James), 1949 Oil on canvas Courtesy of private collection (SL.8.2014.9.1)

Millicent Rogers (1902-1953)—social leader, arbiter of style, and jewelry designer—was a primary Charles James client and benefactor during the years he developed most of the ball gowns in this gallery. She sat for this portrait wearing a James ivory satin front-pouf gown accessorized with a signature James tulle stole and a necklace of her own design. At right are the muslin mock- ups for this gown and others that she donated. Another nearly identical version of the gown is on display in the gallery.

Butterfly Sofa, ca. 1976 (reconstruction of original design, 1951) Unbleached cotton sateen Courtesy of Anthony Lawrence-Belfair (SL.8.2014.6.1a, b)

The human anatomy was invariably the basis of James’s design strategy. He developed this early example of an ergonomic sofa in 1950, when decorating and furnishing the interior of the Houston home of the art collectors John and Dominique de Menil. The sofa’s contours are calibrated to accommodate the body comfortably in any position, while the bisected construction allowed for the two pieces to be placed at an inward angle, obviating the need for occupants to twist toward each other to converse. Even the sofa’s lines are anatomical: James likened its curves to the impression made if one were to sit in wet cement. This example was made from a pattern and mold created by Charles James and Homer Layne using an original sofa. 42

Muslins, 1946, 1947, 1953, 1954 Unbleached and black cotton muslin Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gifts of Millicent Huttleston Rogers, 1949; Baroness W. von Langendorff, 1953; Jean de Menil, 1955 (2009.300.744; .746; .754; .755; .781; .796)

James believed in the importance of documenting his idiosyncratic design process and techniques for future generations. As part of his legacy-building strategy, he produced muslin mock-ups marked with grain and seam lines as study tools that elucidate the particulars of their cut and construction. The initial impetus for making them was an exhibition “A Decade of Design” that James mounted at the Brooklyn Museum in 1948. It featured the fashions he had developed for Millicent Rogers earlier in the decade. Rogers donated the clothes along with the muslins (several of which are on view) after the show closed. James persuaded other clients to contribute their gowns with muslin replicas to Brooklyn in the ensuing years. Each example here replicates a ball gown in this gallery.

(Main Gallery - Intro Panel)

Charles James (1906-1978) is most often remembered for the lavish glamour of the evening dresses he created during the late 1940s and early 1950s—a particularly fertile period for the designer. Credited by Christian Dior for inspiring his transformative 1947 “New Look” collection, James merged his prescient pre-war silhouettes with the postwar mood for a return to romantic femininity and luxury. Within this narrow timeframe, James’s idiosyncratic and sophisticated palette, audaciously sculptural manipulation of luxurious materials, and exceptional technical skill are in full, extravagant bloom. Well read, musical, and engaged by contemporary art movements, especially Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, James saw his creative output as equal to those of a painter, sculptor, or composer.

But the ravishing beauty of a James work is only its surface. He believed that his singular innovations lay in the actual structure of his designs—in their architecture and engineering. James is, in fact, one of only a handful of twentieth-century couturiers whose pieces withstand deep analytical scrutiny. To dissect a James gown is to reveal more fully the complete originality and virtuosity of its maker. metmuseum.org/charlesjames

#charlesjames

(Monitor Text and Supporting Image Content)

Umbrella Evening Dress, 1938 Black silk faille Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.402)

Label text: James worked as an inventor who developed his ideas with constant revision and refinement. The only piece in this gallery dating from his early career in Europe, this pivotal design represents his initial experimentation with bodice and skirt understructures—signature elements of his postwar ball gowns. The spoked understructure of the skirt, from which the dress gets its name, found ultimate expression in his boned Clover Leaf shaped skirts and domed Lampshade ball gowns. A stiff grosgrain foundation, rather than mere vertical boning, supports the bodice of this dress—his first strapless and a very early example of the style. This innovation became a characteristic of his much-acclaimed, anatomically fitted post-war examples.

