Latest news with #BrooklynMuseum
USA Today
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Younger art collectors are redefining traditional rules
Younger art collectors are redefining traditional rules Millennials, now the largest generation in the U.S., are a force in today's art market, rebooting the rules of collecting. In fact, they've been the biggest spenders on art in recent years. That's a departure from the investment-driven, pedigree-focused strategy that guided many older collectors. The landscape is changing Millennial musician Alicia Keys and her husband, Gen X producer Swizz Beatz's stunning, world-class art collection was the focus of the groundbreaking GIANTS exhibit, which debuted at the Brooklyn Museum in February 2024. It electrified the art world, prompting conversations about culture and identity, two important considerations for younger collectors. 'Alicia and Swizz's collection is beautiful, thoughtful and intentionally focused on emerging Black artists,' says Phillip Collins, founder of Good Black Art, the first and only tech-enabled company that provides a full-service platform dedicated to art by emerging Black artists. 'The exhibit was such a huge moment not just for Brooklyn or the entertainment or arts community,' Collins says. 'It was the first time we've seen collectors so famous really showcase such a broad spectrum of art at that scale. It's ignited interest among young, diverse Black collectors.' Liz Woolf, co-founder of Los Angeles art gallery Song-Word Art House, also speaks to the change in patronage and priorities. 'Art is for reflection and activism and exploration of identity,' Woolf says. ''Real art today is fluid, shaped by cultural, philosophical and technological shifts. It's about engaging with innovative media and creating work that pushes boundaries.' Woolf says younger people are also craving an experience. 'They want interactive, they want to be a part of it. That's why our gallery is loud, engaging, controversial, experiential. We want to push the limits, have people walk away, thinking, talking and sharing,' she says. And it's not just young high-net-worth individuals buying art. Collins initially thought price was a deterrent for younger collectors, but he was mistaken. 'What we found was the majority of first-time buyers, who may never have purchased art, spent an average of $500 on their first small work, then doubled that spending nearly every six months.' Millennials often purchase artwork online. As a result, the technology-forward Good Black platform has incorporated digital education tools to support newer collectors, with an emphasis on storytelling and making art accessible, with works at multiple price points. Coloring outside the lines Contemporary collectors under age 50 have broadened the scope of what constitutes art, from street art to multimedia installations and wearables. The themes represented are equally wide-ranging, from identity politics to environmental concerns and social justice. And young collectors are willing to buy from emerging versus established artists. Lauren O'Connell, a millennial herself, is the curator of contemporary art at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona. She says younger collectors are more open and more willing to take risks, often taking cues from celebrity culture. She's observed young collectors investing in and building community through their purchases. O'Connell points to the 'audacity' of an artist who duct-taped a banana to a wall that sent shock waves through the art world when the pieced fetched $6.24 million in November from a 34-year old Chinese cryptocurrency founder. That's not something their parents would have bought, she notes. 'Young collectors are interested in the art of the now, in works by living artists. After all, we were young when the 2008 recession hit. We know that money comes and goes. Our parents had multiple marriages and kids. It's all part of the changing idea of the American dream,' O'Connell says. Younger collectors also view art as a dialogue. 'Whether it's a photograph or a sculpture, art is engagement and a conversation starter,' O'Connell says. Woolf agrees. 'A cultural voice is being expressed through art and it's very attractive to this demographic. It's no longer a stuffy, elite landscape but art that speaks their language.' And in a sense, millennials are seeking a mirror with their collecting. 'They seek artwork that resonates with their values of authenticity, individuality and connection, and expresses their own identity,' Collins says. 'Millennials are leading the future of the art world.' Entering the Art World Everyone's art journey is individual, but here are some tips to help you get started: Start with a spark. Good Black Art founder Phillip Collins recommends a few questions: Who are you? What stories represent you? What are things you love? What experiences matter most to you? 'Collecting starts from within, and what you connect with,' he says. Become a sponge. Art museums and galleries are great places to learn what resonates with you, and ask questions. Build relationships. If you connect with a gallerist, they can become a great resource. But you can also buy directly from an artist who doesn't have gallery representation, often at a lower price. Prints are legitimate. Can't afford an original work? Consider a high-quality print, especially those of limited run that are signed.
