Finding Futurist Fashion: Lost Links to Haute Couture Amanda L

Home , Designer clothing, Elsa Schiaparelli, Enrico Prampolini, Fortunato Depero, Minimal music

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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School

2004 Finding Futurist Fashion: Lost Links to Haute Couture Amanda L. Mitchell

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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF THEATRE

FINDING FUTURIST FASHION:

LOST LINKS TO HAUTE COUTURE

AMANDA L. MITCHELL

A Thesis submitted to the School of Theatre in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2004

The members of the Committee approve the thesis of Amanda L. Mitchell defended on April 6, 2004.

______Laura Edmondson Professor Directing Thesis

______Mary Karen Dahl Committee Member

______Colleen Muscha Committee Member

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures iv Abstract v

INTRODUCTION 1

1. FUTURIST PERFORMANCE THEATRICS IN THE SERATA AND HAUTE COUTURE 12

2. COSTUMING THE STAGE: FASHION, FUTURISM, AND THE BALLETS RUSSES 31

3. SCHIAPARELLI LEADS THE WAY 55

CONCLUSION 75

WORKS CITED 79

BIOGRAPICAL SKETCH 83

iii

LIST OF FIGURES

1.1 Umberto Boccioni’s famous caricature of a Futurist Serata 19

1.2 “Thousand and Second Night” fashion fete at the couture house of Paul Poiret 22

1.3 Paul Poiret and his wife in costume for “Thousand and Second Night” 28

2.1 Wooden puppets for Plastic Ballets, by Depero 34

2.2 Costumes for Depero's Machine of 3000 (1924) 35

2.3 Prampolini's costume sketch for a barman in Cocktail (1927) and production photos 36

2.4 A sketch of movements for Printing Press and costume rendering by Balla 38

2.5 Balla's sketch for the setting of Feu d'Artifice 44

2.6 Depero's costume renderings for Mimismagia (1916) 45

2.7 Model of Depero's La Chant du Rossignol set 46

2.8 Depero's costume renderings for La Chant du Rossignol 47

2.9 Program cover, star/constellation costume and production photo of Ode 48

2.10 Rendering and for Le Bal 49

2.11 La Chatte production photo (1927) 49

2.12 Costumes for La Chatte 50

2.13 Le Train Bleu costumes by Chanel (1924) 51

3.1 Balla and his daughters posing in Futurist clothing with his “plastic garden” 58

iv 3.2 Famous Futurist Waistcoats designed and constructed by Depero, worn by the artists and Marinetti 59

3.3 Optical illusion sweater/jacket renderings by Balla 62

3.4 Schiaparelli’s trompe l’oeil knit sweaters 63

3.5 Dali’s Lobster Phone and Schiap’s famous Lobster Dress (1937) 64

3.6 Bug buttons and necklace by Schiaparelli 66

3.7 Schiap hat renderings (1937) 67

3.8 Musical note dress by Schiap (1937) 68

3.9 Schiap’s overall for women (1928) 69

3.10 Rendering and prototype of Thayaht’s Tuta 70

ABSTRACT

This thesis explores the links between early twentieth-century haute couture and the Italian avant-garde movement, Futurism. Although a definite cause-to-effect relationship cannot necessarily be assigned, the artistic and aesthetic elements of Futurist fashion and costume design, coupled with the mode of theatrical presentation used in the Futurist Serata (Evening), are similar to the ideas inherent in haute couture at the beginning of the last century. This parallelism calls for a closer examination, as Futurist theories of performance, costume design, and fashion resonated outside the movement long after its own demise. My exploration considers the externally influential contributions and lasting impact Futurism has made beyond the movement’s own walls. I assess both Futurism’s direct and indirect interplay with haute couture through the comparison of theatrical elements inherent in both areas, analyze Futurist and haute couture interaction with theatrical costume design, and provide a thorough examination of Futurist fashion and its striking similarities to haute couture designs a mere ten years later. In the first chapter I analyze the similarities of performance characteristics and strategies in the Futurist Serata and early twentieth-century fashion show. In the second chapter I continue to explore the dramatic and performative nature inherent in both Futurism and haute couture by examining their intersections with theatrical costume design; the analysis culminates with the specific example of the Ballets Russes. Finally, in the third chapter I examine the work of one haute couture fashion designer that embodies many of the chief elements prescribed in several futurist manifestoes. Italian-born Elsa Schiaparelli, an innovative and provocative designer of the 1930s, provides an excellent example of the limit-testing and boundary-pushing the Futurists championed within the realm of performance-wear.

INTRODUCTION

The history of haute couture (high fashion) is, from its inception, closely aligned to the history of modern art. Just as nearly every other avenue of artistic expression bifurcated into conservative and avant-garde movements, modernist aesthetics, which called for a reexamination of traditional perceptions, dramatically challenged and transformed fashion in the first decades of the twentieth century. Prior to this period, the act of designing garments was viewed as artisanal rather than artistic. With the emergence of modern Aestheticism, the Arts and Crafts Movement, and several other revolutionary reform movements, however, it was now acceptable for dressmakers to design and create, rather than just construct. Like musicians and painters, fashion designers also freely explored their medium and treated it as an artistic expression. As curator of the 1998 exhibit Addressing the Century: 100 Years of Art & Fashion, Peter Wollen suggests one variable that explains the early twentieth-century art/fashion connection is the complex two-way relationship between painting and couture. He asserts that “dress designers thought in terms of visual tableaux and looked to art for inspiration, while artists painted portraits of clients who wore the clothes they had acquired from the couturier,” which means a particular awareness of human anatomy and aesthetically flattering images is a skill shared by both designer and painter, who, in turn, inhabit the same visual domain (9). This intriguing intersection of fashion and art, as well as the re-categorization of fashion as art, was widely explored by haute couture and avant-garde movements alike. This project explores links between the avant-garde and fashion, specifically in relation to the modernist movement of Futurism. The Italian Futurist movement, which was begun in 1909 by poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, flourished for at least ten years with residual activity that lasted throughout the century. As an historical movement, Futurism is often divided into three phases of activity. The premier surge lasted until about the end of the First World War, the second phase until the Second World War, and the final phase of the movement ended

approximately with Marinetti’s death in 1944.1 The following discussions in this thesis, however, focus on the first fifteen years of Futurism. Far from just an artistic movement, Futurism was both art and a self-conscious ideology; it emphasized a vision of total social change. Marinetti’s founding manifesto called for the exaltation of speed, action, violence and conflict; rebellion against the decaying past and staunch morals of the bourgeoisie; abhorrence of the stagnant Italian culture; and an ardent verve for the magnificence and illustriousness of industrialization and technological advancement. Dozen upon dozens of published manifestos and advertisements reemphasized and propagated each of these ideals directly to a mass public. In fact, in their text Futurism, Caroline Tisdall and Angelo Bozzolla provide an analogy that compares the launch and presentation of Marinetti’s cultural movement to a modern political campaign, which included the use of “newspapers, saturation advertising, theatres and stadiums, whistle- stop tours, a stream of propaganda for his members and of abuse for their detractors, a blaze of publicity whenever a Futurist was lucky enough to be put on trial, and instant documentation of all these events” (9). Among other avant-garde movements, Futurism stands out as a movement purposefully campaigned to and among the masses. The shocking and radical Futurist Serata (evening) not only advertised Futurist ideology, but it also acted as a mobile gallery that showcased a multiplicity of artistic efforts through provocative performance. In fact, the Futurists employed performance to disseminate all of their radical ideas about the collision of art and life. Marinetti best describes and takes ownership of this reckless collision when he writes, “Thanks to us the time will come when life will no longer be a simple matter of bread and labour, nor a life of idleness either, but a work of art” (qtd. in Goldberg 30).2 Thus, to the Futurists, the world was a canvas. Futurists unearthed the potential for art in nearly every aspect of life imaginable. They left no domain unexplored if it helped to campaign and spread Futurism’s ideals of a cutting-edge Italian society. Artistic endeavors included painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, poetry, literature, cinema, music, culinary arts, and clothing design. Several Futurists worked in more than one discipline, which allowed for artistic cross-pollination and encouraged experimentation in simultaneous performance

techniques. They searched constantly for any active interchange between art and life that could result in dynamic progression and modernist advancement. Fashion was to prove a particularly rich medium for exploration, as it paralleled the movement’s mission in a variety of ways. In fact, nowhere else in the movement does the Futurists’ concept of artistic interplay mix so evidently with their idolatry of speed, change, and mass consumption. Judith Clark explains this magnetic attraction: Marinetti looked for echoes of his vision, for sites of inspiration, of what he described as ‘devine speed’. He found this not only in the trains, bridges, and tunnels of the new and active cities but also in the great Parisian fashion houses that due to their fast invention of fashion create the passion for that which is new and loathing for that which has already been seen. This had to be harnessed for even faster consumption, and his fascination with the fashion system itself, as one of infinitely renewed desire, remained at the centre of the Futurist movement. (10) In other words, fashion provided the Futurists with an invigorating artistic medium that advocated for ceaselessly new and progressive exploration. Polemical rhetoric permeates the scores of Futurist manifestos, which challenge contemporary views of society by demanding abolition of the forms and values of the past. Futurists fantasized a culture that continually reassessed and updated itself: one that perpetually sought out faster, brighter, bigger, and better inventions and discarded the stagnancy of the past. The continual ebbs and flows of fashion fads already fostered a medium capable of drastic change to social aesthetics. Each new year and/or season to the next, men and women followed the aristocratic trendsetters who would deem new fashion faux-pas, literally, at the drop of a hat; once a particular trend, often popularized by royalty, trickled down to the merchant class, the style was abandoned or outdone by the next “big thing.” Similarly, the Futurists’ yearning and constant struggle to “see all of culture changed,” explains fashion curator Richard Martin, is the “political root” that connects Futurism and fashion (Cubism 154). The Futurists found an ideal campaign tool to broadcast their deep-rooted motivation—the dynamic view of the future—by creating and expressing the movement’s identity through fashion.

Indeed, Futurism and early popular twentieth-century fashion share additional properties. The progression of the Industrial Revolution, which was highly praised by the Futurists, significantly impacted and altered the manufacturing technique of fashion. Even though lower costs of production allowed every class of people the luxuries of style, the very concept of fashion as a means to express luxury and wealth was now challenged by the ideas of self-expression and individuality. Fashion became a means of recreating one’s independent identity without such a strong emphasis on social and economic standing. At the same time more women entered the workforce than ever before, which added the consideration of practicality in clothing. The middle class demanded chic, yet inexpensive and sensible clothing options. The Futurists integrated these by advocating simplification in dress, radical innovation, increasing modernization, and individual self-expression. This impact resonates today in the widely held notion that fashion is art; haute couture fashion shows now cater almost exclusively to the designer’s sense of artistic expression. The Futurists are often more remembered and noted, however, not for a direct and lasting impression on everyday clothing needs, but for their work with costumes for the theatre. There they experimented with geometric and linear shapes, as well as robotic manipulations and garments of noise and motion. “Mechanization and deformation were central concerns of Futurist costuming,” explains Michael Kirby, and represent “a tendency toward the nonhuman and the abstract” (118). Indeed, Futurist theatrical initiatives explored the mechanization of the performer through scenography, costume, and the stylization of movement. In response to increasing technology and industrialization, Futurists complicated the relationship and distinction between man and machine; they depicted a machine identity in humans and personified locomotives, stenographs, and typewriters. While other modern theatre practitioners merely theorized about the man/machine dichotomy, the Futurists actually put it on the stage. Although a definite cause-to-effect relationship cannot necessarily be assigned, the artistic and aesthetic elements of Futurist fashion and costume design, coupled with the mode of theatrical presentation used in the Futurist Serata, are similar to the ideas inherent in haute couture at the beginning of the last century. This parallelism calls for a

closer examination, as Futurist theories of performance, costume design, and fashion resonated outside the movement long after its own demise. Although scholars have investigated the influence and use of Cubism and Surrealism among the more experimental designers and fashion houses of the time, the interplay between fashion and Futurism is widely overlooked. For example, in 1998, the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art presented an exhibition entitled “Cubism and Fashion,” which explored the direct interrelationship between the two, specifically Cubism’s compelling artistic force over fashion. Similar exhibitions and written works have documented fashion’s intersection with expressionism, surrealism, modernity, and postmodernism. Unfortunately, discussions of this type have consistently ignored the area of Futurism. Because Futurists included the area of fashion in their all-encompassing sweep of revolutionizing artistic endeavors, a well-defined link naturally exists. Interestingly, even this link within the movement has been neglected by scholars; information regarding the exploration of fashion and costume is often quickly glossed-over in surveys of Futurism such as Giovanni Lista’s Futurism, Tisdall and Bozzolla’s Futurism, and Jane Rye’s Futurism. These chapters or short sections tend to rely on visual data (sketches, designs, photos) to speak for itself rather than addressing the topic through analysis. A few select fashion histories also include the Futurists’ effort, but seem to write it off as an eccentric bout of creativity that never had a direct influence on the rest of the fashion world. In recent years, however, a small number of scholars have suggested the existence of such a link, although their focus is confined to theoretical design, sketches, and prototypes by noted Futurist designers and not necessarily on Futurism’s interplay with the rest of the industry. I hope to build on these insights and connections. In “Looking Forward to Historical Futurism,” Clark suggests the existence of a naturally intrinsic commonality between Futurism and fashion, that “the [Futurist] movement’s powerful association with the rhetoric of change has underwritten the immediate communicative power of radical design throughout the twentieth century” (9). Clark’s analysis of the innovative nature of Futurist fashion, however, stops short of suggesting specific mainstream designers who latched onto the avant-garde extremes presented in the Futurists’ work.

Emily Braun surveyed three previously untranslated Futurist fashion manifestoes in her article “Futurist Fashion: three manifestoes.” Of the documents Braun translated (“The Antineutral Suit: Futurist Manifesto,” “Futurist Manifesto of Women’s Fashion,” and “The Futurist Manifesto of the Italian Hat”), she says, “With characteristic imperialist rhetoric, Futurist writers on fashion saw Italian style as a means of competing with and exerting political influence on the rest of Western Europe” (35). Certainly the Futurists’ ever-present sense of nationalism deliberately penetrated all writings throughout the movement, but in a broader context, their beliefs and ideals of political and social supremacy translated to an unprecedented concept of individuality for the clothed self. Braun concludes that the Futurists’ most important contribution to the future of twentieth-century fashion was that they “were prescient in understanding clothing design as a legitimate politics of the body and not merely a superfluous decoration subject to the whims of fashion,” an idea that successfully reemerges two decades later in haute couture (37). Following Braun’s lead, I will continue the exploration of artistic identity within the performative action of wearing clothes, especially as it relates to provocation. Perhaps the most authoritative work on Futurist fashion is that of Enrico Crispolti, though his primary publication on the topic has yet to be translated from Italian. Crispolti’s other English-language articles and essays are quite informative of fashion activity within the movement and also provide excellent analysis of how and why the artistic area of fashion fits so well within the movement’s aim. For example, Crispolti’s essay “The ‘Futurist Reconstruction’ of Fashion,” included in the exhibit collection Art/Fashion, reiterates fashion’s momentous significance to Futurism through the function of “ideological proselytizing,” which is, after all, the driving power of the movement as a whole (44). For the Futurists, the proposed reconstruction or revolution of fashion became an ideal vehicle that could affect “every aspect of the everyday reality of environment and communication” (Crispolti, “Futurist Reconstruction” 44). Again, we see that relevant scholarship tends to focus primarily on the inherent connection between Futurism and fashion, and in particular, the dynamism that innovatively drives both fields forward to new and inventive modernizations. Interestingly, Crispolti does point out that the only known direct collaboration between Futurism and haute couture