Catalogue text: One of the first strapless designs of the 1930s, this dress was created on a lightly stiffened foundation in grosgrain to support the bodice. Silk-encased ribs, like those of an umbrella, are the understructure that supports the fullness of the skirt, created by eight gores. The long darts horizontally placed at the mid-calf take up the fabric to form the pointed lobes. Horizontal interior bones support the silhouette of the skirt while amplifying its sway in movement.

Animation image:

Illustration of James client Mme Arturo (Patricia) Lopez-Willshaw, 1939. Vogue ©The Condé Nast Publications Ltd. 44

Ball Gown, 1951 Ivory silk satin Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Coulson, 1964 (2009.300.1311)

Label text: James’s virtuosity in draping abundant cloth into opulent asymmetrical sculptural forms culminated in 1948, when Cecil Beaton’s famous photograph was published in Vogue. That year, he created the first version of this design, which marked a shift towards the more structured approach he would take by the 1950s. Here, in this version from 1951, the masses of cloth are draped into pillow-like crescents that for all their volume do not require any inner support. At the same time the four discreet sections that appear to be, but are not entirely, symmetrical—front and back and side to side—presage the more structured four-lobed silhouette of the Clover Leaf designed a year later. This particular dress was worn by debutante Miss Cynthia Cunningham, the future Mrs. Robert Coulson, at her coming-out party.

Catalogue text: In a few notable instances James created skirts that appeared to be symmetrical front and back and side to side. These multilobed designs relate conceptually to the Clover Leaf gown (see p. 226), which James considered his greatest achievement. However, whereas the Clover Leaf epitomizes sculptural suavity, this gown demonstrates a virtuoso handling of abundant cloth. It is draped with such an excess of fabric that its pillowlike crescents, for all their volume, do not require any inner support.

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Ball Gown, 1948 Peach silk faille and orange silk taffeta Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Arturo and Paul Peralta-Ramos, 1954 (2009.300.2787)

Label text: The first New York retrospective of the sexually infused art of Georgia O’Keeffe was at the Museum of Modern Art in 1946, shortly before James developed this design. Conflating the eighteenth-century open robe and petticoat with later Victorian apron-front drapery, James here merged his passions for historical styles and erotic sartorial markers. The shawled overskirt (open robe) frames the cascade of drapery on the underskirt (petticoat) in an O’Keeffe-like allusion to the primary site of feminine sexuality and procreation. Two of his most important clients and benefactors, Millicent Rogers and Mrs.William Randolph (Austine) Hearst Jr., owned the design.

Catalogue text: This ball gown, which appears in Cecil Beaton’s iconic group portrait of James designs (see pp. 36–37), was ordered by two of his most stylish American clients, Austine Hearst and Millicent Rogers. Referring again to the style of the eighteenth-century open robe and petticoat, James gave it a distinctive stamp. The overskirt frames the cascade of drapery on the underskirt like a shawl collar, with a rather explicit libidinous allusion.

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Illustration, 1888-89

Millicent Rogers in the Ball Gown at James’s Madison Avenue Studio, in Town & Country (July 1948). Photo by Gene Fenn

Ball Gown, 1949–50 Red silk velvet and satin and white cotton organdy Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Arturo and Paul Peralta-Ramos, 1954 (2009.300.2786)

Label text: As he did with many of the ball gowns in this room, James mined the past as the basis for this, among his most popular designs. A corset-like bodice and an asymmetrical apron wrap are recognizable as James’s borrowings from late Victorian bustle dresses, while the underskirt represents an expansion of the pleated organdy ruffles typically decorating Victorian and Edwardian petticoats. James was fond of describing a fashion show finale in which eight clients who owned this gown paraded down the runway on the arms of tuxedoed escorts carrying bouquets of American Beauty roses. Although this story is unconfirmed, as with all of James’s anecdotes, the poetic image, whether fact or fiction, remains compelling.

Catalogue text: James claimed that this was the simplest dress to put together because it had three distinct parts: the velvet bodice, the organdy skirt, and the satin overskirt. The draping of the overskirt, however, is impossible to understand without close study. The long, extended panel is torqued and wrapped. The complex shaping at the back is achieved by a deep incision to create the self-yoke.