Axios
16-05-2025
- General
- Axios
National Museum of Mexican Art to return Mayan frieze to Mexico
The National Museum of Mexican Art (NMMA) in Pilsen is returning a Mayan frieze to its original home in Mexico. Why it matters: There have been growing calls for institutions and collectors to return artwork that was stolen from cultures and countries, including Native American artifacts, Nazi-looted works and antiquities from the Middle East. Flashback: NMMA signed a memorandum of understanding with the Mexican government in February to return a limestone panel that dates back to between 500–900 C.E., considered the Classic Period of Mayan civilization in Mexico. Zoom in: The work depicts a figure wearing an elaborate mask and headdress with hands extended as if speaking. There's a companion panel as part of the work that the museum said it is trying to locate. Zoom out: The frieze was on display at the Brooklyn Museum and a museum in Indiana in the 1970s before being purchased by the Sullivan family. Members of the family contacted NMMA after their mother died to help the family return the work to Mexico. Between the lines: The piece will be on display at NMMA for the next year before going back to Mexico City for restoration and exhibition there. What they're saying: "It doesn't matter how this work, or any other work, went out of the country. It is not for commerce," National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) director general Diego Prieto said Friday through a translator.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
From a job at Ikea to a show at the Broad museum: Jeffrey Gibson's long path to art stardom
In 2019, Jeffrey Gibson received a MacArthur Fellowship, the $625,000 award commonly called 'the genius grant' that buys recipients the freedom to follow their dreams. Gibson used the money to purchase art materials and hire studio assistants. He took a two-year hiatus from teaching and spent more time reading. Best of all, he could afford to focus on the exquisitely crafted and increasingly ambitious art — supercharged with bold patterns, bright colors, poetic messages and mesmerizing textures — coming out of his studio in upstate New York, near the town of Hudson, where he lives with his husband, artist Rune Olsen, and their children, 9-year-old Gigi and 5-year-old Phoenix. A sequence of critically acclaimed — and wildly popular — exhibitions followed: 'When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks' at the Brooklyn Museum in 2020, 'The Body Electric' at SITE Santa Fe in New Mexico in 2022, 'The Spirits Are Laughing' at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado that same year, 'They Teach Love' at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Washington State University in 2023 and 'Power Full Because We're Different' at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in 2024. The pace of Gibson's exhibitions was relentless. He gained energy and momentum from reaching larger audiences, and he became a passionate advocate for issues dear to his heart, speaking particularly in terms of power and beauty, and the ways those forces have played out — and continue to play out — in the democratic experiment that is the United States of America. All of that culminated in 2023, when the State Department selected Gibson to represent the United States with a solo exhibition at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024. There are few higher honors for an American artist, and Gibson, a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians who also is of Cherokee descent, was the first Indigenous artist selected to fill that role. Other Indigenous artists, often unnamed, had represented the U.S. only once before — mostly with pottery, jewelry and textiles — as part of a group exhibition. That was in 1932, when Pueblo artists Ma Pe Wi and Tonita Peña and Hopi artist Fred Kabotie also exhibited their paintings. 'Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me' transformed the exterior and the interior of the neoclassical U.S. Pavilion in Venice into a vibrant stage that invited people from all walks of life to interact with the cornucopia of works. Visitors couldn't help but discover something wonderful, whether it be a giant, stylized bird, festooned with thousands of glistening beads; a laser-sharp painting, composed of up to 290 supersaturated colors; an array of lavishly patterned flags, from places no one has ever visited; or an evocative phrase, lifted from a novel, a pop song, a poem or a document, such as the U.S. Constitution. A pair of 9-foot-tall figures looked like they had just stepped off a spaceship — or out of a psychedelic fever dream. And a trio of murals, measuring up to 18-by-40 feet, provided an intergalactic backdrop, welcoming aliens of all stripes. That historic, well-received exhibition in Italy — 