Has Salvador Dali and his legacy had a significant influence on today's fashion?

Salvador Dali is clearly one of the world's most influential artists of the 20th century. He even described himself as a 'genius'. However, it wasn't just art that he affected, he has changed fashion as well.

 

I visited an art gallery a couple of months ago and whilst in the gallery's shop, my boyfriend pointed out a book that he thought might be of interest to me. The book was about Salvador Dali (I can't actually remember which one it was) and I was told that Freud had inspired many of his painting and art work. I didn't buy the book because as you can guess it was quite overpriced. Instead I found a cheaper version on the Internet (see below for details) which seems to be equally informative. 

Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was an artist who played a great part in the Surrealism art movement. Surrealism was invented by Andre Breton and was first used to express a poet's subconscious mind through the use of words and sentences. However, in the early 1920s, Breton challenged artists to use Surrealism in paintings to discover what the visual outcome would be. Although Dali is probably the most famous Surrealism artist, he was actually kicked out of the Surrealist group because of his use of inappropriate material which offended many people. He was actually born in Figueras, Spain, however, he spent a lot of his time in Cadaques. Cadaques, a beautiful coastal town in Spain, was the setting that repeatedly appeared as the background in Dali's paintings, most commonly featuring in his earlier work as his family and himself would spend a large quantity of time holidaying in this area when he was younger. His reason for choosing this area instead of his place of birth was not just because of the heavenly appearance that it sparks, but because one of his main muses was found here: it's rocks. 

This may sound strange, however, if you look closely at the paintings he created earlier on in his life, this will become clear. This is Dali's paranoiac-critical method. In other words, remember when you were younger, and you'd lie on the grass gazing up at the clouds and you'd make them out to be faces or giraffes or elephants? Well this is what Dali used to do with these gigantic, mountainous rocks. In the context of the paranoiac-critical method, the rocks are an object with no mechanical meaning, however, when looked at, Dali viewed phantom images which are the results of his subconscious mind, which is where the surrealism twist takes place. The shapes you can see within the clouds can be known as 'phantom images' as the animals or faces (or whatever they may be) aren't physically there, only clouds are present. These phantom images appear in paintings such as 'Swans Reflecting Elephants' and 'Metamorphosis of Narcissus'.

Above is 'Swans Reflecting Elephants'. This oil painting contains three swans who are staring into the lake, however their reflection turns their high necks into elephants' trunks. The setting is in Cadaques which holds a chaotic atmosphere with rough colours and clouds that look like birds compared to the calming colours and stillness of the lake. This indicates an unlikely pairing in both the contrasting landscapes and the animals (swans are delicate and calm and elephants are heavy and loud). The double imagery creates paranoiac and phantom images out of the landscape. Maybe the elephants belong to the chaotic setting and the swans in the reflective lake?

 

Anyway, I don't want to write too much about his paintings.

 

Salvador Dali thought of himself as a celebrity. He did want to be famous and wouldn't settle for anything less. A lot of the other artists picked up on this fact and the furious Andre Breton nicknamed Dali 'Avida Dollars' which is an anagram of Dali's name and translates to 'eager for money'. Dali would never refuse offers from people who could bring him fame and fortune. For instance, he collaborated with Disney, made a number of Surrealistic cartoons, and he collaborated with Elsa Schiaparelli.

 

Elsa Schiaparelli was influenced by the Surrealism art movement. Dali and herself collaborated in the late '30s to design a new collection. The outcome was a shelf suit, a shoe hat and a lobster print dress and of course in the late '30s nothing like this had ever been produced. 

To the left is the Schiaparelli bureau-drawer pocket suit dress. The inspiration for this was sourced from Dali's collection of art which includes 'The Anthropomorphic Cabinet', 'The Burning Giraffe' and 'Venus de Milo with Drawers'. 

Above is Dali's 'The Anthropomorphic Cabinet'. The artist was continuously inspired by Sigmund Freud throughout his life and often made references to the famous neurologist through his art. This particular collection of art was additionally borrowed from Freudian theory. The drawers are said to represent an unconscious image of draws within the human body which waft out the 'countless narcissistic smells'.