was when Futurist Ernesto Thayaht sketched designs for Madeleine Vionnet’s Parisian work-studio. Although Thayaht’s work was integrated and professionally produced, Crispolti notes that it remained “relatively distant from the provocations of the Futurists” (“Futurist Reconstruction” 51). Indeed, upon examination, it is quite clear that Thayaht’s Vionnet designs do not thematically or stylistically resemble the work of the other Futurists. However, consider the reversal: did any haute couture designers engage in Futurist ideas or themes? Crispolti’s research does not examine nor even acknowledge the possibility of Futurism’s indirect influence and contribution to mainstream fashion design. My exploration, then, will encompass much more than a simple analysis of the Futurists’ work in this area; I will consider the externally influential contributions and lasting impact Futurism has made beyond the movement’s own walls. I will assess both Futurism’s direct and indirect interplay with haute couture through the comparison of theatrical elements inherent in both areas, analyze Futurist and haute couture interaction with theatrical costume design, and provide a thorough examination of Futurist fashion and its striking similarities to haute couture designs a mere ten years later. The primary evidence that I will use in my analyses includes photographs and design sketches of both Elsa Schiaparelli’s haute couture fashions and Giacoma Balla’s Futurist fashions; Fortunato Depero, Enrico Prampolini, and Balla’s costume renderings for the theatre (sketched and photographed); and several Futurist manifestoes (translated from Italian). Of the notes and manifestoes, I will use The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism 1909 (F.T. Marinetti), The Variety Theatre 1913 (Marinetti), Futurist Manifesto of Men’s Clothing 1913 (Giacomo Balla), The Futurist Synthetic Theatre 1915 (Marinetti, Emilio Settimelli, and Bruno Corra), Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe 1915 (Balla, Fortunato Depero), The Futurist Stage Manifesto 1915 (Enrico Prampolini), The Futurist Universe 1918 (Balla), Notes on the Theatre (Depero c.1915), Descriptions of Costumes by Depero (c.1916), The Antineutral Suit: Futurist Manifesto, Futurist Manifesto of Women’s Fashion, and The Futurist Manifesto of the Italian Hat. In such documents, F.T. Marinetti, self-proclaimed leader of the movement, and his colleagues pose ways to “break down the mysterious doors of the impossible” through infuriating excesses of bombast, primarily and deliberately directed toward the mass audience. Caroline Tisdall and Angelo Bozzolla write that “the manifesto form was an ideal

extension of the publicity machine, and Marinetti’s use of it was an important precedent for the artists of later movements for whom the theoretical or public statement was an integral part of the strategy of reaching an audience” and that “the manifestos of Futurism were intended to provide clear and dynamic proof that the movement was invading every branch of life, cultural, social and political” (11). Not only do these manifestos provide detailed descriptions of the Futurists’ utopian fashion visions, they offer an explanation of how and why artistic endeavors can and should reach a breadth of totality, encompassing every other facet of life. Secondary sources include an assortment of Futurism and fashion history survey texts (as listed in Works Cited). In the first chapter I analyze the similarities of performance characteristics and strategies in the Futurist Serata and early twentieth-century fashion show. Parisian haute couture fashion shows used performative entertainment to sell their specific garment collections. Concurrently, the Futurists used the Serate in similar fashion: to sell the idea of a “Futurist Universe” with the use of shocking and rebellious performance methods. Later, the fashion show would evolve into a theatrical event in itself, using the innovation of simultaneity, audience interaction, and provocation through performance (three of the primary performance techniques championed by the Futurists) to celebrate the art of fashion with music, lights, and drama. In the second chapter I continue to explore the dramatic and performative nature inherent in both Futurism and haute couture by examining their intersections with theatrical costume design. My analysis will include both the similarities and discrepancies between Futurist costume theory and practice within the movement and haute couture costuming efforts within mainstream theatre. Both Futurism and haute couture, however, contributed to the area of costume for the Ballets Russes, which serves as a specific case study to analyze the shortcomings and successes of each movement. Finally, in the third chapter I examine the work of one haute couture fashion designer that embodies many of the chief elements prescribed in several futurist manifestoes. Italian-born Elsa Schiaparelli, an innovative and provocative designer of the 1930s, provides an excellent example of the limit-testing and boundary-pushing the Futurists championed within the realm of performance-wear. Her designs utilized new fabrics that incorporated tree-bark, glass, cellophane, and straw for texture, which shocked and stunned the public and fashion world alike. Although primarily associated

with surrealism, Schiaparelli’s fashion designs and outlook on life also suggest the influence of Futurism. Elsa Schiaparelli provides a intriguing example of the crossover of avant-garde sensibility into the exclusive reigns of refined fashion; she unleashed a type of self-expressive, even daring, dress that propelled fashion into the artistic endeavor it is seen as today. This particular chapter order and breakdown reflects a line of argument that leads from a broad comparison of performance techniques to a more nuanced comparison of theatrical costume design. It concludes with a specific comparison of fashion designers and corresponding theory. The first chapter provides an introductory foundation of Futurism and Parisian haute couture while revealing their strong ties to the new, modern, mass society. The second chapter continues to investigate haute couture’s relation to mass advertising within the area of mainstream theatrical productions, which contrasts Futurism’s artistic experimentation with unconventional theatrical modes. The final section of this chapter, which focuses on the specific example of the Ballets Russes, builds upon the Futurist performance theory discussed in chapter one. In the third and final chapter the discussion returns to the area of fashion, as opposed to costumes, by comparing specific tenets of Futurist fashion theory with Schiaparelli’s designs, thus focusing on the most obvious and immediate link between the two. It is in this final chapter that the Futurism most strongly resonates with Parisian haute couture. Concluding Remarks This thesis combines a variety of interdisciplinary topics, which could arouse interest and foster dialogue not only from theatre students and scholars, but from scholars of fashion history, art and textiles, and cultural studies, as well as general theatre enthusiasts. From a social and cultural perspective, this project should raise some interesting questions about how artistic movements so apparently dominated by the nationalism of one country can influence trends in other countries and cultures, or at the very least, reappear within new contexts. I hope to also fill a niche by continuing futurist dialogue in the United States, as to stay current with the European scholarship. Ultimately, this project counters tendencies to describe Futurist performance, theatrical design, and fashion as short-lived. The innovative techniques and theories first

experimented by the first and second wave of Italian Futurists resonated beyond the movement’s own limitations and found a home in haute couture.

Notes

1 A new presence of Futurism, known as the Nuovo Futurismo, asserted itself again in the mid-eighties, and according to Lista employed “a very Marinettian approach” to their performance art (202).

2 From: Marinetti, F.T. Marinetti: Selected Writings. Ed. and trans. R.W. Flint. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972.

CHAPTER 1

FUTURIST PERFORMANCE THEATRICS IN THE SERATA AND HAUTE COUTURE FASHION SHOW

Imagine, if you will, a performance event. Like the rest of the audience you are not quite sure what the evening holds in store even though you may have heard rumors or seen other advertisements. You are not watching a linear play with a well-defined story; instead, you are witness to several performers on stage at once, all of whom proceed with their own distinct and independent actions. Sometimes the performers comment on the action, and sometimes they allow it to speak for itself, hoping it will provoke you in its own right. The music you hear is played by either a live orchestra or by means of an artificial recording. Lights and other scenographic elements flash and move, drawing focus to multiple performers or special effects at once. There are several actions, noises, and visual images to consume in a single moment, including some that happen within the audience. Audience members react with vociferous scorn or applause, adding to the tumultuous atmosphere. Those forewarned of the program’s contents arrived with preconceived opinions, while others allow themselves to be carried away with the spectacle and react on instinct. The event works to activate their imaginations through surprise, artistic ingenuity, and innovation. Interestingly, this performance you’ve just imagined is essentially the structure and essence of two seemingly unrelated theatrical events: a Futurist Serata (Evening) and an early twentieth-century fashion production. The two events shared several specific performance techniques, such as simultaneous presentation of dynamic scenography and audience incorporation and interaction. Each event also relied on provocative behavior from the creators and/or performers, which only added to the carnivalesque atmosphere. The specificity of such similarities indicates a deeper connection that goes beyond the usual theatricality that pervades most examples of public performance.

The first section of this chapter contextualizes these similarities within a mass- marketing impulse, which provides the common motivational drive behind each event. Both Futurism and fashion relied on performance-oriented spectacle for advertisement in the new age of “mass.” Therefore, I focus on the employment and successful fusion of mass-marketing with theatrical presentation. Then, in the second section of this chapter, I explore the similar theatrical techniques utilized by the Serate and haute couture fashion shows—specifically the use of simultaneity and audience participation. Both venues fostered a theatrical circus-like environment, where the provocative actions of the creators and presenters played a primary role in the commodification of the event. Overall, the elements of innovation, evocation, shock, and surprise coalesced in the atmosphere of each event. These elements exemplify the key tenets of early Futurist performance theory. Futurism, as the first mass-oriented avant-garde movement, failed in its goal to reach and transform the general public by directly impacting the mass culture of Italy, Europe, and beyond. By unpacking the specific similarities of Futurist Serate and haute couture fashion shows, however, I suggest a reason for the ultimate success of haute couture in utilizing Futurist theatrical techniques to penetrate the modern, mainstream society. Because of its association with fascism, its abrupt decline with the advent of the First World War has led historians to dismiss its influence on modernist aesthetics. As this chapter illustrates, however, the innovative theories of Futurism resonate in the equally innovative early twentieth-century haute couture. Increasingly, after the first world war, designers and fashion organizations not only used fashion shows as a means to sell their seasonal lines, they relied on the use of imaginative performance and boldly theatrical entertainment to sell their image to modern society. Concurrently, the Futurists used the Serate in similar fashion: to sell the idea of a Futurist Universe with the use of shocking and rebellious performance methods, which brings me to my first point of comparison: the fusion of mass-marketing with performance. Selling to the Masses The onset of modernity has often been described as the age of “mass.” “‘Mass- production’, ‘mass-consumption’ and ‘mass-media’,” explains fashion historian Christopher Breward, “have all been quoted [by cultural, social, design and art historians]

as the defining characteristics of Western society since 1900” (182). During this time, large cities developed at an unprecedented rate, followed by the invention and widespread implementation of electricity and telephone lines. “Mass-communication,” including print, radio, and then televised media brought information about merchandise and current events at a quickening speed that developed “mass-appeal” for a “mass- audience.” At first glance the elitism of the avant-garde and haute couture seems out of place in a society driven by the obsession with “mass;” however, these very tenets of modernity do indeed exist, and, in fact, are at the core of twentieth-century fashion and Futurist promotion by way of the fashion show and Serata. Word easily spread throughout and beyond Europe about the new self-proclaimed avant-garde movement. Art historian Richard Humphreys describes Futurism’s far- reaching dissemination and mass-appeal: Marinetti, who called himself the ‘caffeine of Europe’, spread the word about Futurism across the continent through exhibitions, performances, events, pamphlets, publicity stunts and a shrewd manipulation of the press. By the outbreak of the First World War, Futurism was a household name throughout Europe and had even gained a foothold in the United States and in Brazil and Mexico. Synonymous with outrage, violence, novelty and excitement, it was by far the most visible face of an international avant-garde that was otherwise largely unknown to, and certainly little understood by, the great mass of people. (Futurism 49) For the first time in history an avant-garde movement was purposefully promoted among the masses. Humphreys explains that the entire movement “was the perfect publicity campaign, masterminded by Marinetti, and the first occasion on which the distinctions between art, life and politics were seriously collapsed into a new genre of imaginative and prophetic propaganda” (225). The Futurists did not simply allow their public to leisurely draw conclusions about the movement. For example, instead of merely publishing their writings in elitist art journals, they sent manifestos to the popular press and papered the cities with posters and flyers that proclaimed their controversial views. The Futurist Serata, which represented the culmination of several eccentric and didactic Futurist efforts, was another tool in their arsenal of campaign strategies.

As a group, the Futurists moved from city to city throughout Europe, and days before the actual Serata, the participating Futurists would either stage their arrival at the railway station with elaborate ceremony or display themselves, like the goods in a department-store window, at a popular café. Advertisements in the forms of printed leaflets or colorful posters would further add to the enticement. Rowdy audiences first milled around in an accompanying piazza before entering the theatre and then waited upwards of two or three hours for the Futurists’ purposefully delayed arrival (Adamson 100-101). When the presentation was finally underway, poetry and manifestos were performed aloud by “arrogant, confident, energetic, and belligerent” readers (Kirby 14). Anything passeist was denounced, including national artistic treasures, libraries, and museums. These contentious presentations could rouse audience members to a riotous response: the Futurists themselves were often (encouraging) targets of the fruit and vegetables thrown onstage. Inanimate objects and Futurist performers alike were fair game. One of the key components that made the Serata such a propagandized and politically infused event was the reading and professing of manifestos. The style and format of the Futurist manifesto usually starts with a descriptive narrative in the form of a personal experience that leads into the passeist problem at hand (i.e. traditional painting, architecture, theatre, poetry, etc.). Various lists or more narratives then explain, in detail, everything the Futurists detest about the particular subject; more often than not, this is where the manifesto concludes. In later manifestos, however, the Futurists went beyond this expression of pessimism and offered their own propositions for future activities. Aside from the obvious polemical qualities of their writings, the manifestos also induced new experimentation. Performance theorist RoseLee Goldberg explains the perpetual motivation for creativity: “The manifestos encouraged the artists to present more elaborate performances and in turn experiments in performance led to more detailed manifestos” (17). Meanwhile, the various manifestos, rewritten many times and translated in several languages, became legendary and infamous. Public familiarity with Futurist theory increased, not only due to Serate attendance, but also because of new published and postered versions of the manifestos within the public domain. The Serata, however, was, in many cases, the only place where the populace could view Futurist art. As a touring circuit Serate performances occurred in most of Italy, western Europe, and

even England. The Futurists gained exposure by combining their artwork, polemical rhetoric, and outrageous ideologies into a great touring performance campaign. In a similar vein, the first true fashion show (circa 1910) also emerged from a need for exposure. Shortly after the first Serata appeared in Italy, the idea of holding an ‘evening of fashion’ was conceived in the United States. 1914 marked the first public fashion show, which was a benefit for the war and an American invention. Nearly six years later, French designer Jean Patou staged the first Parisian collection preview for the press, an event previously limited only to wealthy clientele. Although the press had been informally reporting on fashions in Paris since the beginning of the century, with Patou’s lead, they now gained direct access to the designers and their newest collections. In the twenties and thirties a growing number of fashion houses, both in Paris and New York, showed their fashions first to the press and then to the public, or invited guests. These marketing initiatives, however, were aimed primarily at private or independent customers, not wholesale buyers who were responsible for making couture fashion available to the masses.1 In order to publicize and merchandize the new sportier fashion trends of the early twentieth century, manufacturers also used live mannequins, a practice haute couture designers initiated a few decades earlier, if only in the rudimentary phase.2 Buyers were persuaded as they viewed the clothing in action as opposed to on a hanger or in the static images used previously. Trade shows, which occurred in several mid-western fashion manufacturing centers of the United States, exposed ready-made garments to retail department stores, which would then market the apparel to their customers for mass consumption (Diehl 7). Sadly, fashion designs themselves were and are excluded from copyright infringement, so once a design was publicly unleashed (via the publicity of fashion shows and other means of printed advertisement) it became prone to copying and forgeries. Although other French couturiers may have disagreed, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel believed the well-known saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery; imitations and direct copies did help to popularize couture designs and made unpirated, labeled clothing that much more of a hot commodity (Ashley 134). Sometimes couture designs modified into ready-wear models were “toned down” from the originals, which made them less expensive to produce and more easily marketable for the mass consumption that followed.

The publicity/mass-marketing variable associated with both events acted as the driving force. Serate publicized Futurism as an art movement, and consequently promoted the Futurist way of life, while contemporary fashion shows advertised the design collections from a specific fashion label or house, which, to a degree, also promoted a way of life or a particular image. This marketing impulse establishes a link between Serate and fashion shows; an examination of the specific theatrical attributes shared between these two events reveals even more potential connections. Futurist Theatricality Contemporary fashion designers usually release collections four or five times a year to coincide with seasonal changes, as did design houses at the beginning of the last century. Since their birth these fashion events have been viewed as an elitist form of entertainment. Spectators view beautiful women, who parade in the latest trends, within an entertaining context. Afterwards, the clientele were encouraged to make purchasing decisions based on the staged performance of the garment. Theatrical qualities surround this dynamic spectacle. In the teens and twenties retailers especially made use of this successful mode of presentation by using sets and props to recreate the exact conditions in which the merchandise would be worn (Diehl 8). Costume historian James Laver remarks that the theatricalization process had accelerated in the early twentieth century, when mannequin parades of the fashionable dressmakers became themselves fashionable occasions, which had certainly never happened before in the whole history of dress. People went to a fashion parade as their fathers had gone to a play or to a private view of pictures […] They expected something startlingly new and original in the clothes presented before their eyes. (91) In the late teens professional announcers described the modeled garments in no-nonsense technical terms, underscored with minimal music. By the nineteen-twenties player piano accompaniments were replaced by larger orchestrations, separate entertainment acts were interspersed between collection “acts,” and the displayed garment designs presented an interesting dichotomy of accepted fashion trends and shocking, sometimes futuristic, concepts. For example, the use of the colored plastic zipper for ornamentation was

viewed incredulously at first, but now is a widely used fashion staple. Attendance of fashion shows, then, was twofold: to see firsthand the new fashion trends of the season, and to be entertained in a theatrical-like environment. Whereas fashion shows aimed at seducing spectators, Futurists wanted to shock. Serate audiences attended for a wild and improvised performance, which the Futurists themselves made up as they went along. Kirby explains that three major tenets of Futurist performance include “an emphasis on concrete or alogical presentation…the use and combination of all modes and technical means of performance, and...the physical involvement of the spectators and the destruction of the ‘fourth wall’ convention” (20).3 Regardless of the negative or positive response, Futurist Serate, like the sometimes radical fashion shows of the twentieth century, employed a variety of dramatic and evocative presentational techniques. One of the key components of the presentational Serate was the use of simultaneity, which showcased the large variety of literary and artistic talents that members of the movement possessed. A 1911 caricature of one infamous Serata, by Umberto Boccioni, depicts the synchronal chaos of multiple gesticulating Futurists and a cacophonic brass band, with an agitated audience surrounding them. The inference of motion and speed is heightened by the use of incongruencies: in the haphazard perspective of skewed dimensionality, enunciated lines of animated expression, and three dynamic works of Futurist art that hang disproportionately as the backdrop.