'Identity politics has never looked this joyful,' read the review from the Times of London — has come to Los Angeles. Gibson's first solo show in a Southern California museum opens May 10 in the lobby and first-floor galleries of the Broad. All of the works that filled the pavilion in Venice will be at the Broad, installed to let visitors circulate freely through a layered labyrinth of figures and forms — some familiar, others disconcerting. A pair of sculptures, displayed five years ago in Gibson's Brooklyn Museum exhibition, has been added. The larger of the two is a monumental bronze figure on horseback, cast by Beaux-Arts sculptor Charles Cary Rumsey in the first decade of the 20th century and titled 'The Dying Indian.' It depicts a generic Native American man astride an emaciated horse. Shoulders slouched, head bowed and wearing nothing but a pair of moccasins, the dying Indian is an emblem of extinction — or extermination. To counteract that narrative, Gibson commissioned Pawnee-Cree artist John Little Sun Murie to create a pair of beaded moccasins emblazoned with a line from a Roberta Flack song: 'I'm gonna run with every minute I can borrow.' While giving symbolic comfort to the bronze figure, the buckskin moccasins tell a story of grassroots resistance and DIY defiance, in which beauty and comfort and love have a toehold, even in a world otherwise defined by injustice and suffering. 'The space in which to place me' comes at a fraught moment for artists and their art, and Gibson is acutely aware of where his work stands in the current political climate. 'To me it's almost whiplash going from Venice to what's going on at the Smithsonian now,' Gibson says, referring to the public-private institution that includes the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Under pressure from the Trump administration, the Smithsonian closed its Office of Diversity and is targeted by the president for 'race-centered ideology' that he deems 'improper' under an executive order titled 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.' 'I don't want to say it's actually hard to reckon, because I'm not sure that it is that hard to reckon,' Gibson says. 'I think that, in this moment, we have no distance. We have no objective distance from what we're experiencing right now. And so there's no way for me to be able to understand all of the circumstances that led to where we're at.' When Gibson looks at the present, he sees it as part of history, reaching back further than the divisiveness that has defined American politics for the last couple of decades. 'When we look at other moments in history, you see so clearly how events and attitudes and interests aligned for those moments to happen.' Gibson is convinced that, in the future, when we can see the present in retrospect, we will see that the current turmoil is actually business as usual. Sarah Loyer, curator and exhibitions manager of the Broad, puts it this way: 'The show takes a long view of history. It's not reactive. It's not about the past 10, 20, or however many years. It's really looking all the way back. 'In this moment, that is refreshing. It is also necessary for us to ground ourselves in this longer view, this longer arc, and really think about the role of history, and how that affects the present and the future.' Jeffrey Gibson was born in 1972 in Colorado Springs, Colo., and he grew up in West Germany and South Korea, where his father worked for the U.S. Department of Defense, supplying goods to military bases. In 1995, Gibson earned his bachelor's degree from the Art Institute of Chicago. As an undergrad, he had worked at the Field Museum, on the staff established by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which returned sacred objects and human remains to their respective tribes. After receiving his master of fine arts degree from the Royal College of Art in London in 1998 — funded in part by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians — Gibson moved to New York City, where he, like many young artists, struggled to find his voice, struggled to find an audience for his art and struggled to find time to make art between day jobs at Macy's and Ikea. By 2011, Gibson was frustrated by all of the struggles and considered abandoning art. But a 2012 two-gallery exhibition in New York, titled 'one becomes the other' and presented at Participant Inc. and American Contemporary, redeemed his commitment to art-making. For the first time Gibson collaborated with other Indigenous artists, who specialized in beading, drum-making and silver engraving. It was also the first time he felt that people understood what he was up to as an artist. Interest in his work spread swiftly. Solo exhibitions at public venues around the country followed: 'Love Song' at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, in 2013, 'Speak to Me' at the Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center in 2017, 'Like a Hammer' at the Denver Art Museum in 2018 and 'I Was Here' at the Des Moines Art Center in 2019. He was 48 when he got the MacArthur. For Venice, Gibson dreamed big. Rather than proposing what he thought was practical, or acceptable, or typical, he proposed what he wanted to see — in his most freewheeling imaginings, with no compromises or constraints. From June 2023, when he found out that his exhibition proposal had been selected, to April 2024, when his exhibition opened, he says, 'I was prepared the entire time for people to call me and say, about every element of the installation, 'We just can't do that,' or 'It's just not possible.' And I have to say, that didn't happen.' That's a testament to the team Gibson had assembled, which ultimately consisted of 180 people. Chief among them were Kathleen Ash-Milby, curator of Native American Art at the Portland Art Museum, and Abigail Winograd, an independent curator, as well as Louis Grachos, executive director of SITE Santa Fe. Gibson's exhibition was co-commissioned by SITE Santa Fe and the Portland museum. 'What's so amazing about Jeffrey is that he draws on so many different realms for his work, from Indigenous histories to American queer culture, all the while exploring identities and diversity,' Grachos says, 'He is an exceptionally sophisticated colorist, a great communicator and an effective educator. In the end, Jeffrey is the absolute, consummate humanist.' Looking back at the year leading up to the Venice opening and the year that followed, Gibson has a deep appreciation of the value of time — and how long it takes to make sense of things. And that worries him deeply about the world we live in. 'We have created a culture that is overwhelming for a human being,' Gibson says. 'And that overwhelming causes anxiety. It causes fear. It causes a real, not just a perceived, sense of instability. And when we feel completely unstable, the first thing we want to do is revert to something that we think we understand. We've taken away the ability to feel that we have the space for comprehension, the space to process and to understand.' When face-to-face understanding gives way to stereotypes developed from a distance, Gibson says, the battle is lost. 'We are again conjuring fear. And that fear ultimately sits in the soul as resentment. That resentment is going to show up. So when I look at the world right now, I think what I really see is fear.' Gibson's art is all about making a place in the world where fear — the feeling of being overwhelmed by the speed and volume of modern life, the seemingly intractable political divide, the malignant racism that plagues the nation — has no toehold, much less a leg to stand on. Read more: From the Archives: Jeffrey Gibson, an artist's life outside labels Gibson's exhibition is a remedy for those who sometimes feel powerless and pointless. His exuberant, color-saturated installation serves up an abundance of beauty, awe, astonishment and fun. It stimulates the senses and inspires the mind. Most of all, it uplifts. The experience is the opposite of what one feels by the image glut and sound bites of modern life, the psychologically destabilizing ether of digital distractions that can oppress the soul. 'I think that analog-world engagement is crucial,' Gibson says. 'I make work that's very much about being a living being in this world, which I see as phenomenal. And I wish for people that they could understand how phenomenal the world around us is.' Until recently, Gibson had not realized how important working with textiles and making garments would be to him. 'When displayed,' he says, 'the garments become a kind of banner, a kind of flag.' They evoke the regalia worn by ghost dancers, papal robes and the outfits created by such performance artists as Magdalena Abakanowicz, Hermann Nitsch and Hélio Oiticica. They also recall the homemade clothes of punks and skaters. 'The garment is really a mechanism for transformation,' Gibson says. 'You become someone other in the garment. It's a way of extracting yourself from mass consumer culture. And all of those things just really fascinated me to want to think about an alternative, progressive, very inclusive army.' The repetitive nature of weaving and beading and hands-on craftsmanship are important to Gibson. 'The routine is healing,' he says. During an earlier visit to Venice, Gibson was struck by gorgeous, fully beaded dresses made centuries ago. 'They were made under some periods of tremendous distress,' he says. 