Another of the Dali/Schiaparelli creations is the shoe hat. This idea came from a photograph of which Dali's wife, Gala, took of the artist. In the photograph, Dali was wearing a shoe on his head and the other on his shoulder. Therefore Dali must have thought 'why not make a shoe hat?'. This is another example of where Dali has combined two unlikely features and made them work.
This photograph has been sourced from the V&A museum's website. The creation is actually held at within the museum in London.
 http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O183849/shoe-hat-hat-schiaparelli-elsa/

Wearing a shoe on your head had never been done before, and it was looked upon as being obscure and extremely weird. Maybe it still is quite weird, however, I believe that this design created a new trend within fashion that has turned into something huge. Designers today are able to be a lot more flexible within their designs. Take Philip Treacy for example. His designs are so crazy and innovative that they are amazing. One of his most contradictory and famous designs would be the hat that he made for princess Beatrice to wear at the Royal Wedding. Google the designer and you'll come across his extended, futuristic collection. Treacy has even made reference to Dali himself, creating a lobster hat in which Lady Gaga has previously been seen out wearing to a red carpet event.

One of Dali's most popular pieces of art in the 1930s was the Lobster Telephone. The object, again, combines the unlikely combination of a telephone and a lobster. This is said to have sexual connotations and desires, however, it was quite unusual within the '30s.






The lobster was reinvented in the form of a dress. The floor-length evening dress is made from white silk. Schiaparelli wanted Dali to hand paint a lobster on to the skirt. And so he did. The lobster is positioned in the centre of the skirt coming from the crotch and reaching downwards towards the hem. Again this may symbolise a surrealistic vision of secret desires, however the dress became extremely famous.

Today, motifs are widely used within fashion design. Especially animalistic ones. For instance, Dolce and Gabbana have embedded owls into their A/W '14 fairy tale inspired collection and Kenzo's famous tiger motif repeatedly appears on the brand's garments.





The biggest trend of this season tributes to Dali's artistry. Moschino's Jeremy Scott brought food to fashion. The McDonald's edited logo has been constantly blogged since the a/w '14 show in February. Scott turned the famous yellow 'M' into a curved, Moschino-ised letter.

 Anya Hindmarch has additionally used the same sort of approach within her recent designs. She has embedded the tiger from Frosties cereal on to one of her blue handbags as well as the cockerel from the Cornflakes' advertisements.

King of fashion Karl Lagerfeld has also paid tribute to Dali. He merged food with clothes at his a/w '14 show for Chanel was set in a fictional supermarket selling Chanel labelled food products. Combining the food industry with fashion is an unusual pairing which, again, is what Dali used to do.

 

Did I mention the Dali designed the Chupa Chups lollipop logo? The idea has the combination of flowers and food which was an unlikely concept in the 1960s, however, it worked because it was different, and other than the bright colours featured on the sweet wrapper, the flower attracted many purchasers and made the product sell.

 

This is similar to the food/fashion trend this autumn/winter. The idea is quite contradictory as food and fashion do not go well together for a few reasons: one being that the media spotlights thin models in being 'too skinny' and 'possessing eating disorders' (which I disagree with as I'm sure they are healthy and lucky for them, have high metabolisms) and that to make clothes look good, you shouldn't eat fatty foods such as McDonalds (again, I don't agree with this although I'm not McDonald's biggest fan). But maybe fashion is changing?

 

To conclude, Salvador Dali has had an enormous influence on the fashion industry, and in many cases, all creative industries. He gave artists and designers the flexibility to create whatever their subconscious tells them to. The weirder, the better, as more people continuously question why it has been done until it has found a place in society and it's looked upon as being normal.

 

Dali by Gilles Neret (Taschen) was the book that I have been reading and it taught me about Salvador Dali's work.

LFW S/S15

I've wrote about some of my favourite collections from London Fashion Week. Like my NYFW post, I am quite late when publishing this, however it doesn't matter because it's not S/S15 until next year!