Fig. 1.1 Umberto Boccioni's famous caricature of a Futurist Serata, in RoseLee Goldberg, Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present (London: Thames and Hudson, 1988) 14.

In the manifesto “The Exhibitors to the Public 1912,” five Futurist painters announce “the intoxicating aim of our art […is] the simultaneousness of states of mind in the work of art,” which includes “the simultaneousness of the ambient, and therefore, the dislocation and dismemberment of objects, the scattering and fusion of details, freed from accepted logic, and independent from one another” (Boccioni 47). In this way, Futurist painters achieved a specific desired aura from the collective elements of the work that alone would have been somewhat innocuous. This same technique of simultaneity applied to Futurist painting parallels its use and function during the presentation of the works to form a multi-layered sensory extravaganza. The Serate performances actually preceded written manifesto concerning theatrical presentations, and it wasn’t until three years after the first Serata that Marinetti documented Futurist-supported performance techniques in “The Variety Theatre 1913” manifesto.4 Although Marinetti does not refer to the Serate directly, Kirby asserts, and

other Futurist scholars agree, that the manifesto “can be read as a clear explanation of their basic implications for performance” (Kirby 18; Tisdall and Bozzolla 103). Marinetti was primarily concerned with the creation of a new performance style and/or genre altogether, but it was the “variety” of the variety theatre (cabarets, sideshows, nightclubs, music halls, and circuses) that he desired to emulate. To him, no performance tactic should be overlooked whether it be to “distract and amuse the public with comic effects, erotic stimulation, or imaginative astonishment” (Marinetti, “Variety Theatre” 126), or for that matter, neither should a performance tactic be overused. The audience must never become comfortable with logical expectations or preconceived notions. Futurist scholar Jane Rye describes the teatro dello stupore (theatre of shock, or stupefaction) that Marinetti envisioned: One is left with the impression that the new theatre will bombard the senses with the noisiest, most tumultuous, most dazzling, most bewildering collection of simultaneous sensations that the imagination and considerable ingenuity of Marinetti and his followers can devise; an experience in short, which would drive the spectators (or participators as they would be) to the very brink of insanity. (121) The ultimate aim of these concurrent presentations was to overload the audience’s and presenters’ sensory reception; they don’t have time to think, just react. Just as many other advertising campaigns did, Marinetti wanted to evoke extreme emotional reactions from his audience: reactions that, in theory, would lead to progressive activity in the name of Futurism. When first used as a theatrical technique in fashion shows, the application of simultaneity must have helped to elicit “gut” reactions, as opposed to a more logical or well-thought out response. For example, when an audience member was overwhelmed with the spectacle of the event—sounds of music and the clicking of cameras, the colors of the moving lights and personified garments, and the frenzied speed of it all—it became more difficult to separate and distinguish the individual elements of the experience; everything was absorbed together. Before the logic of organization came to any discernable conclusions the sensory palette was again bombarded with a new mix of mediums in a continual process that lasted about two hours. Of course any garment

would look much more appealing in this kind of setting rather than merely hung on a hanger. Hopefully rash buying decisions would ensue. One example of the use of simultaneity in early twentieth-century couture is Elsa Schiaparelli’s themed fashion shows, which coincided with the general mood and motif of her collection. Over the years these included the mythological Pagan collection, the astronomically oriented Zodiac collection, the commedia dell’arte inspired collection entitled “A Modern Comedy,” the Music collection, and probably her most exciting and popular, the Circus collection, inspired by Barnum, Bailey, Grock, and the Fratellinis (Blum 168-220). For this event Schiaparelli’s salon staircases were decorated as the backdrop for a parade of tightrope-walkers, jugglers, clowns, and other entertainers (Baudot 11). The mannequins wore garments with bright carousel animal prints and elegantly embroidered elephants and acrobats; some gowns and headpieces were even in the shape of circus tents. They carried balloon-shape handbags and wore ice-cream cone hats. Instead of merely parading single-file through the main floor of the salon, the mannequins danced throughout in groups of two or three to calliope music. The media commented that the environment truly was circus-like, with continuous action and entertainment occurring simultaneously (Schiaparelli 116). Couturière Paul Poiret took the carnivalesque atmosphere to an entirely different level. He staged extravagant fashion fêtes, where the several hundred guests were required to attend dressed in the evening’s theme. Hired mannequins paraded through Poiret’s decorated gardens wearing his latest creations and supplementing the other hired entertainment, who freely roamed the grounds. One of his most popular publicity parties was entitled “The Thousand and Second Night” bases on the Arabian Nights (Troy, Couture Culture 101). Guests were greeted by famous actors who recited the famous tales. Poiret, himself, played the role of a sultan with several “concubine” models who followed him around; his favorite concubine, played by his wife, commenced the event after she was released from a large golden cage. As drinks were served, “a series of spectacles was performed by acrobats, a pythoness, a monkey merchant, and several exotic dancers” (Troy, Couture Culture 116). The simultaneity of action at Poiret’s events, then, helped to turn them into enjoyable parties where potential clientele were entertained in a participatory social setting rather than the more formal climate of the sales and showroom. Interactive entertainment became the pretext for exploring the

overlapping territories of fashion, theatre, and promotion, of which the implications will be further discussed in the next chapter.

Fig. 1.2 “Thousand and Second Night” fashion fete at the couture house of Paul Poiret, 24 June 1911, in Nancy J. Troy, Couture Culture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003) 104.

The Futurists also exploited the idea of interactive performance through audience participation, which is another key theatrical element that Serate and fashion shows shared. The success of the Serata, according to Futurist standards, relied heavily upon audience participation, though not in the traditional sense. In “The Variety Theatre” manifesto of 1913 Marinetti describes the interplay and collaboration between performers and audience, when he says the latter “doesn’t remain static like a stupid voyeur, but joins noisily in the action, in the singing, accompanying the orchestra, communicating with the actors in surprising actions and bizarre dialogues. And the actors bicker clownishly with the musicians” (127). Marinetti praised the variety theatre’s handling of audience participation and it served as a role model for his own outrageous presentations. Marinetti also realized that without an audience of both supporters and detractors to connect and interact with, Futurist practice would remain in the elite circles of other avant-garde enthusiasts. Futurism’s goal, however, as discussed in the previous section,

was to impact all of society, not just a cultural elite. Walter Adamson points out Futurism’s dependency of a mass audience: [Marinetti] fully recognizes that this new mode [of cultural production he discerned in contemporary society] is linked to a rising society of consumerism, which is in turn predicated on mass appeal, that is, on the greatest possible breadth of appeal. In this sense he understands that he is wholly dependent upon his audiences, that the spectacle is nothing without them. (100) Marinetti capitalized upon the audience’s negative reactions. Their uproar and lawsuits brought him free publicity, which equaled continued public interest. At the Serate audiences were encouraged to actively participate in the presentations; for example, through loud response or bickering they made known their dissatisfaction or support. One such account includes the splitting of the audience into supporters and detractors: Suddenly a storm broke in the orchestra seats, the room was beginning to divide in two: friends and enemies. The latter inveighing against the Futurists in gusts of insult and profanity, fists shaking, faces twisted into masks. The others clapped insanely. ‘Viva Marinetti!…Abbasso!… Viva!…Abbasso!…Idiots!…Cretins! Sons of whores! (Marinetti, Selected Writings 24) The Futurists egged on negative responses, especially those with malicious intent. As word of the Futurists’ performance tour spread, produce sellers moved their stands in front of the theatres where the Serate were to be held so that audience members could come armed with rotten fruit and vegetables. As a result, sometimes the pelting and splattering of performers preceded the ringleader’s incitement. Not only did spectators verbally react to the performers’ disputatious manifestos and claims, but multiple tickets were sold for the same seat, which caused fighting between and amongst audience members. Other audience-arousal/discomforting techniques included itching powder spread throughout the auditorium and prenegotiated Futurist plants, who created and elicited pandemonium even before the start of the performance (Tisdall 92). In “The Variety Theatre” manifesto Marinetti suggests participants “spread a powerful glue on some of the seats, so that the male or female

spectator will stay glued down and make everyone laugh,” but as not to come off as totally malicious, he adds, “the damaged frock coat or toilette will naturally be paid for at the door” (130). Marinetti would stop at no ends to ensure a roused, reactive, and even participatory audience, as opposed to an inert, content, or disengaged one. After the curtain rose, the cacophonic and visually electric atmosphere created a circus of dynamism where fourth wall conventions were lost: presenters intermingled with audience members, stirring up the exchange of insults and raucous behavior. Marinetti describes breaking the fourth wall convention by using “the smoke of cigars and cigarettes to join the atmosphere of the theatre to that of the stage,” which allows the action to develop “simultaneously on the stage, in the boxes, and in the orchestra” (“Variety Theatre” 127). The fourth wall convention that had become commonplace through the guise of realism was boycotted in the Serata presentations, which only further complicated audience/performer dynamics. As fashion shows employed the catwalk as the main stage for presentation, so too were fourth wall conventions abolished. Models performed amongst and alongside the audience instead of merely presenting a linear parade across a proscenium stage. The first couturière to incorporate any kind of formal stage in her own salon was Lady Duff Gordon, otherwise known as Lucile, around the turn of the century (Troy, Couture Culture 91). Her innovation quickly spread, but the curtained stage acted more or less as an entrance that concealed the waiting mannequins, not necessarily a performance space. Photographs and paintings of various presentation salons from the early twentieth century show mannequins descending from the stage, down a stair or two, onto a carpeted floor aisle, which runs the length of the salon with clientele observing in chairs along the sides (Troy, Couture Culture 89-96). Onlookers were increasingly included in the performance, with music and announcers heard from speakers placed throughout the room, moving lights spilling purposefully onto them, and models invading their space by intermixing flirtatiously or even conversing in character (Troy, Couture Culture 93). Later in the century, special effects were added to the mesh of theatrical conventions; large fans simulated wind, fog machines created smoky atmospheres, and sprinkler systems were employed to douse models wearing rainwear. Audience members (at least those in the first few rows adjacent to the staging) invariably experienced these modified conditions alongside the models. But, even during the early exploration of fashion shows

as entertainment, interactive conventions were considered a crucial aspect of audience reception. One fashion magazine described the ambiance of a commingled stage and audience area: “Streams of light, artistically calculated, inundate the scene and play off one another in the mirrors that decorate the room” (qtd. in Troy, Couture Culture 89-90). Dana Mouton Cibulski notes one French designer who included the audience by dispersing sachets of confetti to be thrown (15). The audience members became active participants in the spectacle of the event. While confetti is much more of a friendly fire than fruit, and passing out favors is preferred over insults, the overriding convention of audience/performer interaction was used in both the Futurist Serata and the fashion show to create a new kind of performance dynamic. Afterwards, and sometimes even during, audiences of both events were expected to offer their feedback to what was presented. Couture designers hoped for a mostly positive reaction that would result in a sale, as opposed to the Futurists, who wanted people to engage critically with the world around them, even if that meant challenging existing social values and constructs. Either way, involvement and interaction was essential to make the audience invested in the experience and hopefully the product as well: fashion show audiences would become the new wearers of the garments they saw presented, and Serate audiences would become engaged in the Futurist dialogue. No discussion of theatrical performance would be complete without an analysis of the actual performing bodies; in both cases of the Serata and fashion show, the performers were provocateurs who enticed their audiences with innovative, unconventional, or even shocking ideas. Although the traditional, mainstream notion of actors memorizing written lines was denounced in several Futurist manifestos,5 the idea of the individual as performer was imperative to the success of the Serate. Historians agree that it was Marinetti’s personality that spectators remembered most. In the introduction to a published collection of the leading Futurist’s own writings, R.W. Flint metaphorically states: “In the final accounting, Marinetti was Futurism” (8). His obnoxious larger-than-life persona, which filled up the stage with crude gestures and rude declamations, was contagious, whether one agreed with him or not. Marinetti’s infamous declaiming was legendary, although he was ultimately unsuccessful in his efforts to exert a major impact on society.

Marinetti and his fellow Futurists created a buzz about the movement through polemical performance and also by identifying every part of their lives with Futurism: through art, poetry, entertainment, aviation, film, fashion, and food. In her history of performance art, RoseLee Goldberg writes that performance was the most direct means of forcing an audience to take note of their ideas […and] the surest means of disrupting a complacent public. It gave artists license to be both ‘creators’ in developing a new form of artists’ theatre, and ‘art objects’ in that they made no separation between their art as poets, as painters or as performers. (14-15) This culmination of multi-talented members and aggressive presentational styles creates an interesting juxtaposition of the performed identity and the performer’s identity that deserves closer examination. To the Futurists their initiative was much more than a creative project, it was an artistic belief and ideology. Michael Kirby explain that the Serate were “a mixture of art, polemics, and quasi-political action…the manifestation of an attitude toward life” (18). Fashion shows hold similar attributes, though in a slightly less chaotic and more organized fashion; they are a mixture of artistic effort, rebellious innovation, and cultural/social politics and propaganda, with the ultimate aim to commodify an image of life. Just like the successful selling of the Futurist ideology, the success of selling a fashion image highly depended on how well it was presented. Traditional fashion shows relied on professional announcers or ‘callers’ to describe the modeled garments to the audience. Commentary on and explanation of the clothing’s use, function, and special features helped clientele and members of the press to imagine the item out of the couture salon walls and into the real working world beyond. Once theatrical and dramatic spectacle became part of the mix, however, the atmosphere changed to a presentation of the clothing in active, mood-provoking scenarios that relied less on the caller’s ability to guide the audience’s imagination. The spectacle, fully capable of conveying the show’s image, spoke for itself. In addition to the spectacle of the event, the live mannequin, or fashion model, also contributed to the selling of the image through performance. In the nineteenth century, the mannequin had been an ordinary couture-house employee who modeled

clothing per the request of the clientele, so they themselves need not bother redressing several times over. Within the context of a fashion show, though, the mannequin must do more than merely try the clothing on, she must perform with the clothing. Arsene Alexandre, fashion writer and critic, notices the performative nature of garment modeling: not only does the mannequin have to adopt the attitude and behavior appropriate for the ensemble worn, but she also has to convince the buyers that they in turn will look and act in the same manner when they are wearing it (qtd. in Troy, “Theatre of Fashion” 5). The model then acts as a direct spokeswoman for the garment she is enlivening; she imitates exactly what it could feel like to wear particular types of clothing. If it happens to be radical in nature, such as women in trousers, she becomes a provocateur who promotes the corresponding rebellious activity, not unlike the ringleader of a Futurist Serate who also provoked his audience. Although the typical fashion show model was not transformed into a celebrity icon until later in the middle of the last century, individual couture houses had their favorites, and clientele expected a specific body type. More in the fashion limelight during the first half of the twentieth-century were Hollywood starlets, who were dressed by couturiers or in clothing that imitated the latest Paris fashions. They provided theatrical advertisement for the latest trends without the need of a separate fashion show. A similar phenomenon occurred in Europe when fashion designers explored their artistry for the stage, which the next chapter will discuss in further detail. Within the framing of haute couture, a second and less obvious performance dynamic exists: the designer. With a reputation for volatile and eccentric personalities, many early twentieth-century designers paralleled Marinetti’s larger-than-life character. Although they themselves may not have formally “performed” at their fashion showings, they certainly attracted a fair share of the attention. Costume historian Valerie Steele notes that much of Lucile, Chanel, and Schiaparelli’s success was based on their public personalities more than their training (Paris Fashion 251). Chanel, for example, attracted clientele who wished to emulate her elegant assertiveness, while Schiaparelli’s customers admired her chic flamboyancy. Perhaps the largest personality in pre-WWI fashion, and even referred to as the “King of Fashion,” was Paul Pioret. He always took center stage at his fashion fêtes by costuming himself as a sultan or the Sun King and used his models

to bridge the gap between reality and fantasy. He and his entourage, dressed in Poiret’s exotic designs, portrayed an identity that people wanted to associate with. His unconventional designs and eccentric mannerisms, although not too extreme in either case, became his trademarks successfully advertised to the masses.