'I wondered why anybody, under those conditions, decided to make a beautiful, beaded dress. Why was beauty so important? And that question — Why beauty? — is still with me. The only answer I can come up with is that, in a weird way, beauty is a manifestation of hope.' Gibson also notes that the handing down of a treasured object to a family member or community member 'is really a way of manifesting a future. It may be a small gesture, but it's powerful.' That's how he looks at his life as an artist: 'It all starts at a much smaller scale. It starts in childhood. It starts with socialization. It starts with people having examples of equity and fairness to mimic. If you have those examples, you really lessen the degree of violence that we see in society today. 'I know that's not a sexy story. But I think that those things are within my control. I'm not a religious person per se, but more and more I feel that faith, in its broadest definition, is crucial. Right now. I just think that once you lose faith, hope, love — I mean, I don't know what's left.' Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
CNN
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
‘Father of haute couture': The man who pioneered fashion as we know it
Over 150 years ago, rich women from all over the world came to 7 Rue de La Paix in Paris to be dressed by couturier Charles Frederick Worth, whose eponymous fashion house, founded in 1858, continued through three generations after his death in 1895. Widely credited by historians as the 'father of haute couture,' Worth was the first designer to be known by his name, and not by who wore his clothes. He gained international acclaim and shaped the way fashion was marketed and worn. His legacy is now being documented in a new exhibition, 'Worth: Inventing Haute Couture,' running until September 7 at the Petit Palais art museum in Paris. A collaboration between the Petit Palais and the Palais Galliera, it is the first retrospective of the House of Worth staged in France, and the second only in the world — the last being over 60 years ago at the Brooklyn Museum in New York — and coincides with Worth's 200th birthday this year. The Worth family's close ties to artists during the 19th and 20th centuries and the Petit Palais's 'flamboyant architectural testament to this period,' said the museum's director and chief curator Annick Lemoine, made Petit Palais 'the perfect setting,' she told CNN ahead of the show's opening. The exhibition encompasses the house's work from its inception to the 1920s — when famous actresses and singers, such as Sarah Bernhardt, Sophie Croizette and Nellie Melba, wore its clothes on-stage and off. Also on show are art and design items that belonged to the Worth family, including a black lacquer screen by French Art Deco artist and designer Jean Dunand and a series of nude photographs of Worth's great-grandson Jean-Charles taken by American visual artist Man Ray. Fragrance has also been incorporated in the exhibition, where visitors can smell a recreation of 'Je Reviens,' a light powdery, floral scent by Worth. While Osmothèque, the world's largest scent archive, based in Versailles, remade the fragrance for the exhibition, the scent itself was relaunched in 2005 by perfumer Maurice Blanchet and continues to be sold. Original Worth perfume bottles designed by René Lalique are also on display. As some of the garments are too fragile, the show will not travel internationally, said Raphaële Martin-Pigalle, chief heritage curator of the Petit Palais's modern paintings department. Worth was born in England in 1825, where he trained with two textile merchants before heading across the Channel to work for Maison Gagelin, a clothing store in Paris, as a salesperson and dressmaker, eventually working up to becoming a partner. He then went on to establish his fashion house — initially called Worth and Bobergh, named after himself and business partner Otto Bobergh, a Swede. Worth decided what women would wear, not by creating new silhouettes, but by changing the business model. Today, haute couture fashion shows take place twice a year as designers present the latest styles for clients to pick from. But this wasn't always the way. Before Worth, 'couturiers didn't have much latitude to invent looks,' said Sophie Grossiord, Palais Galliera's interim director and general curator in charge of the collections from the first half of the 20th century. At the time, aristocratic women brought fabric and ideas of what they wanted to wear to couturiers, who would then produce those garments. But that wasn't how Worth operated; instead, he designed looks that customers, if interested, could buy — subsequently turning the role of the designer, as someone who would merely serve the wealthy, to one of authority whom clients would look up to and follow guidance on how to dress. 