Fashion
THE EXHIBITION OF THE YEAR
Amayzine was there and tells you everything you need to know
Whether we liked the idea of organizing a preview with the Rijksmuseum for a very select group to view the Catwalk exhibition...
We didn't have to think about it for a second, of course. Oysters, champagne, the coolest exhibition of the year (think Balenciaga, Dior, Lanvin, Yves Saint Laurent and a royal pair of underwear that is 300 years old), our online fashion friends, and being there first. Seems like a clear story to me. And oh yes, we had a goodie bag for everyone with a 100 ml bottle of Miss Dior and a piccolo rosé. Moët & Chandon. Not bad either.
At 7:30 PM, the gates would open for invited guests, but we gathered at 6:00 PM in the fifteen-meter-high library of the Rijksmuseum. ‘We’ are Jetteke and Lieke van Lexmond (and sons Dean Moses and June Casanova, who casually pointed out a book of the Spanish masters that was behind me. I kid you not), Noor de Groot (in an incredibly pregnant state, but hey, fashion called so she came) with her beloved Sander Kleinenberg. Lizzy van der Ligt and friend Yuki Kempees had their own museum night, because after our event they headed to an exhibition of a friend artist. Anna Nooshin came with her friend and Danie Bles was pretty much glued to the right hand of the curator who told her everything about the dresses.
Of course, you have to go see for yourself (well, you don't have to, but you probably want to), but until that moment arrives, I'll share some fun facts.
1. There are a lot of dresses from a lady from Brussels. She came from a poor background but married a fabulously wealthy gentleman. The fairy tale seemed complete until it turned out that children did not fit into their lives. But as a consolation, she was allowed to shop for anything she wanted. From Dior to Chanel and Balenciaga and back again. And that was a small band-aid on the wound.
2. Among the collection is a dress made from fabric of maps. They were leftover from World War I. The soldiers carried silk maps with them because they could withstand the rain and made no hard crinkling sound like paper maps, which could alert the enemy.
3. The exhibition is ‘designed’ by Erwin Olaf. That means he looked at the total collection of the Rijksmuseum and made his choice from it. He also conceived the form and the setting. There is a space where the dresses move past you on mannequins as if it were the baggage carousel at Schiphol. There are chairs around so that you, as a guest, can sit front row and look at all the pearls.
4. ‘The road to freedom’ is a theme of the exhibition. You see how ‘we have freed ourselves’ from the corset and slowly come to freedom. Freedom is symbolized here by the Mondrian dress by Yves Saint Laurent.
5. The changing silhouette is also something that stands out. Long ago, dresses were in vogue wide. So Kim Kardashian times a hundred, I might say. Then the skirt with the queue at the back transitioned into the silhouette with bust and waist, eventually leading to the straight flapper dress.
6. There are many dresses where the labels have been cut out, so you don't know the origin. However, you do know that if it said ‘made in France’, the dress was definitely sold abroad. Otherwise, the label wouldn't be there.
The Catwalk collection can be seen from now until May 16. At the Rijksmuseum, of course.