Fig. 1.3 Paul Poiret and his wife in costume for “Thousand and Second Night,” in Nancy J. Troy, Couture Culture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003) 117.

Both Futurist Serate and haute couture fashion shows can be viewed as ingenious marketing tools used to sell a previously elite image to a modern mass society. The Futurists challenged the elitism surrounding the concept of avant-garde, while fashion leaders helped to revise the dissemination process of their trade. On a very basic level of analysis it is easy to state that Futurist polemics and intensity stood as a barrier for the group. That is, fashion show clientele were not harassed when they left the couture house without a purchase, while Serate audience members were verbally assaulted if they disagreed with Futurist rhetoric or even if they so much as wore a passeist tie or hat. The Futurists’ provocative behavior was indeed part of their act; it was a ploy to rile their

audience to action, to get them to try something new, but ultimately it was Futurism’s Achilles’ heel. Also anxious to induce and support change, haute couture successfully employed Futurist theatrical tactics in fashion and runway shows to promote perpetual innovation that gelled with concurrent social trends instead of completely reacting against them. Simultaneity and audience incorporation are still the two major performance techniques characteristic of fashion presentations, and are now widely accepted and used in traditional theatre and performance art. Not every product or conceived image displayed on the runway has been appropriated or adapted by the masses, though, and in fact, over the last fifty years the ‘unwearable’ stigma associated with runway fashion designs has increasingly challenged and complicated the influence that haute couture has had on popular fashion of the mass culture. The eccentric artistic quality of high fashion design does not seem to address the renewed need of functionality nor economic choices desired by today’s mass consumers. Now the high fashion houses of Paris are only one source of influence on the direction of fashion; the trickle-down effect is subsidized by a trickle-up effect that rises from street, or ‘alternative’ fashion. Still in effect, however, are the Futurist methods of dramatic marketing and theatrical presentation employed for the first time by the Italian Futurists and fashion tradesmen; we see its use in performance art presentations, material marketing schemes, and a variety of other performance-related events. Ultimately, Futurist performance “found a future” and flourished on the runways of Parisian haute couture.

Notes

1 This historical narrative of the runway fashion show draws from a number of dissenting sources. I have created a rough timeline that best reflects the agreed-upon facts. See: Corinth, Kay. Fashion Showmanship: Everything you Need to Know to Give a Fashion Show. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1970). Settle, Alison. “The Birth of Couture: 1900-1910.” Paris Fashion: The Great Designers and their Creations. Ed. Ruth Lynam. (London: Michael Joseph Ltd., 1972) 50-74. Diehl, Mary Ellen. How to Produce a Fashion Show. (New York: Fairchild, 1976). Troy, Nancy J. Couture Culture: A Study in Modern Art and Fashion. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).

2 The first house model was Marie Worth, wife of English designer Charles Frederick Worth, in the mid-nineteenth century. By 1900 most all Parisian couture salons used “live” mannequins to display their garments for customers instead of dress dummies.

3 By concrete or alogical, Kirby means “it maximizes the sensory dimensions and minimizes or eliminates the intellectual aspects” (21).

4 In 1910 Marinetti wrote The Dramatists’ Manifesto, which concerns the topic of dramatic literature rather than issues of performance or execution.

5 i.e. the “theatre of objects” and marionettes or machines as mechanized nonhuman performers.

CHAPTER 2

COSTUMING THE STAGE: FASHION, FUTURISM, AND THE BALLETS RUSSES

The previous chapter contextualized Futurist performance theory in both the Serata and haute couture fashion show through a comparison of the similar unconventional performance tactics used in each event. In this chapter, I continue to analyze the dramatic and performative nature inherent in both Futurism and haute couture through an examination of their multiple intersections with theatrical costume design. The Futurists forged a strong connection with theatre: much of the movement’s exploration in poetry, visual arts, technology, and applied arts culminated in a variety of collaborative, inter-movement theatre initiatives. Several Futurist manifestos speak directly of their specific interest in theatrical scenography and costume, and experimentation in these areas proved to be particularly rich. On the other hand, the intersection of early twentieth-century haute couture and theatre provides a more complex relationship. Many couturiers not only designed costumes for the stage and showcased their own couture designs in contemporary productions, they also benefited from star association by oufitting well-known actresses offstage as well as on. Couture costume design remained primarily in the realm of mainstream theatre, while Futurist efforts stayed within the avant-garde. This mainstream/avant-garde division resonates throughout the movements’ historical development. Interestingly, however, both Futurist and couturiers collaborated with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russe, an avant-garde dance company that quickly infiltrated the mainstream. From the inception of Diaghilev’s company in 1909 it was immediately and continually successful throughout its twenty years; indeed, it is often credited with changing the face of Western ballet. Historian Gabriella Di Milia writes that Diaghilev constantly brought fresh life to the ballet through his collaborations with vast numbers of artists and musicians. These artists, in turn, “created solutions that have become part of modern

ballet, such as the sharp, mechanical dance steps, the abstract scenery and the cacophony of certain musical chords” (467). Di Milia concludes that each of the contributors was granted immediate world-famous celebrity status. While certainly this assertion holds true in the case of Parisian fashion designer Coco Chanel, Futurist collaborators were not so fortunate. Although Giacomo Balla’s scenic and lighting designs for one piece came to fruition, Fortunato Depero’s contributions in costume design, like most Futurist attempts in the area of fashion, remained theoretical renderings. Sparse and fleeting as the collaboration might have been, elements of Futurist theory crept into the design vocabulary of subsequent Ballets Russes productions. In order to explore these various connections between and among theatrical costume, Futurism, and haute couture, the framework of this chapter includes three sections. The first and second sections explores Futurist costume design theory contrasted with haute couture’s relatively mild mainstream theatrical designs and appropriation of stage and stars for publicity. The final section of this chapter explores Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes as a unique example in which Futurism and haute couture became invested in similar projects. After discussing the specific involvement of both Futurists and fashion designers, I suggest Futurism’s impact actually exceeded that of haute couture. In this instance, perhaps haute-couture’s commodity-driven sensibilities did not serve it as well as Futurism’s impulse for genuine innovation. Futurist Costume Theory In general, Futurist theatre was against the formalities of the reigning realistic and sentimental bourgeois theatre. Their work opposed linear plots, painted scenery, the supremacy of the actor, and the traditional stage. Instead, they favored anything irrational, abstract, and absurd through flashback sequences, illogical plot structures, and multidimensional scenic properties created by lighting effects. These characteristics culminated in a dynamic theatre for the eyes, nose, and ears of the public. Costume design, a specific interest shared by over half a dozen different members of the movement, ranged in style in accordance with the particular Futurist artist and the current phase of theatrical exploration. For example, costumes for the literary-focused sintesi1 demonstrated a less abstract design than those of later productions. After several manifestos specifically addressed scenic and costume theory, original Futurist designs began to emphasize and explore the personification of non-human objects. Costumes

were also treated as part of the collective scenic experience. Because this later style reflected concurrent artistic theory and creativeness within other areas of the movement, the present discussion focuses on the later, more deliberate intersection of theory and practice. The Futurists believed that mechanizing the performer—that is, by substituting human qualities with mechanical ones—would connect him to the artificiality of the other scenic elements. In the 1915 manifesto, “Futurist Scenography,” Enrico Prampolini describes that “[t]hese assemblages, these unreal shocks, this exuberance of sensations combined with dynamic stage architecture that will move, unleashing metallic arms, knocking over plastic planes, amidst an essentially new modern noise, will augment the vital intensity of the scenic action” (205). In practice this dynamic costume/scenic interrelation was achieved by one of two ways: either using a mechanized puppet as the performer or turning the actor into a machine. The Futurists experimented with both approaches. Futurist painter, sculptor, writer, and designer Fortunato Depero tackled the first method. In the late teens Depero turned to puppets and marionettes as a replacement for live performers. This not only gave him, as a creator, more control over the final product,2 it also allowed him to take the concept of scenic unity to a higher level. “By using marionettes, Depero could construct his actors and his scenery out of the same material, using the same kinds of stylized geometrical forms, and paint them with the same colors.” explains Futurist scholar Michael Kirby, “Not only humans, but monkeys, bears, snakes, butterflies, and flowers could become moving parts of a consistent and homogeneous scenography” (112). In The Plastic Ballets, a 1917-18 five-act musical/mime production, Depero created highly intricate and boldly-colored wooden puppets, and brought his and Swiss poet and Egyptologist Gilbert Clavel’s theory of “plastic theatre”3 to life (Belli 78-79). When staying together on Capri in 1917 the two developed the theory that explored a set of choreographies for puppets instead of human performers. Prior to collaborating with Clavel, Depero wrote of a similar idea in “Notes on the Theatre” (1916). He theorized a “plastic-magic phenomena” where “various illuminations” contribute to [d]ecompositions of the figure and the deformation of it, even until its absolute transformation; e.g., a dancing ballerina who continually

accelerates, transforming herself into a floral vortex, etc.” and “Moustaches, beards, wigs; red, yellow, green, gold / masks of all shapes; / moveable and intensely colored, / headlight-eyes / megaphone-mouths, funnel-ears / in movement and transformation / mechanical clothes, / DEVELOP TRANSFORMATION / hands-feet; plastically artificial. (210) These characteristics envisioned by Depero in 1916 translated into the marionettes for The Plastic Ballets two years later. The wooden “performers” included variously-sized moustached men, a devouring green and gold serpent, red and yellow clowns, a blue bear and a blue ballerina, a hen on wheels (that laid eggs on stage), several purple and white mice, red and black savages, and a huge savage chief (with a puppet theatre in her belly). Depero created an entirely synthetic stage experience that celebrated the absence of humans in a modern age of machines.

Fig. 2.1 Wooden puppets for Plastic Ballets, by Depero, in Maurizio Scudiero, Depero Casa d’Arte Futurista (Florence: Cantini, 1987) 71.

While Depero’s Plastic Ballets replaced the human actor with a mechanical performer, Enrico Prampolini suggested that to achieve scenic unity in its entirety, the performer must be obliterated altogether. In “Futurist Scenic Atmosphere: Technical Manifesto” (1924), he states that the “personification of space as a scenic individual” can

dominate theatrical action, where “[e]very spectacle will be a mechanical rite of eternal transcendence of matter, a magical revelation of a spiritual and scientific mystery” (23- 231). His radical theories on the future of theatre never materialized; instead, he explored the juxtaposition of mechanical movements of puppets and marionettes to those of live actors to illustrate the dichotomy of man versus machine. The second method of mechanizing the performer involved the transformation of the actor into a mechanical-being, which achieved distinctly different results from Depero’s puppet theatre. With a human performer onstage the costumes and other scenic elements become separate entities; the actor is a man in a mechanical atmosphere who adheres to the characteristics that surround him, via dress and movement. This specific type of experimentation onstage directly reflected and supported the general Futurist condition, where humanity creates, interacts, and then masters the machine, as the following examples demonstrate.

Fig. 2.2 Costumes for Depero's Machine of 3000 (1924), in Michael Kirby, Futurist Performance (New York: PAJ, 1986) 94. In costume design the Futurists’ central concern of glorifying mechanization, without total denigration of human qualities, was addressed with a delicate balance. In 1916 Depero wrote of “decompositions of the figure and the deformation of it,” like the “enlargement of the eyes and various illuminations of them” or “a dancing ballerina who continually accelerates, transforming herself into a floral vortex” (“Notes” 207).

Depero’s language explicitly suggests the omnipresence of the human form, even through its distortions. Futurist performance theorist Michael Kirby explains, “The impersonal geometrical qualities of Cubism were embodied in many costumes that did not distort or rigidly encase the figure [but] represented a tendency toward the nonhuman and the abstract” (118). Kirby warns, however, that without photographs of the finished costumes (of those that were indeed produced) it is difficult to interpret the stylized renderings; for example, a discrepancy in stiffness and addition of various trimmings and accessories is apparent when viewing Prampolini’s costume designs for Cocktail compared to photographs of the realized production (117-118).

Fig. 2.3 Prampolini's costume sketch for a barman in Cocktail (1927) and production photos, in Michael Kirby, Futurist Performance (New York: PAJ, 1986) 102-103.

As part of the Theatre of Futurist Pantomime, these designs emphasize the human figure’s linear aspects rather than its volume (Kirby 101), while photographs of later performances show loose costumes that follow the natural contours of the performer’s body. The disparity between design and finished product is common in costume production; it either reflects an inexperienced designer and/or construction crew, or

reflects some sort of change made during the process. Perhaps the range of the performers’ movements necessitated a change from the rigidity of Prampolini’s original design sketches. If that was indeed the case, then it provides direct evidence that movement and manipulation of the body was key to the successful transformation into a machine. Futurist theory also reflects the importance of dynamic movement and mechanical gesturing. Marinetti wrote about the act of mechanical personification that accompanied the robotic costuming in the “Manifesto of the Futurist Dance” (1917). Here he specifies the “frenzied, mechanical” gestures for the theoretical Dance of the Shrapnel, Dance of the Machine Gun, and Dance of the Aviatrix: With the whole body vibrating, the hips weaving, and the arms making swimming motions, give the waves and flux and reflux and concentric or eccentric motions of echoes in ravines, in open fields, and up the slopes of mountains […] With arms wide open describe the circling, sprinkling fan of projectiles. Slow turn of the body, while the feet hammer on the wooden floor. Accompany with violent forward thrusts of the body. (“Futurist Dance” 140) The particularities of the movements coupled with appropriately fabricated costumes only reinforced the aggressiveness of Futurism and its dedication to technology and the machine age. For example, Balla’s Printing Press ballet explored mechanization as a style of movement where twelve performers combined to make up the many parts of a machine, their circular arm patterns moved together like cogs. Interestingly, scholars have deemed this particular performance choice a direct influence of the popular improvisational game where actors work together as a functioning machine with their voices and movements. Drawings of the costumes show rows of tuxedoed performers connected by the hands with a bar that runs parallel to the ground, much like the “arms” that connect the wheel-spokes of a locomotive. Like the theatre-game, the idea of Balla’s production was not to negate the human presence, but highlight the convergence of man and machine. Together, the actor’s mechanical movements and their machine-inspired costumes achieved this convergence.

Fig. 2.4 A sketch of movements for Printing Press and costume rendering by Balla, in Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco, Balla: The Futurist (New York: Rizzoli, 1987) 37.