'Women come to see me to ask for my ideas, not to follow theirs,' Worth notably said to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, a literary and political periodical, in 1858. Worth 'didn't necessarily agree with what his clients wanted,' said Grossiord. At Worth and Bobergh, the clothes were already made, but embellishments — like woven borders, lace and fake flowers — could be added. The clothing could also be modular, with interchangeable parts such as different sleeve lengths for different times of the day, as seen in the 'transformation dress' from the late 1860s. The demand for Worth's clothes was great: During the Second French Empire from 1852 to 1870, elaborate costume balls were all the rage — and paintings shown in the Petit Palais exhibition, including Jean Béraud's 'Une Soirée' (1878), depict Worth gowns at these events. Worth's costumes ranged from the avant-garde — like an umbrella costume from 1925, which looks like a cross between waders and an upside-down closed umbrella — to those which referenced history, like the dress made for Madame Charles-Pierre Pecoul for Princess Sagan's ball around 1893, modeled after a painting of the infant Margaret Theresa of Spain. The house only ever made one suit for a man outside of the family: It was for the Duke of Marlborough and the most expensive costume made. Supporters of Worth included Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III and one of the leading trendsetters in Europe, who learned of Worth through her close friend, Princess Pauline von Metternich, and Valérie Feuillet (who was married to the writer Octave Feuillet), according to the show's catalogue. As the French Empress threw her support behind Worth, he soon became the go-to name in fashion. 'Worth is an authority,' French news magazine Le Monde Illustré wrote in 1868, describing him as 'the absolute power in the world's royalties.' Worth's atelier doubled from over 500 workers in the 1860s to over 1,000 in the '70s, as he sought to cater to clients, several of whom were European royals from across France, Russia, Austria, Spain, Portugal and Sweden. Though, a majority of Worth's business came from customers further afield, in India, Japan, Hawaii and Egypt. American high society, which included the Astor, Morgan and Vanderbilt families, also provided a large source of income — as was emphasized towards the exhibition finale, where scenes from HBO TV series 'The Gilded Age' are projected. (HBO and CNN share the same parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.) As the Second Empire came to an end, so did Worth and Bobergh's partnership — the company's founding documents say it was intended to last 12 years. There is little known about Bobergh, so the exact reasons behind his departure are unknown. But Worth carried on, with the help of his wife, Marie, and later, his sons Gaston and Jean-Philippe. With the shift in French regime to the Third Republic, tastes changed — in fashion, crinolines were out, bustles were in. Worth adapted by bringing down the flamboyancy of his clothes. But another challenge soon emerged: In the 1890s, the US significantly raised its customs duties, creating the most consequential tariff of the 19th century and Worth's clothes became extremely costly to export. That created an opportunity for copycats in the American market to create similar-looking pieces, for cheaper prices. 'The copying phenomenon was a problem for all couturiers,' Grossiord said, noting: 'the copiers pillaged their ideas.' In response, in 1868 Worth founded the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture (it later became the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode and remains France's governing fashion body) to protect the designs of French couture houses from copying and to promote the status of Paris as the fashion capital of the world. Worth also established practices that are now regarded as standard in fashion, such as using live models (Worth's wife, Marie, was his first model) and runway shows to present new collections. Worth also photographed each of his looks and registered it by name or number. All of these were efforts to reduce the forgery of his designs. 'There was a clientele we can't even imagine,' Grossiord said, noting that while Worth's own order books have largely disappeared, some records still exist from the early days of Louis Vuitton (whose trunks were used to transport Worth's clothes) and Cartier (with whom the Worth family had two marriages). Among some of the most sumptuous dresses that feature in the Paris exhibition include those belonging to Countess Élisabeth Greffulhe, who was the inspiration of the Duchess of Guermantes, a character from Marcel Proust's literary masterpiece 'À la Recherche du Temps Perdu.' Worth himself was such a grand figure that he, too, has been immortalized in fiction: In his book 'La Curée' (The Kill), French novelist Émile Zola based the character Worms on Worth, calling him, 'the genius tailor, before whom the Second Empire's rulers took to their knees.' Over 100 years later, thousands continue to marvel at Worth's clothes. His legacy lives on.
