3, rue Léonce Reynaud

07/03/2012 > 15/07/2012

The Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent has devoted its 17th exhibition to Japanese theatre costumes, known as the Kabuki. The costumes from the Shôchiku Costume, accompanied by accessories, engravings, photographs and documentary footage, serve to illuminate a traditional dramatic art which emerged in Japan in the seventeenth century. The Fondation’s exhibition of Kabuki costumes is the first of its kind ever held in Paris.

The exhibition will display costumes and accessories worn for Kabuki performances, a form of dramatic art very popular in Japan. The displayed pieces are on loan for the occasion from the Japanese company, Shôchiku Costume, founded in 1895 by the Otani brothers to produce Kabuki plays. 

The costumes are still regularly worn by actors, and the choice of pieces displayed in the exhibition is therefore partly dictated by the current theatrical calendar. The contemporary nature of the displayed costumes and their accessories permits us to understand not only the traditional heritage from which Kabuki theatre derives, but also the art of Kabuki as it is practiced today. 

Kabuki (???) is a style of Japanese traditional theatre which emerged at the beginning of the Edo period [1603 – 1868]. The word Ka-bu-ki is composed of three ideograms known as ateji (characters used solely for their phonetic value) and signifying, respectively, singing [?, ka], dancing [?, bu] and technical virtuosity or orchestration of movement [?, ki]. It is believed that Kabuki is a variation of the verb, ‘kabuku’ (to contort oneself or to conduct oneself in a gregarious manner), and it refers to a style of theatre once considered avant-garde as well as to the expressionist body movements of the actors.

Kabuki is theatrical entertainment in which the fantastical combines with the artistry of the actor. Kabuki is distinguished from other dramatic genres by specific characteristics, notably keshô [a type of make-up, of varying extravagance], striking costumes, body movements, specific poses, such as mie, music, dancing, and a particular repertoire and orchestration of movements, as well as complex scenographic devices incorporating traps, revolving stages and the hanamichi, a footbridge which is hoisted into the midst of the audience.

The repertoire of plays spans a variety of themes and includes pieces written specifically for the Kabuki as well as those adapted from nô theatre, traditional narratives and, above all, the bunraku. The plays fall into three categories: plays with historical themes [???, Jidai mono], plays dealing with everyday life (???, Sewa mono) and segments of dancing [???, Shosagoto].

 
01/01/2011 > 31/12/2012

The power of fashion is strong. All social groups use clothing to create their identity. Meet people from three decades, the 1780s, 1860s and 1960s, times when the economy, currents of ideas and technical developments clearly affected clothing and fashion.

The objects in Power of Fashion – 300 years of clothing belongs, with some exceptions, to Nordiska museet’s collections and have been used by people who have lived in Sweden. Both objects and pictures are, if nothing else is indicated, the property of Nordiska museet.

A database provides more information about the objects on display. You can find it at the far end of the gallery. Additional information can be obtained in Fatburen, downstairs on the museum’s ground floor. Here you will find a complete catalogue of all the objects and pictures on display in the exhibition, and you will also have the opportunity to continue your search in Nordiska museet’s large objects database.

Forbidden luxury
The imbalance in Sweden’s foreign trade was blamed on imports of foreign luxury clothing. To support Swedish manufacturing, an import ban was implemented. The court sought to set a good example, and Gustav III introduced the Swedish national costume in 1778. It was a uniform outfit intended for the nobility and the middle class alike, made of Swedish materials.

Excess and luxury were regulated and often prohibited by 18th century sumptuary laws. With the aid of foreign expertise, Swedish textile manufacture started early, with production at spinning mills, dyeworks, textile mills and cotton-printing mills. In spite of ambitions to reach up to international standards of quality, the fabric produced did not meet expectations. Fashionable clothing was also manufactured from prohibited material that was smuggled in.

Durable
Torn clothing signalled carelessness or poverty, but mended clothing was acceptable. Today young people buy torn clothing or put holes in clothing – a provocation to those who remember another era.
Improved private finances, more women in the workforce and new materials contributed to growing clothing sales from the middle of the 20th century onwards. Today’s inexpensive clothing is mass-produced, and changes of fashion control people’s interest in shopping. Recycling is on the rise in reaction against exaggerated consumption and in hopes of creating a better environment. To some extent, this is also a fashion trend.

Youth fashion
American jeans with a “perfect fit” were an eagerly awaited new item in the mid-20th century. Screen idols like James Dean and Marlon Brando made jeans a youth fashion. During the ban of American jeans imports 1947–1960, young people had to make do with Swedish-made Algots jeans, side-zipped on the girls’ styles. American jeans arrived in Sweden in 1960, and the style took off. Pop and rock musicians were the trendsetters. In the 21st century, several Swedish clothing companies have designed jeans that performed very well in the international fashion market.