Certainly as the modern age of the machine has evolved into the technologically informed society of today, the Futurists’ experimentation with the man/machine convergence seems more timely than it may have been at the beginning of the last century. Their costuming efforts no doubt resonate in later cinematic representations of science fiction robots of the future. Perhaps their theories of theatrical scenography and costume would have fared better in mainstream receptivity in the medium of film. Regardless, the conquest of Futurism’s use of unconventional costume and scenic representation lies in their continually innovative experimentation. They explored mediums and methods that coalesced with the technological environment modern twentieth-century Europe found itself entering; similar theoretical principals surface within the area of Futurist fashion design, discussed in the following chapter. Haute Couture’s Interaction with Popular Theatre Whereas Futurist costume design explored philosophical implications of humanity and technology, the relationship between early twentieth-century haute couture and theatre took a completely different path, one primarily focused on economic commodification. “The theatre provided an ideal venue for fashion display both on the stage and in the audience,” explains Nancy Troy, “and it therefore afforded a significant opportunity for elite couturiers, who were increasingly involved in costume design during this period, to position their work before an audience of interested spectators” (“Theatre of Fashion” 4). This arrangement mutually benefited the theatre and the couturier,

especially in the case of contemporary productions. The attraction of a well-known designer drew fashion enthusiasts to the specific theatre, which simultaneously earned revenue for the box office and provided free advertising and exposure to the couturier. Audience members viewed the latest fashions on professional actresses in an extravagant and compelling context rather than just watching mannequins in a salon.4 Furthermore, interest in women’s clothing pervaded the very core of mainstream theatre in Paris and England: playwrights centered their settings and situations around couture houses, mannequins, and dresses (Troy “Theatre of Fashion” 4). One production of the farce This Way, Madam! went as far to provide the audience with prices for the expensive couture dresses they witnessed onstage; the actresses and actors quoted the figures as part of the dramatic dialogue (Troy, Couture Culture 94-95). Clearly, the relationship between high fashion and mainstream theatre was primarily based upon the principles of consumerism. Like Hollywood movie stars of the thirties and forties, popular French and English stage actresses of the teens and twenties significantly contributed to the commercial enterprise of fashion. Not only capable of setting fashion trends by wearing couture costumes onstage, these stars also appeared in magazine spreads and promotional posters, readily available to the mass public. Emulation, of course, ensued. “The theatre and the disparate spaces related to it were sites of considerable commercial and promotional significance for haute couturiers,” asserts Troy, “who assiduously cultivated their connections with actresses […] by providing the clothes they wore in public” (“Theatre of Fashion” 4). Stage stars also provided unintentional endorsement. Whatever particular couturier a star was most seen wearing in non-theatrical photographs, posters, or even at fashionable events and places, the trend-following middle-class emulated by either shopping from the same designer or buying cheaper ready-made imitations. A third layer of promotion and consumerism involved the intentional “papering” of theatre audiences with the designer’s clothing, either to compliment the same designer’s costumes seen onstage or as a separate tactic employed even when the designer was not involved with the production. Some couturiers allowed their house mannequins to wear their latest creations to the theatre or other fashionable venues, such

as Longchamps or the Opera; others dressed prominent society women and stage or film stars free of charge (Troy, “Theatre of Fashion” 2). Couturier Paul Poiret provides a particularly intriguing example of how early twentieth-century fashion and theatre interacted. As Troy, an expert on Poiret and his connection to the theatre, explains: No couturier of the early twentieth century exploited the theatrical potential of fashion more assiduously or imaginatively than Paul Poiret [… who] has been described as a highly theatrical figure and the theatre, in turn, was a prominent feature of all his activities. Moreover, there was a commercial imperative that Poiret as well as his colleagues in the couture industry all pursued; this is an important if overlooked aspect of their commitment to the integration of art and fashion, and, in turn, to the union of these two spheres of activity with the theatre in the early years of the twentieth century. (“Theatre of Fashion” 4) Troy’s description of Poiret’s theatrical work proves that the intercourse of fashion and theatre was not completely void of artistic exploration, but her analysis places the “commercial imperative” nearby at all times. Poiret’s numerous fashion fêtes, discussed in the previous chapter, attest to his dedication to the creativity and fantasy aspects of fashion design as opposed to focusing on only wearable clothing in a practical sense. Although the element of advertisement and promotion played a primary role, his private costume balls celebrated the artistic capabilities of design and therefore challenged conventional everyday wear with the intersection of popular themes and variations from the theatre, such as Orientalism. After “The Thousand and Second Night” fête, Oriental- themed balls were the latest rage in Paris, and Poiret had his hands full with creating costumes for such occasions (Troy, Couture Culture 209). In the stage production Le Minaret, Poiret’s Persian-influenced costumes accommodated the Parisian imagination and did not stray too far from national traditions and tastes. Although he claimed the play’s lampshade hooped-tunics and harem-pant designs were pure fantasy and insisted that he had no interest whatsoever in the commercial implications of theatrical activities, soon after the play’s premiere in 1912 he introduced a line inspired by Le Minaret and spearheaded an extensive public relations campaign in America (Troy, Couture Culture 212). Once again, haute couture treats artistic creativity as a commodity.

Later, in the middle of the century, couturier Elsa Schiaparelli built the costumes for Jean-Paul Sartre’s Le Diable et le Bon Dieu (The Devil and the Good Lord), which were designed by someone else (Blum 289). Altogether she worked on over thirty stage productions and many of those were non-contemporary or stylized garments that would not have been pulled directly from her couture collections (Blum 288). Here, then, advertisement and promotion of particular garments or styles does not seem to have been the presiding motivation, but rather, the collaboration centered around artistry. Indeed, Schiaparelli treated fashion design, like theatrical costume design, first and foremost as an art, which I will expand upon in the final chapter. Then again, Schiaparelli’s well- known name attached to a production may have been reason enough for audience attendance, or at least one of the selling points used by the box office, thus utilizing the play of “star power” to benefit both the designer and theatre. So, even the most “sincere” fashion/theatre collaborations resulted, some way or another, in consumerist ventures. Such consumerist ventures, either apparently premeditated in Poiret’s case or more discreetly nuanced in Schiaparelli’s case, provide clear distinction between economically-motivated couture design and artistically-driven costume design. Or, perhaps the contrast should be situated with haute couture and mainstream theatre on the one hand and avant-garde theatre and costume design on the other. This model would conveniently equate success with disingenuous profit-seeking instead of artistic innovation. A more accurate positioning of Futurist and haute couture efforts, however, reflects a complex blend of consumerism alongside innovation, as explored in the following discussion of Ballet Russes. Collaborations with Ballets Russes Thus far I have analyzed the separate intersections of Futurism/theatre and haute couture/theatre as they relate to the modernist art imperatives of experimentation and innovativeness on one hand, and the modern commercial imperatives of promotion and consumerism on the other. The Ballet Russes provides a specific case study that leads to the convergence of both of these early twentieth-century phenomena. This discussion further highlights the contrasts in their involvement with theatrical costume design. Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, which celebrated twenty years (1909-1929) of existence under his direction, is often credited with bringing Russian art and music to the West. Certainly this was true for about the first five or six years that the company was in

Paris, as they mesmerized European audiences with foreign folklore and dance choreography. At this time the majority of performers, designers, and other collaborators were Russian, but a variety of factors necessitated artistic collaboration closer to his home base, Paris, a mecca for creativity and the arts. His circle of friends there included Matisse, Sonia and Robert Delaunay, Juan Gris, Chanel (fashion designer), Bouchant, Rouault, Picasso, Cocteau, and other cubists and surrealists. Benois later said, “It was no accident that what was afterwards known as the Ballets Russes was originally conceived not by the professionals of the dance but by a circle of artists, linked together by the idea of Art as an entity. Everything followed from the common desire of several painters and musicians to see the fulfillment of the theatrical dreams which haunted them” (qtd. in Percival 90). Indeed, the many artistic collaborators provided the structure for the company’s continual success. Most of Daghilev’s designers only worked on one ballet, at the most two, as he was always in search of change and difference. “He took pains to make himself liked by people who could be helpful,” explains John Percival, “but acted ruthlessly towards any collaborator whose service he no longer wanted” (7). Because of this tactic, though, his productions became the forum for the exchange of new, liberating, and often radical ideas; with no chance of staleness, the Ballet Russes was a purveyor of modernism. In his memoirs Marinetti captures Diaghilev’s sense of competitiveness by quoting him as saying, “We must do something new for Paris every year and we can’t be less modern than Marinetti Futurism Cubism there’s the last word” (“Squares” 290). From 1914 onward Diaghilev and his design teams experimented with, and brought to the Parisian public, cubism, futurism, surrealism, constructivism, rayonism, and orphism, even if the audience did not realize they were being subjected to it (Percival 119). For many European avant-garde artists working with Diaghilev’s critically acclaimed Ballets Russes nearly guaranteed their future success in other realms of popular art. Unfortunately the Futurists did not earn this prestige. In the middle teens Diaghilev made frequent trips to Italy, which afforded him the opportunity to see Futurist work firsthand. “Diaghilev’s own idea that art should astonish philosophically aligned him with futurists,” describes Robert C. Hansen, “and made him receptive to their work” (56). He was especially intrigued by the theatrical possibilities of Futurism. When Rome became one of Diaghilev’s temporary headquarters in 1915, he engaged Balla to stage a

short entr’acte. The final selection was between Stravinsky’s Feu d’Artifice (Fireworks), a short piece without any dancing or human bodies, and the Printing Press, a movement- oriented piece with mechanical gestures. An interesting choice for a ballet company, Diaghilev chose the performerless piece (Kirby 96). Balla’s set design for Feu d’Artifice “was the first totally nonrepresentational stage design used by Diaghilev” (Hansen 57-58). There was no particular symbolic meaning present in the entr’acte’s design, but it was to evoke a series of associations with Stravinksy’s music, especially once the lighted element was added. Kirby describes the setting of “irregular prismatic forms,” made of wood, covered with cloth, and painted, with “smaller forms covered with translucent fabric and painted with brightly colored zigzags, rays, and bars […] which occupied the central areas of the stage composition […] and could be illuminated from inside” (83). Balla operated the lights from the prompter’s box, which looked like a modern day light show with several hundred cues to go along with the score (Kirby 84). Unfortunately Balla’s design remained unnoticed by the general public because of its immobility; it could not be reconstructed easily on tour. Also, Stravinsky notes that on opening night “it baffled the audience, however, and that when Balla came out to bow there was no applause: the public didn’t know what he had done, why he should be bowing” (qtd. in Hansen 58). Apparently the public was not entirely ready for Futurist innovation in scenography.

Fig. 2.5 Balla's sketch for the setting of Feu d'Artifice, in Pontus Hulten, ed. Futurism and Futurisms (New York: Abbeville Press, 1986) 106.

While Balla built his lighted plastic garden for Feu d’Artifice, Diaghilev commissioned Depero to design the set and thirty-five costumes for a larger project: La Chant du Rossignol (The Song of the Nightingale), a Stravinsky opera-ballet. Set in China, Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale provided the familiar story about the emperor’s nightingale; both the Oriental and fantastical elements of the piece freed Depero of any residual temptation towards formalism. “The Nightingale was not only an opportunity for Depero to put into practice the theoretical precepts of Futurism he had written in the Futuirst Reconstruction of the Universe;” explains Gabriella Belli, “it also gave him the chance to look deeply into the magical world of folklore and fairy tales he had first glimpsed in Rome in 1916 with the impresario, dancers and artists of the Ballets Russes” (65). During the same time that Diaghilev headquartered his company in Rome, Depero fantasized about magical and mechanical theatrical costumes “[c]onstructed on a framework of metallic wire—light—forms of transparent material—brightly colored” (“Description of Costumes” 211). Depero explains that “The framework will be made so as to open and close itself, that is to say, it must appear like a normal Futurist costume but

that jacket opens by clicking one’s heels; various movements with one’s arms, hands, feet, legs, or raising one’s hat, etc…will open certain fanlike contrivances like tongs, etc…simultaneously with luminous apparitions in bursts and rhythms of noiselike instruments” (“Description of Costumes” 211). Although pictorial evidence suggests Depero crudely sketched out these particular theories, the designs for a hypothetical production, Mimismagia (Magic-Mimic Dance), were never actually constructed. “One shows fanlike shapes protruding from and, in part, concealing a naked or neutrally- clothed figure,” explains Kirby. “The second consists primarily of a large, somewhat conical, tentlike appendage with lights of various colors placed in it; its shaped legs, apparently also formed on a wire frame, completely hide the legs of the wearer, and it provides the performer with a set of flutelike pipes that he could play” (117). Depero’s renderings for La Chant du Rossignol are similar.

Fig. 2.6 Depero's costume renderings for Mimismagia (1916), in Enrico Crispolti, il Futrismo e la Moda (Venice: Marsilio, 1986) 287.

For the setting of La Chant du Rossignol Depero took Balla’s lead and designed a futurist garden that consisted of multicolored three-dimensional cones, discs, stylized flowers, and suspended suns made of geometrically decorated cardboard. For the costumes, instead of merely sketching his initial thoughts on plane paper, Depero constructed a paper collage of mandarins and court ladies, with Chinese masks, cylindrical sleeves, and (as Stravinsky noted) “heads in compartments” (qtd. in

Schouvaloff 257). The conical and tubular shapes greatly distorted the dancer’s body. Apparently Diaghilev was extremely impressed with Depero’s designs, but unfortunately the production was postponed due to the unfinished state of Stravinsky’s score; Diaghilev had to leave Rome for other engagements in London and Paris and did not revive the project until a few years later. Depero’s designs were ultimately not used; reasons for Diaghilev’s decision are unknown. The completed stage setting and costume materials were thrown into storage for several years, and later destroyed by the Futurist.5 Diaghilev also commissioned Depero to construct a mechanical knight’s horse for another ballet, Les Contes Russes (The Russian Fairytales), but the Russian director was less than pleased with the prototype he viewed at the Futurist’s workshop. In fact, speculations assert that Diaghilev smashed the papier-mâché components with his walking cane (Hansen 57). Perhaps the erratic eccentricities of the impresario, for which he was well known, kept Futurist costumes off of the Ballet Russes stage. Diaghilev could afford to be capricious; after all, he had the rest of avant-garde Europe as his playground.

Fig. 2.7 Model of Depero's La Chant du Rossignol set, in Gabriella Belli, Depero Futurista: Rome-Paris-New York 1915-1932 and more (Milan: Skira, 1999) 17.

Fig. 2.8 Depero's costume renderings for La Chant du Rossignol, in Pontus Hulten, ed. Futurism and Futurisms (New York: Abbeville Press, 1986) 176-177.

Although Futurist collaboration with the Ballets Russes was fleeting, and remained largely unproduced in Depero’s case, the Italian avant-garde movement’s impact resonates in two of Diaghilev’s final ballets. The 1928 Ballets Russes production Ode, designed by Pavel Tchelitchev, and the 1929 production Le Bal (The Ball), designed by Giorgio de Chirico, reflect Futurist influence on scenic and costume design. In Ode, “Rows of puppets, mimicking the crinolined dancers, were suspended behind the action” describes curator Roger Leong, “The dancers were enclosed within an irregular framework of white cords, and effect reinforced by tubes of white neon light against which the movement created a succession of shifting geometrical patterms” (15). The production concept was apparently too revolutionary for most audiences, though, as Ode had only one season (Leong 15). Cited as one major influences of the Ballets Russes productions of this time, Constructivism, which emerged directly from Russian Futurism, sought to emphasize the positive values of technology and change; like its Futurist predecessor Constructivism united art and industry by exalting the machine as its primary aesthetic (Hansen 103). I argue, however, that the influence more likely came directly from the Italian Futurists. Diaghilev’s company never headquartered in Russia, but, as I mentioned above, witnessed firsthand Futurist experimentation in Italy and probably in other Western European cities as well.

Fig. 2.9 Program cover, star/constellation costume and production photo of Ode, in From Russia with Love (Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 1998) 23.

In Le Bal, “The stage was animated not only by the dancers’ movements but also by the moving fragments of architectural detail on their costumes—columns, capitals, pediments, brickwork, arches and friezes” (Leong 15). De Chirico is credited as being one of the great precursors of the surrealist movement (Hansen 114), as illustrated by the amalgamation of the human form with architecture: a theme explored throughout the duration of surrealism as well as Futurism.

Fig. 2.10 Rendering and for Le Bal, in Alexander Schouvaloff, The Art of Ballets Russes (New Haven: Yale U.P., 1997) 164.

Photographs of the costumes and settings for the 1927 production La Chatte (The Cat) are also reminiscent of Futurist design theory, particularly Depero’s experimentation with plastic complexes, and they have been described by at least one historian as “futuristic” (Hansen 106).

Fig. 2.11 La Chatte production photo (1927), in Robert C. Hansen, Scenic and Costume Design for the Ballets Russes (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1985) 185.

Fig. 2.12 Costumes for La Chatte, in Alexander Schouvaloff, The Art of Ballets Russes (New Haven: Yale U.P., 1997) 206.

Although the Futurists’ uncompromising attitude about innovation and radical experimentation did not earn them fame when they collaborated with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, the theory and techniques they contributed reappeared later in the company’s work. Diaghilev seemed to have an uncanny sensibility at perceiving new movements at a point when they were ready for general consumption; as their name suggests, Futurism was to have its place in the future. In contrast to the Futurists’ work with the Ballets Russes, Parisian haute couture’s direct and indirect collaboration with the company remained rather superficial in terms of artistic creativity. Unlike Depero’s costumes, however, these efforts were realized onstage and therefore provide an intriguing glimpse of haute couture in the modernist theatre. Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel designed the costumes for Le Train Bleu (The Blue Train) in 1924. The setting, designed by cubist Henri Laurens, with backdrop curtain by Picasso, was a fashionable beach, and the dancers wore jersey bathing costumes and sports clothes similar to those found in Chanel’s couture collections. The lead male dancer was dressed in plus fours to resemble a well-known sportive look popularized by the Prince of Wales

(de la Haye 48). “The practical and stylish costumes which Chanel created for this production reinforced her own fashions,” explains de la Haye. “The dancer, with their lean and agile bodies, personified the ideal 1920s Garçonne woman and showed Chanel’s clothes to great advantage” (48). Artistic innovation did not guide her designs for the ballet, then, but rather her shrewd business sense. In contrast to the contributions of the Futurists and other avant-garde artists, Chanel’s costume designs lacked artistic imagination and substance. Ballet attendees, at least somewhat familiar with her work at this time, witnessed on stage the same garments they themselves could purchase from her maison de couture. Once again, we find promotion and consumerism at the center of the fashion/theatre relationship, even within the supposedly new and imaginative context of popular avant-garde.

Fig. 2.13 Le Train Bleu costumes by Chanel (1924), in Amy de la Haye and Shelley Tobin, Chanel: The Couturiere at Work (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1994) 50.