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Dress, 1880-85 (45.115.3ab)

Mrs. William S. (Babe) Paley in the Ball Gown at her home, Kiluna Farm, North Hills, Long Island, New York, in Vogue (November 1950). Photo by John Rawlings, ©Condé Nast 47

Lampshade Evening Dress, ca. 1955 Black rayon velvet and black silk-cotton satin Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009 (2009.300.8522)

Label text: James’s historicist outlook and aesthetic for eccentric sculptural shapes coalesce in this unorthodox yet engagingly dramatic design. To the period ideal of the sheathed female figure, James suspended a wide bell- shaped hem construction, as if the panniers of an eighteenth-century court gown had slipped down around the legs. The shape, not unlike its Rococo prototype, is supported by concentric and transverse boning. Of the James sheath designs spouting knee-length flounces, including the Tree and the Tulip gowns, the Lampshade is singular in its tight wrapping of fabric over a supporting understructure.

Catalogue text: Cecil Beaton once described the affectations of Pauline de Rothschild as becoming completely natural, and the same might be said of James’s designs in the 1950s. So completely had the designer mastered the construction of even the most outsize and eccentric shapes that examples of his architectural amplification of the body are pleasantly astonishing rather than confounding in their unexpected forms. To the period ideal of the sheathed female figure James here appended a wide bell-shaped hem, as if the panniers of an eighteenth-century court gown had slipped down around the legs.

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Robe à la Française, 1760-70

Sketch by Charles James, 1955. Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. Clive Runnels and Mrs. Edward L. Ryerson, 1957

Ball Gown, 1948–49 Pale pink silk satin and ivory silk twill Gift of Jane Love Lee, 1993 (1993.427)

Label text: James deftly referred to historical precedent without replicating it. In this poetic version of a late Victorian bustle dress, he merged two period drapery styles into a modern iteration that abolishes the heaviness of its predecessors. This particular example was worn as a wedding dress for which James designed a removable train. The original version appeared in a 1948 ad campaign for Modess sanitary napkins that featured images by his friend Cecil Beaton of women in opulent interiors wearing James ball gowns. James later wrote that the point of the campaign was “so that any woman at a difficult moment can imagine herself a Duchess.”

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Corset, ca. 1880 (2009.300.3044a, b)

Mantua, late 17th C. (33.54a, b)

Dress, ca. 1884 (C.I.52.42.4a, b)

The Ball Gown in pastel tones featured in Modess advertisement, 1949. Photo by Cecil Beaton, Courtesy of Johnson & Johnson 49

Butterfly Ball Gown, ca. 1955 Brown silk chiffon, cream silk satin, brown silk satin, and brown and purple nylon tulle Purchase, Friends of the Costume Institute Gifts, 2013 (2013.591)

Label text: Like the metamorphosis from caterpillar to shimmering butterfly, the woman who wriggles into the narrow body of this gown assumes the enchantment of a winged beauty. For the effect, James exaggerated the torso length of the sheath with “the highest bustline in 125 years” and layered transparent tulle in unexpected colors to accrue depth of tone and iridescent shimmer to the surrogate wings. The owner of this dress purchased it at Lord & Taylor for $1,250, the equivalent of $12,000 today. It was, according to her recollection, surprisingly comfortable to wear despite its eight-pound weight and posterior amplitude.

Catalogue text: The Butterfly extends the labor-intensive tucking treatment seen on the bodice of the Swan to cover the whole of the narrow, body-hugging sheath. A folded wide satin band loops over and controls the exuberant volume of tulle released at the back; it also obscures the structural attachment of the various parts. As in many of his tulle skirts, James here exploited the transparency of net by layering unexpected combinations of colors, which together accrue a richly complex depth of tone.

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Model in Butterfly Ball Gown, ca.1954. Photo by Cecil Beaton, Courtesy of the Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s 50

Clover Leaf Ball Gown, 1953 White silk satin and faille and black silk-rayon velvet Gift of Elizabeth Fairall, 1953 (C.I.53.73)

Label text: James gave full expression to his innate sense of grandeur when he conceived the design of this ball gown for Mrs. William Randolph (Austine) Hearst Jr. to wear to the Eisenhower Inaugural Ball on January 20, 1953. It proved too voluminous for that event, but in June Hearst lit up London’s grandest political spectacle—the coronation of Elizabeth II—with its dramatic presence. An aesthetic and technical masterwork, it weighs ten pounds, yet the skirt is comfortably balanced on the hips and calibrated to move with a gentle sway as the wearer walks. James made six Clover Leaf gowns in this black-and-white abstract design.