From its opening in 1905, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs has major collections of textiles which are continually enriched with silks, embroidery, printed cotton, costumes, lace, tapestries…

In 1948, UFAC was founded on the initiative of the costume historian François Boucher with the idea of setting up a costume museum. Under the impetus of its curator Yvonne Deslandres, UFAC soon became one of the largest collections on the world.

In 1981, an agreement was reached between UCAD and UFAC which, while remaining separate entities with their own identities, joined forces to create the Musée des Arts de la Mode which was opened to the public five years later, in 1986, in the Pavilion de Marsan in the Louvre.

Its exhibition galleries, redeployed in January 1997 over two levels in the Rohan wing, now cover 1,500 square meters and are the part of the Musée de la Mode et du Textile that is visible to the public.

Its collections now contain some 16,000 costumes, 35,000 fashion accessories, 30,000 pieces of textile. A total of over 81,000 works which trace the history of costume from the Regency period to the present-day and innovations in textiles since the 7th century. These collections are regularly enriched by generous gifts made by private donors, designers or manufacturers.

They rival with the largest collections in the world, the Musée Galliera, Paris, the Musée des Tissus, Lyon, the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and the Metropolitan Museum, New York.

Apart from its historical pieces, the Musée de la Mode et du Textile also has collections of the work of great designers such as Paul Poiret, Madeleine Vionnet, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Christian Dior in the fashion field, and for textiles, Raoul Dufy, Sonia Delaunay or the embroiderer Rébé, to name just a few.

Its long-standing interest in innovation continues with its collection of new forms derived from contemporary design.

10, avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie

Het museum wordt momenteel gerestaureerd, tentoonstellingen worden tijdelijk getoond in Musee Bourdelle.

18, rue Antoine Bourdelle
75015 Paris
Métro :Montparnasse

Er was een tentoonstelling te zien over Madame Grès [1903-1993]

How did an old factory work? What are the processes to first of all make the yarn and then weave the cloth? What was life like for the people who worked there each day? The permanent exhibition The Textile Mill explains the whole chain of manufacturing woollen cloth in the original context of an early XX century factory, in a modern and evocative museum experience.

Carrer de Salmerón 25

21/12/2010 > 12/2012

This new long-term exhibition offers to the public some of the results of the research work carried out between 2005 and 2009 by the CDMT and LEITAT under PROFIT project led by the National Federation of Printings, Finishing and Textile Dyers.

The aim of the project was to analyze a selection of CDMT fabrics, representative of the Mediterranean textile production, and to deduce whether some of the historically used natural dyes colorings could be interesting for the industry.

The exhibition will discover the most used natural dyes in the rich palette of Mediterranean cultures (classical antiquity, Al Andalus and mediaeval Mediterranean, the 18th C., the beauty and meaning of colors), it explains the pre-industrial processes dye (direct, of vat and mordant) and presents the system of analysis and results.

The research done leaves many unknown factors, and one of them is precisely, to what extent we are able to develop from this knowledge, products and systems that are useful for industry, in the times and in amounts that it requires. The exhibition closes with the presentation of several initiatives in this sense (Holland, France, India, Canary Islands), all still in its infancy, but significant interest generated by this issue.

Museu Tèxtil i d’Indumentària

Vaste tentoonstellingen:
DHUB Pedralbes, avinguda Diagonal, 686 [Palau de Pedralbes]

Tijdelijke tentoonstellingen:
DHUB Montcada 12 - tegenover het Picasso Museum

Dressing the Body  vaste tentoonstelling

“Dressing the body” proposes a tour of the history of garments, covering five centuries, from 1550 to 2000 – a game of fascinating parallelisms between the morphology of the human body, socio-cultural events and historic styles.

Since ancient times, men and women have altered the form and appearance of their body through hairstyles, jewellery, tattoos and, above all, garments. Each period’s way of dressing has to do with moral, social and aesthetic codes.

Fashion imposes ideals of beauty. Silhouettes and volumes are altered – nature gives way to artifice. The exhibition, “Dressing the body”, depicts the transformations the body has undergone, prompted by changes in clothing involving five different actions, which tend to either confine or liberate it.

– Enlarge: Creating volume through stiff, bulky structures or fabrics that separate the body from the garment – petticoats, crinolines and bustles.
– Reduce: Diminishing the body’s natural forms, particularly the torso and waist – corsets, bras, girdles and bodices.
– Lengthen: Stretching one’s image to make the body appear taller – high-heeled and platform shoes, hairstyles, hats and dresses with tails.
– Outline: Contouring body forms and etching one’s silhouette – stockings, gloves and elastic-fabric or woollen corselettes.
– Reveal: Insinuating one’s shape, baring flesh and arms and showing skin – see-through fabrics, short dresses, sleeveless or with a deep plunge.

Based on these five concepts, “Dressing the body” proposes an unprecedented walk through the history of dress, against the backdrop of the Museu Tèxtil i d’Indumentària de Barcelona’s collection of garments and accessories and a selection of graphic media – period photographs and prints – accompanied by explanatory texts on the workings of fashion.