Apparently not displeased with her designs for Le Train Bleu, even though the ballet made little critical impression, Diaghilev collaborated with Chanel a second time. She designed the replacement costumes for Apollon Musagètes (Apollo Master of the Muses) when it premiered in Paris 1928. Originally, Diaghilev commissioned Andre

Bauchant to design the sets and costumes for the production, but a series of interpersonal conflicts took him off the assignment, and, instead, two of his landscape paintings provided the basis for the backdrop (Hansen 114). Simple white tutus were used for the muse costumes at the New York premiere, in accordance with Stravinky’s wishes (Hansen 114), but then Diaghilev had Chanel design an adaptation of the Greek chiton (tunic) for the Paris performances (de la Haye 48). Standard chitons for a classical Greek setting hardly represent an innovative or creative gesture—two facets of production on which the Ballets Russes thrived. Oddly, Diaghilev specifically wanted to avoid a traditional classical look, as he feared it might “be just pastiche” (Schouvaloff 103), but that’s exactly what she designed for him. Chanel’s couture collections achieved notoriety because of their simplicity, but when applied to the costumes for the notably exotic and spectacle- focused Ballets Russes, the notion of “simple” conveyed a lack of innovation and creativity. Diaghilev’s appointment of Chanel to design for the Ballets Russes could very well have been a political move. Her first involvement with the company was as a financial sponsor, and Diaghilev was known to have made other artistic appointments for the promise of continued patronage. Ultimately, then, Chanel paid for her own opportunistic prestige. The designs of Poiret deserve mention as a final example of how the Ballets Russes and haute couture intersected. Although he never designed costumes for the great Russian impresario, Poiret’s use of Orientalism paralleled design trends prevalent onstage during the Ballets Russes’ first five years. Of course both Diaghilev and Poiret, as well as their respective biographers and historians, laid claim to popularizing the use of exoticism mixed with contemporary Paris chic, and henceforth influenced the other’s appropriation of the fad. Pictorial evidence, however, shows a more concurrent development by the couturier and Ballet Russes.6 Perhaps more likely, a mutual contribution and promotion led to an energetic embracement by popular society, which therefore catapulted Paris into the period now referred to as Art Deco. “The effect of Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet on public taste was sensational and far-reaching,” explains Percival. “Thanks to what they admired in his productions people dressed differently and adopted a different style of furnishing and decorating their homes” (7-8). But, similarly influential were Poiret’s great fashion fêtes, as discussed above and in the preceding chapter. Either way, the evocative Eastern styles championed by both the Ballet Russes and Poiret greatly impacted the

direction of popular style in the years leading up to the first world war. The result was mutually promotional for both: Poiret’s Oriental couture designs reinforced the styles seen onstage, while the Ballets Russes benefited from showcasing an in vogue style. Although perhaps genuinely interested in and motivated by artistic exploration, as entrepreneurs the French couturiers Chanel and Poiret represent the competitive, profit- seeking aspect of Western Modernism, while the Futurists, though committed to the selling and mass- promotion of an ideology, remained unconstrained by consumerist tendencies. Unwilling to compromise their radical and generally alarming ideas, the Futurists used the “traditional” theatrical production (though in a very unconventional way) as dynamic medium to present their work with clothing and textile design. Early twentieth-century haute couture, however, used the mainstream theatre to gain publicity and recognition. This dichotomy, exemplified in the initiatives and collaborations within popular theatre (i.e. traditional theatrical forms and the avant-gardism of the Ballets Russes), also expresses a somewhat distinct line between successful and unsuccessful endeavors that leaves haute couture on one side and Futurism on the other. Several Futurist design theories were given life outside the sketchbook and manifesto, and although not immediately absorbed by the mainstream, they later imbued the popular arts with their revolutionary scenography by way of their descendants. Futurist theatre was widely unacknowledged by historians and critics of the day, but the movement’s various theatrical phases actually reached a wide amount of the European theatre-going public (Verdone 586). It unquestionably influenced, directly and indirectly, subsequent modern avant-garde artists and movements from the past one hundred years.

Notes

1 Sintesi are short, truncated minuets that sometimes merely describe various stage pictures and other times includes character dialogue. The majority of sintesi were written and performed on tour between 1915-1916, and directly expressed the theories put forth in “The Futurist Synthetic Theatre” manifesto of 1915.

2 Similar to Edward Gordon Craig’s theory behind the Übermarionette.

3 The Futurists used the term “plastic” to describe a malliable product, one that was capable of being molded, formed, or modeled. “Plastic theatre” is also a term/theory that Tennessee Williams later wrote of in his introduction to The Glass Menagerie.

4 The inclusion of haute couture designs in popular theatrical productions directly impacted the evolution of the couturier’s own fashion shows, necessitating a more dramatic, spectacle-oriented event. See: Troy, Couture Culture 87-93.

5 Later, Depero recycled the Spanish fabric purchased for The Nightingale costumes and turned the bright and lavish felt into a series of patchwork carpets and tapestries; used for interior design as well as scenic backgrounds, they won the artist much acclaim and notoriety (Belli 97).

6 For detailed visual examples see: White, Palmer. Poiret. (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1973). From Russian with Love: Costumes for the Ballets Russes 1909-1933. (Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 1998).

CHAPTER 3

THE FUTURE OF FASHION: SCHIAPARELLI LEADS THE WAY

In “The Futurist Universe 1918,” Futurist Giacomo Balla proclaimed: [t]he windows of a perfumer’s shop, with little boxes and packets, bottles and futurcolour triplicate phials, reflected in the extremely elegant mirrors. The clever and gay modelling of ladies’ dancing-shoes, the bizarre ingenuity of multi-coloured parasols. Furs, travelling bags, china—these things are all a much more rewarding sight than the grimy little pictures nailed on the grey wall of the passeist painter’s studio. (219) Balla’s urgency to enjoy the common elements of life hit Europe on the eve of a new Futurist wave. Throughout the early teens the Futurists focused their artistic creativity on painting, sculpture, music, and poetry—areas of interest for a more elite audience. It wasn’t until after 1915, and even more apparent in the late teens, when Futurism sought to “Reconstruct the Universe” by shifting their attention to the production of art using untraditional mediums. Art Historian Giovanni Lista explains that during the twenties the Futurists explored the avant-garde of everyday life in “arts and crafts, propaganda art, mural decoration, design, advertising architecture, by creating furniture, toys, posters, clothing, articles of all kinds, interior furnishings and architecture, and so forth” (148). Included in this domestic surge were manifestos, written by Balla, Depero, and Volt, that detailed their ideas of Futurist fashion and how it could help construct a new “Futurist Universe.” Clothing creation ensued, although the mass-production and distribution of Futurist-designed garments never came to realization. However, the repercussions of such experimentation and theory surfaced within the realm of high fashion. This chapter considers the greater impact Futurism had on the world of high fashion, or haute couture. I argue that couturier Elsa Schiaparelli took over where the Futurists left off, and her innovative contributions to clothing design, in turn, have since

made a lasting impression on twentieth and twenty-first-century fashion. Although primarily associated with and said to be influenced by surrealism, as attested by her multiple collaborations with the group, Schiaparelli’s fashion designs and outlook on life suggest tendencies of Futurism beyond simple coincidence. While the previous two chapters addressed the similarities in marketing and presentational/performance tactics used by the Futurists and haute couture, this chapter explores specific connections at the base level of fashion, as opposed to costume, design theory. My exploration begins with a discussion of Futurist fashion theory. In this section, I also address the notion of fashion as art, a modern idea shared by Schiaparelli and the Futurists and still controversial today. I will also outline the major tenets of Futurist fashion, which include innovation and shock, functionality, and individuality in a classless society. My discussion then shifts to haute couture designer Elsa Schiaparelli and the commonalities between her work and Futurist fashion endeavors. Futurist Fashion Design The Futurists produced eight manifestos that explicated their vision for the future of fashion, with Balla at the helm. In “The Antineutral Suit: Futurist Manifesto,” Balla insists that the clothing of the past represents “expressions of timidness, melancholia, and slavery” and “the mediocrity of moderation, so-called good taste and so-called harmony of colors and form…slow us down” (39). They spoke out against the drab and funereal colors, lethargic and formulaic drapes and shapes, and the impracticality of contemporary Italian dress. In general, Emily Braun explains, the Futurists wanted to convey the same dynamic line forces and speed displayed in their paintings by incorporating “[s]leek lines and simple shapes [that] promoted the unencumbered movement of the human body, and the fast-paced rhythm of modern life [that] was evoked by dynamic textile designs and asymmetrical cuts” (34). They pursued actively expressive designs that could animate the body in a viscerally kinetic way. Also, “[t]hey were […] interested in the presupposition of ideological implications of clothing,” discerns Enrico Crispolti, “and in the additional charge of thrilling fantasy in its potential role in provocative proselytizing” (“Futurist Reconstruction” 42). The various manifestos, then, reveal three major tenets of Futurist fashion theory: dramatic cut and color, provocation, and functionality in the modern world; all of which fall under the rubric of Futurism’s greater artistic theory.

Above all the Futurists considered fashion an artistic medium. Marinetti called for women to design clothing to suit their own specific needs by turning their bodies into “an original living poem.” Marinetti’s ideas resonate in the “Futurist Manifesto of Women’s Fashion,” in which Vincenzo Fani Volt insists that “fashion is an art, like architecture and music. A dress that is ingeniously conceived and carried well has the same value as a fresco by Michelangelo or a Titan Madonna” (40). Of course, a dress has a short “shelf life” when compared to a canvas; it is worn for a period and then deemed out of fashion and replaced by the next great work. This seeming disadvantage, however, was well suited to the Futurist demand for rapid change and novelty. “It was the aspiration to a close relationship between art and life, fundamental to the Futurist pragmatism of imagination,” explains Crispolti, “that motivated the intensity of interest in the sphere of fashion and its incessant internal dynamism” (54). Naturally the Futurists gravitated to fashion’s perpetual recreation process. Balla’s first experimentations with clothing consisted of linear optical patterns in aggressive colors; he constructed men’s suits, worn by himself and later other Futurists, and women’s sweaters and dresses, worn by his daughters. A few years later, in 1915, Balla and Depero worked with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes where, according to Germano Celant, they saw “clothing as a dynamic interface between the body and the atmosphere, between physical gestures and the urban context, which could be translated into encounters between forms and colours, volumes and architecture” (453). Their experience with stage design translated to theories and sketches of clothing with mechanical contraptions and illuminating devices. Although they would bring some of these innovations to life for stage costumes, extreme Futurist fashion remained largely in the realm of theory. As vividly described in their writings, Futurist clothing designs would employ a combination of audacity, novelty, ingenuity, and comic absurdity. Balla wrote of “hap- hap-hap-hap-happy clothes, daring clothes with brilliant colours and dynamic lines” that would “provide constant and novel enjoyment for our bodies” (“Men’s Clothing” 132). They clearly wanted people to stop in the streets, point, and laugh at their new creations; it was another way of stirring up trouble amongst the dispassionate and somewhat conservative Italians by forcing them head-on to question traditional social conduct and consider a humorous alternative. “As a result,” continued Balla, “we shall have the

necessary variety of clothes, even if the people of a given city lack the imagination themselves” (“Men’s Clothing” 133). To the Futurists, this “artificial imagination” in clothing equaled novelty contraptions, bold abstract patterns, and bright vivid colors. The more colors incorporated into Futurist fashion the better. In “The Antineutral Suit: Futurist Manifesto” of 1914, Balla persuaded, “We Futurists want to liberate our race from every neutrality, from fearful and enervating indecision, from negating pessimism and nostalgic, romantic, and flaccid inertia. We want to color Italy with Futurist audacity and risk, and finally give Italians joyful and bellicose clothing” (39). This testament to brighten the people of Italy by means of an innovative “merry dazzle” is a reoccurring goal throughout the rest of the movement as well, and can very well be considered one of the most evident fixtures in Balla’s sketches and designs (“Men’s Clothing” 133). “Color!” they exclaimed, “We need color to compete with the Italian Sun” (Marinetti, “Italian Hat” 40). Vogue responded lusterlessly that “[t]he desire for futurist coloring is satisfied by sleeves of gay cretonne” (qtd. in Steele, Paris Fashion 255). Although their demand for color led them to champion innovative material, such as iridescent fabric that reflected and reacted to varying degrees of light, the solution was not that simple.

Fig. 3.1 Balla and his daughters posing in Futurist clothing with his “plastic garden,” in Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco, Balla: The Futurist (New York: Rizzoli, 1987) 37.

The colors of Futurism did not simply mimic the shades of nature; they were brightly intense and coupled together in alarming combinations. In his “Futurist Manifesto of Women’s Fashion” Vincenzo Fani Volt complains that “Mediocrity and wretchedness weave gray spider webs upon the colored flower beds of fashion and art” (39-40). The Futurists debunked these kinds of “halftones” and “‘nice,’ faded, ‘fanciful,’ murky, and humble colors” as stodgy and neutral; to replace the drab of the past they proposed “[c]olored materials of thrilling iridescence…the most violet violet, the reddest red, the deepest of deep blues, the greenest of greens, brilliant yellows, vermillions, and oranges” (Balla, Antineutral Suit 39). A series of patterned fabric material that Balla designed make particularly good use of these bold color combinations; however, he only ever created prototypes of a few of the designs, which he constructed into sashes, scarves, shawls, sweaters, and purses (Crispolti, il Futurismo e la Moda 150-203). Some of the most popular and most remembered Futurist iconography displays Depero, Balla, and Jannelli standing in front of the Eiffel Tower in 1925 wearing boldly colored and patterned Futurist vests designed and made by Depero. Widely recognized throughout Europe, the Futurists wore these waistcoats to several of the movement’s official functions, and on one occasion even paid off a delinquent hotel bill with the gift of one (Belli 115).

Fig. 3.2 Famous Futurist Waistcoats designed and constructed by Depero, worn by the artists and Marinetti, in Giovanni Lista, Futurism (New York: Universe Books, 1986) 40.

Art historian Gabriella Belli writes that “the color [of the waistcoats] was the most shocking element, and was specifically designed to unsettle traditional tastes in clothing” (115). Thus, Depero’s vests provide a specific example of how Futurist fashion could be artistic, innovative, and provocative simultaneously. The Futurists also called for new dynamic designs in cut and texture to accompany the vibrancy of color. They wished to abolish all materials that were “wishy-washy, pretty-pretty, [and] gloomy” as well as “patterns of idiotic spots and stripes” and replace them with asymmetrical and energized patterns that used lively shapes such as triangles, cones, spirals, ellipses and circles (Balla, “Men’s Clothing” 132-133). For their new mode of dress, the Futurists were also looking for designs that “integrated the sensations of movement, in order for their dress to reflect the energy of a new urban society” (Asbaghi 35). This included the use of untraditional fabrics made from cardboard, burlap, plastic, glass, paper, tin foil, ceramic, rubber, straw, metal, hemp, growing plants, and even live animals. The wearer of such textured fabrics would be a “walking synthesis of the universe” (Volt 40). In yet another example of how the Futurists were ahead of their time, this unorthodox use of natural and industrial fibers stayed in the realm of theory and was never completely realized in practice. One reason the Futurists were prone to experimentation with nontraditional materials and construction techniques was because of their belief in exposable, yet functional clothing. Traditionally made to last the test of time, functional garments were simple, sturdy, and worn by uniformed personnel or the working class. Although the Futurists agreed with the simplification of dress, they did not consider resiliency a characteristic of clothing that coincided with the perpetual evolution of fashion. Balla insisted that “[Futurist clothing] must be simple, and above all they must be made to last for a short time only in order to encourage industrial activity and to provide constant enjoyment for our bodies” (“Men’s Clothing” 132). Volt attacked silk, a rather expensive fabric highly preferred by the elite due to its luxuriousness and strength; he wrote that “after three years of war and shortages of raw material, it is ridiculous to continue manufacturing leather shoes and silk gowns. The reign of silk in the history of female fashion must come to an end…” (40). Thus, as mentioned above, the Futurists turned to artificial and economical natural materials for clothing construction.