Catalogue text: James considered this design his crowning achievement. A sequence of undulating curves that work in symphony, it is an aesthetic and technical masterwork. The strapless bodice is curved up slightly under the arms, only to dip in a reverse curve to the low center back. A subtle asymmetry is introduced to the severely fitted top with a splay of release tucks at the center front bust. The waistline curves up over the side waist, a characteristic Jamesian gesture, and dips very low in front and back. The coup de grace is the skirt developed into four separate lobes, longer and fuller in back. The cantilevered skirt is in three parts: the upper skirt of ice white satin matching the bodice; a wide band of black velvet, with top and bottom curves undulating in opposite directions; and a hem of white silk faille. Deep inverted pleats at either side of the lower skirt animate the hem when in movement. The bodice was buttressed from the waist, and the skirt balanced on the hips and did not touch the ground. It was intended to lilt on the dance floor like an ice skater’s skirt in pirouette.

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Clover Leaf Ball Gown, 1953 Pink silk faille, copper silk shantung, and black silk lace with ivory silk faille backing Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Josephine Abercrombie, 1953 (2009.300.784)

Label text: James designed this one and only romantic iteration of the black-and-white abstract Clover Leaf for Josephine Abercrombie, the only child of a millionaire Texas industrialist. Although the specific occasion when it was worn is not known, the incredibly intricate and time-consuming techniques used to cut out and float the lace over the skirt signify the importance the client placed on having a one-of-a-kind showstopper. The placement of the lace on the back bodice so that it frames the erogenous zone above the buttocks and the unexpected color combination of shell pink with copper are signature James

characteristics.

Catalogue text: James’s architectonic virtuosity tends to subordinate his decorative details. Here the graphic black-and-white modernity of the original Clover Leaf design has evolved into a more romantic iteration. The unexpected color combination of shell pink with copper is classic James. A black lace overlay with an ivory silk backing spreads across the gown like moss. At the front bodice, the lace optically narrows the waist, while at the back it frames the erotic zone above the buttocks and below the small of the back, a frequent point of focus for the designer.

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Film Producer Hope Bryce (the future Mrs. Otto Preminger) in the lace-covered Clover Leaf Ball Gown at the Fashion Guild Award Ceremony at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where James won a Special Award, 1954. Photo © Bettman/Corbis

Ball Gown, 1946 Black silk-rayon velvet, red silk satin, brown silk faille, and black silk crepe Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Arturo and Paul Peralta-Ramos, 1954 (2009.300.795)

Label text: It was a signature James design strategy to combine several different fabrics in one garment for special effects of light, color, and movement. Here he combined the light-absorbing texture of black velvet, the sheen of red satin, the rustle of matte brown taffeta, and the supple drape of black crepe to effect a constantly changing sensory experience as the wearer moves. In defiance of any conventional dressmaking norms, the pointed front skirt panels fold over to form hip wings before meeting at the center back waist. Likewise, the bodice back becomes shoulder straps that meet at the center front bodice. James designed this dress for Millicent Rogers, the style icon and social leader, who was one of his most important and sartorially adventurous

clients.

Catalogue text: In a Surrealist inversion, James shifted the weight and fullness generally seen at the back of a gown to the front and used a softly draped fabric at the back, giving the uncanny impression of a gown worn backward. The architectural shaping of the front skirt panels was achieved simply by folding the triangular terminus of the satin panel back on itself. The shoulder straps, which originate from the back bodice panels and attach at the center front of the bodice, highlight the cleavage even as they obscure it. The gown’s pointed waist is directed to mid-pelvis for a hardly prurient, but clearly intended, eroticism.