Georgia O'Keeffe's own personal style (of clothing not painting) was the main concept behind Eudon Choi's S/S15 collection which was shown on the first day of London Fashion Week. When comparing a photograph of the artist to the clothes on the catwalk, you will recognise that any of these garments could have come from a modern O'Keefe's wardrobe. I am quite interested as to why Choi had chosen her as his main inspiration as opposed to a well known style icon. Maybe he looks up to her as an artist, or maybe he wants to show her as an individual behind all of her paintings or maybe he feels as though her style would fit in comfortably within the trends of today. It's possible that all of these reasons are correct, however one thing I do know is that Eudon Choi approached this season with pure originality and he did certainly encapsulate both the masculine dressing of O'Keefe and the femininity that she portrayed within her art. The show started off with some men's inspired, black tailoring in the form of loosely fitted blazers and skirts. Almost immediately after, these garments were followed by two slouchy dresses made out of smooth, shiny fabric, one of which was a pastel pink and the other a baby blue. Black tailoring quickly followed. Throughout the entire show, the changes of structure and colour tones within the garments purposefully continued to signify the two characteristics that were part of O'Keefe's aesthetic. The lighter garments developed into white and pink floral prints whereas the darker apparel grew looser and baggier in a comfortably stylish kind of way. The assortments occasionally crossed paths, for instance, a densely collared, black jacket featured a soft-hued patch on its right breast, whereas flimsy, asymmetrically hemmed dresses combined both the colour black and a white, repetitive flower print.
All in all, the designer is still keeping to his origins of menswear tailoring whilst developing his own approach to the 'girlier' side of womenswear. This very strong collection explored talents in both of these areas.

Oversized, leather floppy hats took social media sites Twitter and Instagram by storm this season. The culprit responsible for this trend was JW Anderson. The hats establish the definite key themes running through the designer's assemblage as they incorporate both oversizing and leather. Oversized, curved lapels that were bounded with black leather could be seen on a shortened, trench coat. Enlarged metallic buttons and jigsaw piece chokers sparsely populated the collection, whilst leather appeared in the form of crinkled, elbow-length gloves and as full garments. Leather corsetry was additionally layered over the top of knitted, just-above-the-knee dresses. The designer himself described the collection as 'suspended architecture'. The structural features of many garments fit this description perfectly. For example, a piece of material had been designed to hang over the shoulder as opposed to be fitted and abstract shapes hung down the front of many attire.
For me, this is one of my favourite collections of the S/S15 fashion shows so far. I do have an admiration of floppy hats and leather, however there was something more to the collection which set it apart from the usual.

Richard Nicoll captured the attention of many by sending a 'tinkerbell' dress down his runway. If you don't know which dress I'm on about then you definitely have some fashion week catching up to do. Futuristic, fibre optic threads appeared on many slinky, seductive, slip dresses giving the show a magical ambience. The dresses, especially the acclaimed finale piece, could be described as having a characteristic of an enchanted jellyfish. The collection may seem too surreal to be practical, however, the garments could definitely be worn as eveningwear and in most cases, daywear. Satins and sheer fabrics had been crafted into delicate, lightweight dresses that were held up with spaghetti straps. The collection included metallics (anything metallic I will wear) and edgy, chunky knitwear combinations whilst also experimenting with ginghams in new ways of blazers and overalls with low-waisted cut outs. Subtle coloured chiffons and organzas created sculptured halter neck dresses and had a subtle paisley print vibe on the go. The compilation has been expressed as easy going with a new direction. Although a lot of different textures and materials have made up the collection, I still feel as though it can be summarised as having a gentle and graceful approach to the future of fashion. 