By using machine-made fibers and synthetic fabric they believed they could more effectively position the functionality of fashion within the industrial perimeters of a new modern, man-made Italy. For example, Volt suggested, “In women we can idealize the most fascinating conquests of modern life. And so we will have the machine-gun woman […] the radio-telegraph woman, the airplane woman, the submarine woman, the motorboat woman. We will transform the elegant lady into a real, living three-dimensional complex” (40). They did not wish to completely obliterate the human form, however, but rather work around it: The new forms will not hide but accentuate, develop, and exaggerate the gulfs and promontories of the female peninsula […] Upon the feminine profile we will graft the most aggressive lines and garish colors of our Futurist pictures. We will exalt the female flesh in a frenzy of spirals and triangles. We will succeed in sculpting the astral body of woman with the chisel of an exasperated geometry. (Volt 34-41). By treating fashion as a cohesive backdrop to the industrialization of transportation, city architecture, and other technologies, its individual wearers would also emanate progressive characteristics to match those of the modern world. To hone this idea of universal Futurism, Balla pointed out an apparent truth: simply stated “One thinks and acts as one dresses” (“Antineutral Suit” 39). His statement resonates the nationalist ideas of Futurism: to become a city of the future, the people of Italy must live like one. The bold colors, vivid patterns, and untraditional materials adopted, created, or theorized by the Futurists automatically set their clothing apart from conventional mainstream design; it was, after all, futuristic. Their goal, however, was an enthusiastic embracing of the collective values of urban modernism for all members of society, not just for those who could afford eccentric fashion fads. Thus, the Futurists were against the class connotation of traditional fashion: the hierarchical component that equated frivolous non-functional garments with the wealthy upper class and tasteful yet flavorless clothing with the working lower classes. “Its sole interest was in the street, the privileged location of social life,” explains Lista (151). And, in one clothing manifesto Volt offers, “The new fashions will be affordable for all the beautiful women, who are legion in Italy. The relative cost of precious material makes a garb expensive, not the form or color, which we

will offer, free, to all Italians” (40). For the Futurists, fashion theoretically would no longer represent class distinction, but rather celebrate the individual connected to a functioning society. Although their goal remains somewhat unfulfilled nearly one hundred years later, couturier Elsa Schiaparelli (1896-1973) ardently pursued a similar quest. Elsa Schiaparelli Schiaparelli’s career as a fashion designer began after she moved to Paris in the early twenties and employed the use of optical illusion on Armenian knitwear. More specifically, a trompe l’oeil effect was achieved by incorporating into the knitted pattern “a simple design of a big white bow outstretched like a butterfly on a close-fitting black woollen top” (Baudot 9). African motifs, patterns based on sailors’ tattoos, white skeleton bones, and wriggling fishes also appeared on the knit sportswear, and are described by one fashion historian as quite “futurist” (Ginsburg 96). Explaining the motivation behind her first design concept, Schiaparelli herself said, “It was the time when abstract Dadaism and Futurism were the talk of the world, the time when chairs looked like tables, and tables like footstools, when it was not done to ask what a painting represented or what a poem meant” (qtd. in Martin, Fashion and Surrealism 200). Her first fashion endeavor mirrored the first experiments of Balla, who also started his exploration of fashion with optical designs.

Fig. 3.3 Optical illusion sweater/jacket renderings by Balla, in Enrico Crispolti, il Futurismo e la Moda (Venice: Marsilio, 1986) 252.

Fig. 3.4 Schiaparelli’s trompe l’oeil knit sweaters, in Dilys Blum, Shocking! The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli (New Haven: Yale U.P., 2003) 20.

Schiaparelli’s efforts, though, won her the attention of the larger fashion industry. Such designs seem routine by today’s standards, however, in the late twenties they were ingenious and intriguing, and actually considered the forerunner to the printed tee shirt. This uniqueness set the tone for her designs throughout the rest of her career. She was constantly in search of new and innovative mediums that would challenge the mainstream of fashion, and her energetic irreverence to tradition fueled the dynamism found throughout her experimentation. In a statement that could easily be applied to the notorious Futurists, one fashion historian describes her as “a volatile personality, sometimes crude and vulgar, rarely subtle, but full of vitality” (Yarwood 171). Though not yet crude or vulgar, her first official collection (1927) expressed her vitality and verve for life. It included more knitted sweaters; some used multiple shades of wool to form bold blocks of color and others featured modern geometric designs accented with metal thread (Blum 13). Again, Schiaparelli’s cubist-like efforts paralleled the work of Balla and Depero. She focused solely on sportwear for the first few years and then branched out to designing eveningwear, which she found very liberating. Special occasion garments

especially gave her creative license to shock and surprise; her forte was the juxtaposition of eccentrically whimsical additions to an otherwise simple dress design, such as her famous Dali lobster dress worn by Wallis Simpson. “Perhaps her major contribution,” explains Anne Stegemeyer, “was her […] sense of mischief, a reminder not to take it all too seriously” (222). Her designs prove that innovation and fun go hand in hand.

Fig. 3.5 Dali’s Lobster Phone and Schiap’s famous Lobster Dress (1937), in Francois Baudot, Elsa Schiaparelli (New York: Universe, 1997) 46-47.

Schiaparelli, like the Futurists, considered the designing and wearing of fashion an art rather than a profession or styled necessity, an idea that was not widely shared by her contemporaries. In a statement that indicates distaste for this intermingling of art and fashion, her rival, Coco Chanel, disdainfully described her as “that Italian artist who’s making clothes” (qtd. in Blum 125). Nowadays, the artistic label is used to describe her genius. Costume historian Richard Martin describes her as a “visionary” who “touched clothing with the capacity to be art […and] gave clothing the romantic and inventive emancipation to become art even more than apparel” (Fashion and Surrealism 207). She described the process of fashion design (or “invention” as she referred to it) as “a most difficult and unsatisfying art, because as soon as a dress is born it has already become a thing of the past” (Schiaparelli 59). Although this statement demonstrates her tendency to

overdramaticize, it echoes the Futurists’ embrace of the new and distaste for the past, no matter how immediate. Costume design for the theatre had long since been included in the artistic arena and Schiaparelli did not distinguish between “costumes” and “dresses;” to her they were both elements of masquerade: one for the theatre and one for contemporary life (Steele, Women of Fashion 66). Her well-known designs for costume balls and parties, favored by her clientele, are labeled as some of her most artistic work. Likewise, Schiaparelli’s costume designs for stage and screen (Pygmalion and Moulin Rouge to name a few) are also widely remembered for their artistic detail, as well as scrupulous fit. Perhaps Schiaparelli’s strong assertion of fashion as art also stems from her strong association with surrealism and her world-wide travels. Throughout her career and time in Paris she collaborated with and was inspired by several surrealist artists, including Salvador Dali, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, and Jean Cocteau. Her extensive travels to places such as the Americas, Cuba, India, Eastern Asia, Scandinavia, Russia, West Indies, and Tunisia inspired her to incorporate exotic international artistry into her designs.1 Overall, viewing photographs and renderings of Schiaparelli’s work is more reminiscent of contemplating fine art rather than perusing a clothing catalog. No doubt Schiaparelli shared the Futurists’ desire to amuse and shock the public with their designs. Far before kitsch was in vogue, Schiaparelli experimented with the displacement of garish and amusing images; dresses included graphics of astrological signs, fish, and circus clowns, necklaces were made of tiny aspirin or ceramic vegetables, handbags took on the shape of birdcages, and leather fingernails were sewn onto the hands of gloves. One particular accessory that shocked (and even frightened) most people who came into contact with it was a clear plastic necklace arranged with metal insects so as they appear to be crawling on the wearer’s neck. One fashion historian describes such accessories as “a host of unsettling images that made women’s high fashion look as bizarre as anything discovered by anthropologists or uncovered by psychopathologists” (Steele, Women of Fashion 67). Although Schiaparelli was very much ahead of her time, she is remembered for being in tune with the needs of the contemporary woman, whether to boldly shock or simply to exude joviality.

Fig. 3.6 Bug buttons and necklace by Schiaparelli, in Richard Martin, Fashion and Surrealism (New York: Rizzoli, 1990) 171.

Schiaparelli’s playfulness was also expressed in headwear she collaborated with Salvador Dali; there was a high-heel shaped hat, an ice-cream cone hat, and a mutton-chop hat that matched a suit embroidered with cutlet motifs. The 1920 Futurist Manifesto of the Italian Hat, signed by several of the group’s members, lists similar creations. Futurist hats would “give to the sunlit squares the flavor of immense fruit dishes and the luxury of huge jewelry stores. The night streets will be perfumed and illuminated by melodious currents” (“Italian Hat” 41). Again, Schiaparelli was able to create and promote what remained a mere theoretical intention for the Futurists. In 1914 Balla envisioned a world of exciting, peppy, and joyful clothes-wearers: a world where, he says, “The happiness of our Futurist clothes will help spread […] good humour…” (“Men’s Clothing” 133). Schiaparelli was able to realize this visions to a startling degree. Who, I ask, would not be delighted with a colorful ice-cream cone perched atop an elegant coif?

Fig. 3.7 Schiap hat renderings (1937), in Ruth Lynam, Ed. Paris Fashion: The Great Designers and their Creations (London: Michael Joseph Ltd., 1972) 97.

Like Balla, Schiaparelli also relied heavily on bright and vivid colors, which, during a time when popular hues included the neutral tones of grays, browns, and creams, was quite (pardon the double meaning) bold. While other fashion designers, such as Chanel, Patou, and Molyneux, gave indicative or evocative names to their dress styles and lines, Schiaparelli stayed within the traditional system of numerical distinction and instead descriptively named the colors she used, like “dregs of wine” and “after the storm.” The designer coined and popularized two original shades, “shocking pink” and “ice blue,” both now shades of Crayola crayons. A pictorial review of her various collections confirms her use of brilliant and bold colors at a time when other designers focused primarily on neutral and harmonious tones.2 A mere fifteen years after the Futurists wrote of literally changing the face of cloth, Elsa Schiaparelli introduced clothing and accessories to Europe that utilized several new and unconventional materials. By working closely with fabric manufacturers she initiated new design ideas for them, and often found inspiration in mill discards, which, Blum writes, “gave her the reputation of making successes out of other people’s mistakes” (34). She experimented with, and was most successful using, textiles with unusual novelty

prints, including anthracite (a coal-like rayon), a rubberized wool mixture for raincoats (Blum 15), and matte crepe crinkled in deep folds to resemble tree bark (Martin and Gruber 466). In 1935, in order to celebrate the opening of her new salon, Schiaparelli designed cotton and silk fabric with her own press clippings covering it, which she made into blouses, dresses, scarves, men’s ties, tobacco pouches, and bonnets in the style of the folded paper-hats worn by Danish fishwives (Blum 71-72). Similar collaged images appears in Futurist art. She audaciously incorporated bark, glass cellophane, and straw into the textures of her new fabrics and helped to popularize the use of synthetic materials instead of silk (Constantino 48), realizing yet another goal of the Futurists.

Fig. 3.8 Musical note dress by Schiap (1937), in Richard Martin, Fashion and Surrealism (New York: Rizzoli, 1990) 25.

Schiaparelli’s innovations in fashion design and technology were immense and resonated throughout successive styles of the century. The unconventional Schiaparelli was the first designer to incorporate the new plastic zipper as a decorative element to dress-closing, rather than a purely functional one. The zippers were dyed to match or contrast the fabrics she used and deliberately put in very obvious places on the garment. Other innovations include the first matching jacket and evening dress combination,

sweaters that matched skirts (replacing the jacket/skirt ensemble), and novelty buttons in a variety of irregular and peculiar shapes. Schiaparelli also developed the forerunner to the bodysuit and was one of the first couturiers to promote the modern padded shoulder line; her goal was to emphasize the width of the shoulders in order to make the waist seem slimmer. Her divided skirt made no attempt to conceal the bifurcation as other designers had done, and for this she was heavily criticized in England, but slowly women everywhere, especially those involved in athletic sports, conceded to the convenience of trousers. Interestingly, all of these new-sprung clothing concepts, fresh from the thirties, have been thoroughly absorbed into today’s fashion vernacular. Although many of her designs were labeled as wildly eccentric and boldly shocking, Schiaparelli utilized styles that were smart, sophisticated, and surpassingly functional. This last key characteristic, coupled with a sense of mischievousness, provides a direct link to the philosophy and practice of Futurist fashion. Practicality and functionality were of the utmost importance to the Futurists, who despised excessive lavishness. In 1928, Schiaparelli designed a practical one-piece coverall quite similar to Futurist Ernesto Thayaht’s 1918 androgynous tuta (Italian for “all” or “everybody”). Both versions were quick, convenient, simple, yet colorful. Although photographs of each model are stunningly similar, a clear line of influence can not be posited with certainty. Certainly the garments attest to both Schiaparelli and the Futurist’s shared concern for comfort, functionality, and practicality.

Fig. 3.9 Schiap’s overall for women (1928), in Dilys E. Blum, Shocking! The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli (New Haven: Yale U.P., 2003) 29.

Fig. 3.10 Rendering and prototype of Thayaht's Tuta, in Giovanni Lista, Futurism (Paris: Terrail, 2001) 150.

A slightly less pragmatic and more novel and fun innovation shared by Schiaparelli and the Futurists was illuminated fashion, which lighted up pockets or the wearer’s way at night. While the Futurists’ designs only came to practice in stage costumes, Schiaparelli’s lighted handbag that played tunes when opened can surely be found in trendy novelty shops today. Another specific example in which Schiaparelli’s innovation paralleled Futurist efforts is the concept of transformable and reversible garments. In the “Futurist Manifesto of Men’s Clothing 1913” Balla theorized about clothing with a “pneumatic dispatch,” that would allow for the suit pattern and material to be changed with the push of a button according to the wearer’s mood or needs (133). Schiaparelli’s convertible dress, on the other hand, was a more realistic design concept that actually came to fruition: the simple pull of a ribbon would lengthen the day dress to evening attire (Baudot 14). “In Schiaparelli’s philosophy of dress the concept of transformation was central,” explains fashion curator Dilys E. Blum, from the small conversions of clothing with multiple functions to the metamorphosis of a woman’s total look. She frequently designed clothing

to have more than one use, such as a skirt that could be worn as a cape, while in the ultimate transformation clothing was employed to masquerade, concealing one facet of a woman only to reveal another. (151) Not only did Schiaparelli’s reversible garments, which she designed throughout her career, give the wearer two fashionable choices in one, they were also very economical during war-time conservation. For the modern woman in America, who had to release her hired help during the Depression years, Schiaparelli designed a line of fashionable and functional house aprons. Then, in 1939, she developed the ‘cash and carry’ collection that featured garments with lots of large utilitarian pockets, in which one could surely fit all the necessities for a stay in a fallout shelter. Especially during the war, “[n]ecessity was very much the mother of invention,” said Schiaparelli’s biographer, as he recalled a scarf she had printed with Maurice Chevalier’s last refrain: “Monday – no meat. Tuesday – no alcohol. Wednesday – no butter. Thursday – no fish. Friday – no meat. Saturday – no alcohol…but Sunday – toujours l’amour” (Baudot 14). The fluidity of Schiaparelli’s designs allowed her to reflect the ebbs and flows of society’s struggles in the immediate historical moment. To the Futurists functionality in fashion also meant that it would possess characteristics compatible with all other aspects of Futurist culture, and in doing so reflect the dynamics of society. As mentioned above, the development of new fabrics and material was essential to accomplish this goal, which the Futurists aspired to and Schiaparelli actually realized. One advertisement for Schiaparelli pajamas referred to the “Staccato” patterned-material used as “vivid, dynamic, rhythmic…” in order to coincide with “the zing and abruptness of modern life” (qtd. in Blum 15). Acutely aware of modern technological advancement, Schiaparelli introduced aerodynamic forms into her silhouette the same year that the all-metal Boeing 247 aircraft, the first modern passenger plane, made its debut (Blum 34). Such a coupling of man and machine coincides perfectly with Futurism’s glorification of the machine-age, as reflected in Marinetti’s exaltation of “sleek flight of planes whose propellers chatter in the wind like banners and seem to cheer like an enthusiastic crowd” (“Founding Manifesto” 22). Schiaparelli handled this coupling with delicacy. Perhaps she had a greater understanding of the body/garment relationship, for in her biography she wrote that “clothes had to be architectural; that the body must never be

forgotten and it must be used as a frame is used in building…the more the body is respected, the better the dress acquires vitality” (56). Schiaparelli also understood the delicate balance of old and new, and is often credited with combining Europe’s sense of history with America’s addiction to change through a fusion of tradition with modernity. This way she was able to ease her futuristic fashions into the present by simultaneously reflecting the past, while the Futurists devalued and even abhorred anything historical or old. Like the Futurists, Schiaparelli also marketed a specific lifestyle, one that allowed women to express themselves as confident individuals. In Schiaparelli’s pseudo- manifesto of her own, “The Twelve Commandments for Women,” number one states, “Since most women do not know themselves they should try to do so,” and number four and five warn “Remember – twenty percent of women have inferiority complexes. Seventy percent have illusions. Ninety percent are afraid of being conspicuous, and of what people will say. So they buy a gray suit. They should dare to be different” (Schiaparelli 255). By using strikingly creative fashions to give women a sense of wit and confidence, Schiaparelli hoped women would, literally, embody the ideas of equality and independence through self- expression. She accomplished this in two ways: through an artistic component, which I have already discussed, and also by challenging the class boundaries associated with Parisian haute couture. Elsa Schiaparelli surpassed the archaic view of designer-clothing ownership by opening one of the first ready-made boutiques to accompany her couture-wear. Her boutique, “Schiap Shop,” was full of irresistible novelties, accessories, and perfumes at reduced prices from her separate showroom. In Harper’s Bazaar, John Cocteau wrote: Madame Schiaparelli has taken literally the expression: the theatre of the mode. Whereas in other times only a few mysterious and privileged women dressed themselves with great individuality…a woman like Schiaparelli can invent for all women…who might be called the actresses in this drama- outside-theatre which is the World. Schiaparelli is above all the dressmaker of eccentricity…her establishment is a devil’s laboratory. Women who go in there fall into a trap, and come out masked. (qtd. in Steele, Paris Fashion 255)

She provided a means for the average female to become a “modern” woman, one that could create her individuality or change identities through artistic fashion. While the Futurists saw the individual as a means to express their art, Schiaparelli viewed the art as a way to express the individual from within the garment. Like a costume for a character in a play, she said, “[a] dress has no life of its own unless it is worn, and as soon as this happens another personality takes over from you and animates it” (59). Schiaparelli truly believed in the transformable powers of clothing. Clearly Schiaparelli’s innovative designs and theories of fashion resonate with Futurist efforts. Similarities, such as illuminated fashion, humorous hats, and most specifically, the tuta/overall, make a compelling argument that Schiaparelli was indeed influenced by her fellow Italians. Perhaps, though, Schiaparelli’s successful acceptance, in contrast to the marginalized status of the Futurists, was due to a repackaged format. The Futurists proposed a society completely deviant from the familiar past, while Schiaparelli offered a unique balance of old with new, which resulted from the core of traditional attire interspersed with unconventional fashion concepts. Although she was far from being considered conservative, Schiap’s liberal look at fashion was still able to infiltrate mainstream acceptability, and her innovative playfulness would resurface again in the sixties with an even wider mass appeal. By highlighting Schiaparelli’s contributions to modern fashion in comparison to Futurist fashion theory, however, the Futurist through- line becomes evident. Certainly their idea of fashion as art, once brought to the mainstream public by Schiapparelli, directly affected the trajectory of twentieth and twenty-first-century fashion. In addition their theories of innovative, functional, and economical clothing would allow fashion to become the most apparent physical characteristic of individuality.