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Model in the Ball Gown at Charles James’s Madison Avenue showroom; James is seated at lower left; journalist Austine Hearst is seated at rear left, in Collier’s (September 1947). Photo by Jerry Cooke, ©JCA, Inc. 2014

Ball Gown, 1947 Pale peach silk satin and faille Purchase, Costume Institute Benefit Fund, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, and Acquisitions Fund, 2013 (2013.328)

Label text: James was enamored of pouf drapery as much for its sculptural quality as for its historically resonant aesthetic. This gown’s knee-level front pouf takes its cue from the so-called pannier drapery of the late Edwardian period, yet its complex skirt construction allows for a modernist resolution in which the pouf melts into a straight fall of fabric at back. It is immortalized in two iconic images of glamour and opulence: the model seated at the far left of Cecil Beaton’s famous 1948 photograph of James designs and the sumptuous portrait of Millicent Rogers by Bernard Boutet de Monvel at the entrance to this gallery.

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Model in the Ball Gown, accessorized with signature James bird-wing feather fan, in Harper’s Bazaar (April 1947). Photo by Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Collection Center for Creative Photography, ©2014 Arizona Board of Regents

Swan Ball Gown, ca. 1954 Brown silk chiffon, cream silk satin, and yellow, purple, light brown, and brown nylon tulle Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009 (2009.300.8523)

Label text: Among James’s many allusions to historical silhouettes and decoration, his Swan is the most literal. For this airier contemporary version of a heavily draped Victorian bustle dress, he deployed transparent chiffon and stiff nylon tulle, a then relatively new textile innovation. The skirt’s six layers, composed of 1,080 square feet of tulle, are combined in various colors to give it depth and luminosity. Despite its ethereal appearance, it is, at twelve pounds, the weightiest of his grand creations. The beautiful curvature of the bodice back is signature James anatomical styling designed to displace extra flesh that might ruin the graceful line.

Catalogue text: James’s Swan shares a Belle Époque elegance with his Tree and Butterfly gowns. Of his architectural works, they are among the most historicist in their evocation of late-nineteenth-century silhouettes and lush romanticism. The infrastructure of the Swan is as complex as his poetic juxtaposition of delicate materials on its surface. The tucked chiffon of the bodice is placed over a cream silk satin ground, making the painstaking handwork more clearly visible; the draped apron is manipulated so that its folds are difficult to disrupt; and layers of variously colored tulle combine to give depth and luminosity to the skirt, especially in motion.

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Ball Gown, 1954 Green silk satin Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Jean de Menil, 1955 (2009.300.3522)

Label text: James executed only two examples of this sculptural masterpiece in emerald-green satin. The art patrons Mr. and Mrs. John de Menil provided the funds for the Brooklyn Museum to purchase this version (along with the muslin displayed earlier in the exhibition), to further the James’s legacy there. The successful mounting of the freeform spiraling flounce—a wide contoured circle that is folded over on itself—was achieved through an engineer’s understanding of counterbalanced forces. The elegant waistline seam, cut anatomically rather than as a straight horizontal, contributes to the elegance of line and perfection of fit that distinguishes his clothes.

Catalogue text: As James sought to consolidate his legacy and to devise a curriculum around some of his most important works, he created a series of draped study pieces. The toiles, as such prototypes of black and white cotton muslin are called, graphically render the complexities of his approach, and the contrasting fabrics simplify an analysis of his techniques. The toile for this intricate gown (opposite) reveals the skirt as a wide contoured circle that is folded over on itself to form the dramatic front flute.

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Model Pud Gadiot being fitted in the Ball Gown, in Sunday News, February 1955. Photo by David McLane

Tree Ball Gown, 1955 Dark pink silk taffeta and red, pink, and white nylon tulle Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks Jr., 1981 (2009.300.991)

Label text: The name of this dress refers to Mrs. Ronald (Marietta Peabody) Tree for whom it was designed. In a letter to the Victoria and Albert Museum, where Mrs. Tree donated her version of the dress, James wrote, “Mrs. Tree is a large woman; my problem was to reduce a very substantial bust and create a hollow rib-cage.” He further noted that the loosely pleated drapery required tension from the wearer’s body to avoid its appearing “commonplace.” Decidedly uncommonplace, the flounce, backed with rich white satin, is supported by multiple layers of red, pink, and white nylon tulle—a hidden refinement revealed only with movement.