CNN
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
‘The father of haute couture': The man who pioneered fashion
Over 150 years ago, rich women from all over the world came to 7 Rue de La Paix in Paris to be dressed by couturier Charles Frederick Worth, whose eponymous fashion house, founded in 1858, continued through three generations after his death in 1895. Widely credited by historians as the 'father of haute couture,' Worth was the first designer to be known by his name, and not by who wore his clothes. He gained international acclaim and shaped the way fashion was marketed and worn. His legacy is now being documented in a new exhibition, 'Worth: Inventing Haute Couture,' running until September 7 at the Petit Palais art museum in Paris. A collaboration between the Petit Palais and the Palais Galliera, it is the first retrospective of the House of Worth staged in France, and the second only in the world — the last being over 60 years ago at the Brooklyn Museum in New York — and coincides with Worth's 200th birthday this year. The Worth family's close ties to artists during the 19th and 20th centuries and the Petit Palais's 'flamboyant architectural testament to this period,' said the museum's director and chief curator Annick Lemoine, made Petit Palais 'the perfect setting,' she told CNN ahead of the show's opening. The exhibition encompasses the house's work from its inception to the 1920s — when famous actresses and singers, such as Sarah Bernhardt, Sophie Croizette and Nellie Melba, wore its clothes on-stage and off. Also on show are art and design items that belonged to the Worth family, including a black lacquer screen by French Art Deco artist and designer Jean Dunand and a series of nude photographs of Worth's great-grandson Jean-Charles taken by American visual artist Man Ray. Fragrance has also been incorporated in the exhibition, where visitors can smell a recreation of 'Je Reviens,' a light powdery, floral scent by Worth. While Osmothèque, the world's largest scent archive, based in Versailles, remade the fragrance for the exhibition, the scent itself was relaunched in 2005 by perfumer Maurice Blanchet and continues to be sold. Original Worth perfume bottles designed by René Lalique are also on display. As some of the garments are too fragile, the show will not travel internationally, said Raphaële Martin-Pigalle, chief heritage curator of the Petit Palais's modern paintings department. Worth was born in England in 1825, where he trained with two textile merchants before heading across the Channel to work for Maison Gagelin, a clothing store in Paris, as a salesperson and dressmaker, eventually working up to becoming a partner. He then went on to establish his fashion house — initially called Worth and Bobergh, named after himself and business partner Otto Bobergh, a Swede. Worth decided what women would wear, not by creating new silhouettes, but by changing the business model. Today, haute couture fashion shows take place twice a year as designers present the latest styles for clients to pick from. But this wasn't always the way. Before Worth, 'couturiers didn't have much latitude to invent looks,' said Sophie Grossiord, Palais Galliera's interim director and general curator in charge of the collections from the first half of the 20th century. At the time, aristocratic women brought fabric and ideas of what they wanted to wear to couturiers, who would then produce those garments. But that wasn't how Worth operated; instead, he designed looks that customers, if interested, could buy — subsequently turning the role of the designer, as someone who would merely serve the wealthy, to one of authority whom clients would look up to and follow guidance on how to dress. 'Women come to see me to ask for my ideas, not to follow theirs,' Worth notably said to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, a literary and political periodical, in 1858. Worth 'didn't necessarily agree with what his clients wanted,' said Grossiord. At Worth and Bobergh, the clothes were already made, but embellishments — like woven borders, lace and fake flowers — could be added. The clothing could also be modular, with interchangeable parts such as different sleeve lengths for different times of the day, as seen in the 'transformation dress' from the late 1860s. The demand for Worth's clothes was great: During the Second French Empire from 1852 to 1870, elaborate costume balls were all