Every season I look forward to seeing what designer Mary Katrantzou has to offer. With good reasoning too. Her dresses aren't simply just dresses, they are pieces of art. The amount of effort and detail Katrontzou puts into her designs is extremely admirable. 
Katrantzou has recently steered away from her usual colourful printing techniques and is now experimenting with embroidery and appliqué. Her garment close ups from a/w14 stresses just how much detail can be woven into one small piece of fabric with so much colour and layering. Her brand is certainly taking a new direction, and I absolutely love the new Mary Katrantzou.
Geography is her key theme for S/S15. Yep, geography is now cool. Pangaea, the supercontinent that formed over 300 million years ago featured in this collection. Why? Maybe because Mary Katrantzou has established her brand over these past five years so well that she  is now so globally famous that it would be rude not to make a statement out of this achievement.
Her collection started off in neutral tones and slowly developed into densely packed, multi-coloured embroidery. Sheer fabrics were used to separate 'Pangaea' and additionally, prehistoric creatures are embedded into her beautiful textile artworks. In terms of garments, short skirts with a split at the thigh, trousers with sheens, elongated, tulle skirts, and long sleeved shift dresses dominated the catwalk. A fan of colour or not, everyone is in love with this collection.

This is quite a long blog post, but I'm going to stop here or else I'll be writing a short novel. Thanks for reading! xx

NYFW S/S15

I have decided to break down New York Fashion Week (Spring/Summer 2015) into short summaries of my favourite collections. Although I am quite late in posting this, I thought NYFW has been amazing, possibly better than ever.

Firstly I will start with Jason Wu. He is the guy known for dressing Michelle Obama at the very young age of 26 (correct me if that's wrong) and since then he has had extreme amounts of attention. This is no surprise because his designs are impeccably beautiful in a very subtle way. 

The tones in which he has used for S/S15 start off in earthy shades, however, as the collection progresses, Wu encounters denser colours of navy and he has draped sassy, sparkling fabric into luxurious evening gowns. The two floor length gowns shown at the end are my particular favourites. The designer has also experimented with textured, translucent fabric using the monochrome colours of black and white. The fabric is quite an interesting feature and I am counting it to be one of the key trends next Summer. 

The garments that I would most likely have in my wardrobe (if I could afford them) came from Prabal Gurung, the designer from Nepal. His colour palette included white (at the start) and greyish-blues (at the end). The garments shown in the second half of the show were exquisite. Immense amount of detail was embedded through prints and textures. The designer played around with frills making them appear like never before - I hate the thought of frills however I would definitely wear these dresses! I have posted photos from this show on my Instagram feed (@beccanaughton1). 

Alexander Wang is set to release his clothing line for H&M this Autumn (which will no doubt sell out within hours). His S/S15 collection has surely shown no disappointment. I would 100% wear most of the garments sent down the catwalk and usually I am not that into the sporty aesthetic that Wang is famous for most. He encorporated sharp tailoring in the form of blazers and amazing trousers into his clothes, as well as including the well known sportswear inspiration. He has captured both workwear and sportswear in one outfit. 

Many eager Victoria Beckham fans tuned in to the live streaming of her S/S15 show on the Sunday of NYFW. I waited patiently for her show to begin to find out that I'd actually missed it (Well done me!).

However, I did immediately scoured through the internet, finding photographs from the show! She's not only soon to open her first store at London's Dover Street in Mayfair, but within this collection she has displayed her first shoe line which includes pointy cowboy shoes (some featuring pink appliqué flowers) and platforms. Clothes-wise, Beckham chose her iconic midi dresses and military inspired coats mostly in subtle colours apart from the bright, pink, flowery jacket. 

Victoria revealed that her collection was designed to establish her brand, making references to past collections and her staple pieces.

Diane Von Furstenberg displayed clothes that can only be named as 'The Perfect Summer Wardrobe'. For anybody, may I add. It included enlarged gingham prints and flirty, fun frocks. She started with monochrome colours, in which garments with a beautiful print of a tree appeared. She swiftly moved onto girly pinks and oranges, which resulted in Naomi Campbell closing the show in a lovely, 'cute' dress featuring double-layered frills at the hem. AFterwards, DVF appeared all smiley and happy to greet her friends wearing a green, printed shirt dress from the collection (every single shirt dress was pure luxury and I envy anybody who gets to wear one). I am not very girly, however I would happily wear every one of these garments! 