Catalogue text: The name of this dress refers not to textured bark but to Marietta Tree, the socially prominent client for whom it was designed. The details of several designs appear to have percolated through James’s development process, resulting in similar but distinctive alternatives. Unlike the Swan (see p. 214), this dress merges bodice and skirt in one continuous downward drift of folds. Whereas the Swan features narrow tucks at the bodice and soft drapery at the skirt, the Tree relies on a seemingly less controlled V-shaped cascade throughout.

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Gypsy Rose Lee at home in the Tree Ball Gown, in Town & Country (April 1957). Photo by Mary and Ralph Steiner, Courtesy of the Estate of Ralph Steiner

Tulip Evening Dress, 1949 Black silk satin and faille Courtesy of Elizabeth de Cuevas (Strong-Cuevas) (SL.8.2014.2.1)

Label text: The challenge of this design, as James noted, was to achieve an elegant effect despite the difficulty of mounting a voluminous flounce of stiff faille on a narrow sheath of supple black satin. An organza underlining supporting the satin and an interior horsehair roll causing the fountain-like upward lift of the tulip flounce contributed to its artistic resolution. James made this one-of-a kind dress for the prominent Washington, D.C., hostess Mrs. Sidney Kent Legare. He noted that only a woman of great distinction could carry the “contrasting moods of sobriety and suggestiveness” of the dress.

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(SBB- Quotes by Charles James)

“Brancusi has his medium; Picasso, Faulkner, Shostakovich, theirs. Mine happens to be cloth.”

“I don’t think you can ‘feel’ fashion without being exposed to imaginative and fashionable people.”

“Fashion, after all, is magic and miracle…intended to bestow proportion and beauty where both have been lost or faded with the years.”

“Life has taught me that one’s most precious asset is the spirit of ‘independence at all costs’…the constant disposition to risk all in the interests of a conviction.”

“My record of achievement proves that I have never been or am out of my mind.”

“I’d rather have no audience at all than one for which I could have no respect.”

“I spent my life making fashion an art form.”

“The artist himself is like the mud-soaked soccer-player; for him, it is the game, even more than the victory, that brings consummate rapture and defies comparison with worldly success.”

“My dresses help women discover figures they didn’t know they had.”

“Nothing restores a woman’s confidence as much as producing something which makes her look at her best.”

“All my work was inspired by women who were not merely lovely or rich but personalities, and who seemed to share some of my own feelings about life in general.”

“The excitement of new fashions is for us to know what lies within and beneath clothes; this being hinted at, rather than stated, by the sway of the figure as it moves against and into the flow of material.”

“[Fashion is] what is rare, correctly proportioned, and thought utterly discrete, libidinous.”

“The passion which drove me into a very difficult profession was one for form related to movement, and above all to erotic grace.”

“A great designer does not seek acceptance. He challenges popularity, and by the force of his convictions renders popular in the end what the public hates at first sight.”

“What, after all, is the true function of fashion but to be a rehearsal for propagation? Rehearsals, we might better say.”

“We who have been ahead in STYLE have usually been also ahead in our thinking …”

“Elegance is not a social distinction but a sensual distinction. The mind combines with the body to exploit its senses, its functions, its appearance.”

“You can’t really tell why it’s erotic—it’s the mystery that makes it good. It has to do with the movement of a dress

“My structures… look as if the body were no more ambulatory than a mermaid’s yet permit large reckless movement”

“There is no GOING BACK. Study the past to know why, not what, and from the WHY, dream and DO. There is no short cut to creation. There may also be no profit in it.”

(Exit Panel)

“Charles James: Beyond Fashion” continues downstairs in the new Anna Wintour Costume Center’s Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery and the Carl and Iris Barrel Apfel Gallery. There, James’s beginnings as a milliner,some of his most innovative creations from the 1930s, and significant postwar examples representing his full range of daywear and evening designs are presented. An eclectic sampling of his personal archives retrieved primarily from the Chelsea Hotel, his final studio and residence, is also on view. metmuseum.org/charlesjames

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