the rage — and paintings shown in the Petit Palais exhibition, including Jean Béraud's 'Une Soirée' (1878), depict Worth gowns at these events. Worth's costumes ranged from the avant-garde — like an umbrella costume from 1925, which looks like a cross between waders and an upside-down closed umbrella — to those which referenced history, like the dress made for Madame Charles-Pierre Pecoul for Princess Sagan's ball around 1893, modeled after a painting of the infant Margaret Theresa of Spain. The house only ever made one suit for a man outside of the family: It was for the Duke of Marlborough and the most expensive costume made. Supporters of Worth included Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III and one of the leading trendsetters in Europe, who learned of Worth through her close friend, Princess Pauline von Metternich, and Valérie Feuillet (who was married to the writer Octave Feuillet), according to the show's catalogue. As the French Empress threw her support behind Worth, he soon became the go-to name in fashion. 'Worth is an authority,' French news magazine Le Monde Illustré wrote in 1868, describing him as 'the absolute power in the world's royalties.' Worth's atelier doubled from over 500 workers in the 1860s to over 1,000 in the '70s, as he sought to cater to clients, several of whom were European royals from across France, Russia, Austria, Spain, Portugal and Sweden. Though, a majority of Worth's business came from customers further afield, in India, Japan, Hawaii and Egypt. American high society, which included the Astor, Morgan and Vanderbilt families, also provided a large source of income — as was emphasized towards the exhibition finale, where scenes from HBO TV series 'The Gilded Age' are projected. (HBO and CNN share the same parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.) As the Second Empire came to an end, so did Worth and Bobergh's partnership — the company's founding documents say it was intended to last 12 years. There is little known about Bobergh, so the exact reasons behind his departure are unknown. But Worth carried on, with the help of his wife, Marie, and later, his sons Gaston and Jean-Philippe. With the shift in French regime to the Third Republic, tastes changed — in fashion, crinolines were out, bustles were in. Worth adapted by bringing down the flamboyancy of his clothes. But another challenge soon emerged: In the 1890s, the US significantly raised its customs duties, creating the most consequential tariff of the 19th century and Worth's clothes became extremely costly to export. That created an opportunity for copycats in the American market to create similar-looking pieces, for cheaper prices. 'The copying phenomenon was a problem for all couturiers,' Grossiord said, noting: 'the copiers pillaged their ideas.' In response, in 1868 Worth founded the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture (it later became the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode and remains France's governing fashion body) to protect the designs of French couture houses from copying and to promote the status of Paris as the fashion capital of the world. Worth also established practices that are now regarded as standard in fashion, such as using live models (Worth's wife, Marie, was his first model) and runway shows to present new collections. Worth also photographed each of his looks and registered it by name or number. All of these were efforts to reduce the forgery of his designs. 'There was a clientele we can't even imagine,' Grossiord said, noting that while Worth's own order books have largely disappeared, some records still exist from the early days of Louis Vuitton (whose trunks were used to transport Worth's clothes) and Cartier (with whom the Worth family had two marriages). Among some of the most sumptuous dresses that feature in the Paris exhibition include those belonging to Countess Élisabeth Greffulhe, who was the inspiration of the Duchess of Guermantes, a character from Marcel Proust's literary masterpiece 'À la Recherche du Temps Perdu.' Worth himself was such a grand figure that he, too, has been immortalized in fiction: In his book 'La Curée' (The Kill), French novelist Émile Zola based the character Worms on Worth, calling him, 'the genius tailor, before whom the Second Empire's rulers took to their knees.' Over 100 years later, thousands continue to marvel at Worth's clothes. His legacy lives on.