Notes

1 Interestingly, like Marinetti and the Futurists, Schiaparelli’s politics and loyalties were questioned and aggrandized; instead of fascist propaganda, though, she was accused of having “communist sympathies,” rumors that began after her 1935 trip to a Soviet trade fair and only added to the mysteriousness of the volatile and peculiar designer.

2 Interestingly, though, she herself often appears in photographs wearing more conservative designs in orthodox colors: pieces we now refer to as wardrobe staples, like the ‘little black dress’ or skirt-suit. Even her basics were distinctively original, however, by utilizing textured fabrics.

CONCLUSION

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FUTURE?

Throughout the body of my research I detailed examples of the interplay and noticeable similarities between Futurism and haute couture, a seemingly distant pairing. Although perhaps not formally associated with the Italian avant-garde, similar, if not the same, motivations, philosophies, and techniques were adopted, applied, and utilized by the more established/mainstream fashion leaders. Innovative performance tactics used in the radical Futurist Serate paralleled concurrent trends in the haute couture fashion show. Even more specifically, the fashion designs of Elsa Schiaparelli nearly mirrored those of Giacomo Balla, Fortunato Depero, and their Futurist contemporaries. This comparison also leads to a few distinct contrasts, such as the exploration of Futurism and haute couture’s interaction with theatre. Here, consumerism proved to be at the core of the haute couture/theatre relationship, while philosophical interests guided the Futurists. The crux of this investigation suggests that the impact of Futurism, contrary to popular scholarship, unquestionably resonated outside of the movement. This, however, presents an interesting paradox: if the Futurist legacy did indeed successfully live on indirectly through haute couture initiatives, why did the movement ultimately fail at making a more direct impact on its own accord? What happened to the future of Futurism? There is no question that the Futurists aimed their message of anarchical social and artistic behavior at the masses; their goal was to reach the entire passeist population of Italy and even other regions of Europe. To accomplish this colossal objective they published and distributed over one hundred manifestos that covered nearly every sphere of life. Another tactic of propaganda they used to reach the masses and bring out the creativity of ordinary humanity was the polemical and energetic presentations known as Serate, discussed in depth in chapter one. Perhaps, though, the essential defining

characteristic of this promotional venue, provocation, ultimately backfired. The literal backfire of fruit and vegetables from the audience attests to the questionable acceptance of the Futurist lifestyle and ideology. The public was not wholeheartedly convinced that Futurism’s vision would improve the conditions of the modern world they found themselves living in, and Marinetti’s dictator-like proselytizing left no room for compromise. The second chapter detailed Futurist exploration with theatrical scenography and costume. The success of the Futurist theatrical productions varied, as did the originality and innovation of each piece. Some productions toured throughout Italy and Europe, while others remained in theoretical or design form only; none were staged more than a dozen times. Their constant exploration of and experimentation with unconventional and revolutionary techniques, however, demanded such short-lived receptivity. The Futurists did not simply produce art for art’s sake, but rather promoted their experiments in conjunction with the industrial world around them to anyone and everyone who would take notice. Other modern avant-gardists of the twentieth century—the dadaists, constructivists, surrealists, and even the new era of innovators—continued with this trend the Futurists so emphatically started. Michael Kirby highlights their impact on later artists: [The Futurists’] developments had little effect on the mainstream of theatre that progressed in a generally realistic direction, and encompassed both stylization and naturalism. But Futurism did have a great influence on practically every nonrealistic approach to theatre. It stimulated Pirandello in Italy and Wilder in the United States. It influenced the Russian Futurists and, eventually, the Constructivists. It led directly to Dada in almost all its manifestations. It was an impetus to pre-Surrealists like Apollinnaire, demi- Surrealists like Cocteau, Surrealism itself, and to the entire French avant- garde theatre. In Germany, it contributed to the development of the theatre of the Bauhaus in an entirely different direction. (153) Other scholars have associated Futurism as a vital reference for other avant-gardes of the 1910s and 1920s, including Brazilian Modernism, Spanish Ultraism, English Vorticism, Swedish Electricism, Mexiacan Ardentism, Hungarian Activism, and Polish Formalism (Lista 12). Reverberations of their theatrical contributions are felt to this day, which is

proof that they succeeded at impacting the theatrical art of modern society. But, what about Futurism’s abandoned collaborations with the Ballets Russes? Suppose they came to fruition: would the people of Europe then have accepted Futurism’s radical tendency if it were repackaged within the guise of a more mainstream entertainment? More importantly, what kinds of aesthetic offspring would permeate the theatre of today? Chapter three’s comparison of couturier Elsa Schiaparelli to Futurist fashion theorists show that Futurist fashion concepts did surpass their traditional historical position of avant-garde novelty-wear. A direct cause and effect relationship, however, is purely conjecture, but I have drawn a tightly knit parallel that has been overlooked by other scholars. My next line of inquiry, then, questions why Futurism, as an artistic movement, did not foster more direct collaborations with mainstream fashion, as was the case with so many other avant-garde movements and artists of the early twentieth century. Perhaps the radical fashion designs of Giacomo Balla, Fortunato Depero, and their Futurist contemporaries were a mere fifty years ahead of their time; although they were eager to intercept the world with their futuristic visions, the world was not ready to receive them. A mere ten years later, however, Elsa Schiaparelli continued the tradition of shocking and innovative fashion within the very mainstream channel the Futurists reacted against. Two distinct principles set her apart from her contemporary couturiers: she believed in the artistic merit and worth of fashion design, and she championed the idea of individuality. Schiaparelli taught the modern woman to have fun with and express herself through fashion. Although this expressiveness resonates with Futurist fashion theory, the Futurists ultimately did not advertise their clothing to the degree that Schiaparelli and other couturiers did. Parisian haute couture was the world headquarters of fashion, and, as discussed in chapter two, couturiers capitalized on numerous social and artistic events to advertise and sell their designs. Promotional opportunities were readily available to the Futurists, but for one reason or another they did not take advantage of them to advance their fashion concepts. Possibly this was due to the movement’s wide breadth of exploration; or, as the popular saying goes, they had their hands in too many cookie jars. Balla, for example, experimented with painting, poetry, sculpture, woodcrafts, furniture construction, lighting, and fashion to name a few. However, if Futurist experimenters

would have focused exclusively on fashion, would their clothing designs and theory have lacked dynamism and complexity? Haute couture provided a new lens in which to investigate Futurist impact and dispel its historical placement as fascist propaganda. Certainly Futurist contribution to the traditional mediums of painting and sculpture have been analyzed by scholars without questioning larger political implications. Likewise, in Futurist Performance Michael Kirby also explores Futurist artistic efforts autonomous from fascism, and asserts that [The] connection between Futurism and Fascism may be interesting sociologically. It may even help to explain certain aspects of the movement. The value of art, however, is not measured by political standards. Appreciation of a piece is not dependent upon knowing the beliefs of its creator. Great art is not necessarily produced by heroes, nor are ‘villains’ unable to create major works. (4) Kirby establishes an historical placement of Futurist performance theory and practice that, for the most part, delinks the Futurist/fascism connection, and instead focuses on the specific contributions Futurism has made to the relatively new genre of “performance art.” Although he himself admits that viewing Futurism within a political contexual framework can glean interesting information about the movement, in Futurist Performance he swings the pendulum away from Fascism and continues a previously lost dialogue. By narrowing this research, then, to the areas of fashion and costume—two categories of exploration that continually overlapped in the early twentieth-century—I too have found a means to disparage the negative connotation associated with Futurism, and in turn, discovered Futurism’s lost links to haute couture.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Amanda L. Mitchell

EDUCATION: The Florida State University; School of Theatre (8/02-4/04). Masters of Arts in Theatre Studies. Graduated April 2004. Curriculum consisted of Dramaturgy, Western Theatre History, History of Costume, History of Architecture/Décor, Play Analysis, and production work. Thesis: “Finding Futurist Fashion: Lost Links to Haute Couture”

Development Intern; Trinity Repertory Company, Rhode Island (8/01-6/02). Chief administrative assistant and coordinator for the Board of Trustees and sub-committees. Assisted with direct mail campaign initiatives, special events, donor records, grant application preparation and other departmental correspondence. Proficient in Razor’s Edge and Artsoft computer software.

Western Oregon University; Monmouth, Oregon. Bachelor of Science with a double major in Speech Communication and Theatre Arts. Graduated Cum Laude, June 2001. Curriculum consisted of comprehensive courses in the areas of Oral Interpretation, Interpersonal Communication, Rhetoric, Mass Media, Acting, Directing, History, Theory, Criticism, Shakespeare, and several aspects of technical theatre. Included one term abroad in London, studying contemporary British theatre, Victorian art history, and 17th century English drama and music.

TEACHING AND RELATED EXPERIENCE: Teaching Assistant; School of Theatre, The Florida State University (8/02-4/04). “Introduction to Theatre.” Associate Professor Dr. Joe Karrioth (2002-03); Visiting Assistant Professor Alan Sikes (2003-04). Mentor students; grade essays, quizes, and tests; manage online grade book; and share in periodic lecture responsibilities.

Foreign Teacher; English Country Day School, Daegu, Korea (6/02-8/02). Taught English as a second language at a private academy. Students ranged ages 5-18. Organized lesson plans and led other educational activities.

Stage Director and Drama Instructor; Children’s Educational Theatre, Oregon (6/01-7/01). Taught Directing, Shakespeare and Theatre History courses to young adults in a 300+ student summer arts program. Co-directed and designed costumes and makeup for the traveling show of the season; coordinated and arranged performance venues.

Arts and Entertainment Editor; Western Oregon Journal (6/00-6/01).

Principal writer for the A&E section of the bi-monthly news journal, responsible for coordinating section writers and stories concerning the arts and features, and collaborated directly with the Senior Editor Production Board to decide journal content and layout.

Reader, Note-taker, and Proctor; Office of Disability Services, WOU (9/98-6/00). Took comprehensive notes on classroom lectures for students with disabilities. Also recorded audio voice-overs of textbooks and other supplements, utilizing oral-interpretation skills. Proctored tests and exams from a variety of subjects and disciplines.

Office Assistant; Teaching Research Division, WOU (10/98-3/99). Conducted in-depth phone interviews and follow-up reports for program research. Efficiently worked with a variety of computer programs and applications.

Senior Counselor and Program leader; Camp Lakota (6/98-8/98). Supervised children from the ages of 5-15 years. Lead and organized campers in a variety of sports, swimming, crafts and theatre productions. Motivated and encouraged campers to focus on team work and group efforts while still developing a sense of self.

Social Activities Director; Office of University Residence, WOU (6/97-6/98). Planned and implemented social activities, fundraisers and other special events for the six student resident halls on campus. Conducted bi-weekly meetings with hall government officers, and attended weekly executive board meetings to plan events and make constitutional revisions and amendments.

Clerical Support; Special Education Office, WOU (9/96-6/97). In charge of office tasks and special projects, utilizing skills such as typing, word processing, filing, copying, general administration, and deliveries. Also answered multi-line phone system.

Assistant Waterfront Director; Girl Scout Camp Whispering Winds (6/95-8/95). Guarded and maintained pool and lake areas for campers ranging in ages 7-13. Conducted lessons in swimming, canoeing, rowing, and kayaking.

PRODUCTION CREDITS: Directing/Dramaturgical Experience Dramaturg Two Gentlemen of Verona Florida State University Lab 2004 Asst. Director A Midsummer Night’s Dream FSU Fallon Mainstage 2003 Director The Jungle Book Children’s Educational Theatre 2001 Director I'm Herbert Western Oregon University 2000 Dramaturg As You Like It WOU 2001 Asst. Director Bye Bye Birdie Lakota Players 1998 Asst. Director Once Upon A Mattress Lakota Players 1998 Acting Experience Inez No Exit OKChristian Productions 2002 Karen Speed The Plow WOU 2001 Artemis Hippolytus WOU 2001 Julie/Frederick Lovers and Executioners WOU 2000 Rapunzel Into The Woods WOU 2000

Clarice When You Comin' Back Red Ryder? WOU 1999 Chorus/lead dancer Anything Goes Corvallis Community Theatre 1999 Mrs. Cratchet Christmas Carol WOU 1998 Chorus/lead dancer Crazy For You WOU 1998 Mrs. Dilbur/Chorus Christmas Carol WOU 1997 Prudence Beyond Therapy WOU 1997 Technical/Production Work Box Office/Business Manager Shawnee Summer Theatre 2003/04 Costume Designer No Exit OKChristian Productions 2002 Box Office Staff Trinity Repertory Company 2001/02 Asst. House Manager Thunder Knocking on the Door TRC 2002 House Manager Firefly Theaterworks 2001 Costume Designer The Jungle Book CET 2001 Props Master Grapes of Wrath WOU 2000 Running Crew/Props Extremities WOU 2000 Props Assistant Twilight of the Golds WOU 1998 Costume Designer Various Productions Lakota Players 1998

Professional Development: Presentation: “Factoring in the Phallus: Contexualizing the use of Phalli in Fifth Century Greek Comedy,” 29th Annual Conference on Literature and Film: The Persistance of Form: Culture, History, and the Aesthetic. Tallahassee, 2004. Teaching Certificate: Program for Instructional Excellence. Florida State University, 2003. Attendance: Mid-America Theatre Conference. Indianapolis, 2003.

Professional Affiliations/Memberships: Association for Theater in Higher Education Theatre Communications Group Alpha Psi Omega (ΑΨ•), National Theatre Honorary National Honor Thespian, Oregon Chapter

Achievements/Awards: ΑΨ• Outstanding Actress in a lead role (WOU Theatre, 2000-2001 season) ΑΨ• Outstanding Actress in a supporting role (WOU Theatre, 2000-2001 season) Academic Achievement in Theatre Award (WOU 2001) 2nd Place Recipient of Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association “Best A&E Review” (2001) Irene Ryan Nomination for Julie/Frederick in Lovers and Executioners (WOU 2000) Dean’s List Honor Student Presidential Academic Scholar O.A.S.S.A. Student of Merit for Academic Performance in Theatre

References: Dr. Laura Edmondson, Assistant Professor at FSU School of Theatre (850) 644-0727

Dr. Richard Davis, Department Head of WOU Department of Theatre and Dance (503) 838-8000 David Janowiak, Assistant Professor of Theatre at WOU (503) 838-8310 Steve Sorin, Development Director at Trinity Repertory Company (401) 521-1100 Carolyn Reid, Drama Instructor and Director for Westview High School (503) 629-9348