Marc By Marc Jacobs (Luella Bartley and Katie Hillier's second fashion week) displayed a collection of latex leggings and cropped, bright, binded jackets with bold prints. It's said to be inspired by house music and they additionally opened the show with the song 'My House'. Luella and Katie are certainly establishing their vision for the brand from an early point in their reign, and seem to have nailed a street-style based theme already. 

Thank you for reading all that, a London Fashion Week post will be on it's way soon! 

I haven't posted photographs due to copyright circumstances. 

Piet Mondrian

I visited the Tate art gallery in Liverpool last week to view the currently ongoing exhibition 'Mondrian and his studies'.

The exhibition is focused on the artist Piet Mondrian's life which takes you on a journey through the different stages and movements he made. From Holland he moved to France and changed his last name Mondriaan to the more Parisian-sounding 'Mondrian' (the deduction of the 'a' made a lot of difference) and studied there for many years. (The artist did move back to Holland for WW1, but returned to Paris when the war was over.)

Following Paris the artist moved to London however he only stayed in this location for a short period of time before leaving for New York two years later. He died in Manhattan in 1944 aged 71. 

The artist not only made changes to his location in life, but he constantly messed around with the arrangements of composition in his famous primary coloured block paintings. He seemingly did not feel comfortable staying in one place for too long whether that would be through painting or the way he lived.  

Above is a model of what one of Piet Mondrian's study looked like. 

Below is a picture of a Mondrian inspired shift dress designed by Yves Saint Laurent in 1965. The dress is part of the Mondrian collection and is made of silk crepe. 

'Mondrian and his Studies' is on until the 5th October 2014 at Liverpool's Tate Art Gallery. 

Today I'm wearing..

Double denim! Topshop crop, black jeans and jewellery all my own. The top's probably too short (sorry) but oh well it's Summer. 

I'm wearing a necklace that my boyfriend bought for me and I don't usually wear it but I'm growing to like finer jewellery and I think it looks really nice with this top as it doesn't make my outfit look overly done.

I've opened an online shop!

I've been wanting to open an online shop for a while now to sell things that I design and make. I thought that with it being the Summer holidays now is the perfect time. 

My shop is found on Etsy (think Ebay with a creative edge and handmade goods) and is named PAISLEYELEPHANTSTALL (take a look now if you want, the link is found below). I wanted my stall to have a theme quite different to my own personal style of design and art (which is pretty dark) so therefore after being inspired by one of my favourite musicians, Jimi hendrix, and the bohemian side of Kate Moss' style, the shop is focused on colour, patterns and detail (lots of beads, fringing and sequins!). 

To start off, I have made six unique bracelets created with satin ribbon and embellishments such as beads, sequins and embroidery which surround the main feature of a patterned button found in the centre. I've decided to create small items and accessories such as these bracelets as a starting point to the shop and as I progress with designs and direction I will eventually move on to clothing (the most exciting part!).

I have no intentions of making a profit through the shop so I will try and price my items at a low cost. The reason behind setting it up was to give myself more experience as a seller selling online and as a designer designing in a different kind of style to what I am used to. (Although I would be made up if the shop sold one item at least!)

These bracelets are all priced at £3. If you're interested visit the shop: 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/PAISLEYELEPHANTSTALL

Follow the Instagram account too: PAISLEYELEPHANTSTALL 

Fashion blogger post featuring quite tight shorts

I thought I'd start blogging my outfits as it's something I've wanted to do for a while to play with my own personal style and I've been inspired by other fashion bloggers. 

Today's outfit consists of a fancy shirt from Resurrection (a vintage inspired boutique on Liverpool's Bold Street), shorts from Forever 21 (quite a risk seeing how tight they are), one vintage ring, one ring from Amsterdam, a Gustav Klimt inspired phone case from Giant Sparrows (Klimt is one of my favourite artists), a pair of brogues from ASOS and an Art Nouvea inspired necklace.