THE LEGEND OF CHARLES JAMES

Portrait of Charles James by Michael A. Vaccaro, 1952, Image Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The first time I became aware of Charles James and his work I imagined magic, some otherworldly entity whose manipulation of fabric transcended rational explanation. I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were more akin to sculptures than dresses, like monuments of worship, relics of study, silken evidence of a bygone golden age. Turns out I was on to something. Charles James’ massive contribution to fashion is evidenced by the current display of his works in an art museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, alongside modern works and ancient architecture. In the deep recesses of its darkened galleries, dotted with spot lit masterpieces, I saw a quote of his float by, ‘In fashion, even what seems most fragile must be built on cement.’ They are the words of a sculptor, whose practice showed appreciation for fashion’s ethereal qualities, beauty and elegance, but was rooted in its physicality and construction—impeccable seams, breathtaking volume, balance and structure. James’ calculated touch elevated his garments to works of art.

The perfectionism of his practice was honed and developed over a career spanning some fifty years, from his beginnings as a milliner in Chicago, to opening up his first dressmaking business in 1928, to the years spent in London and Paris where he began to establish himself as a significant designer and artist among contemporaries such as Christian Dior, Elsa Schiaparelli and Cristobal Balenciaga. Back in New York, his very own workroom and salon on Madison Avenue was open by 1945, and by the early 1950s he was at his peak of popularity and production. His dressmaking skills, which proved him to be simultaneously a designer, sculptor, engineer and architect, were, at their peak, most realized in the cleverly engineered ball gowns he created postwar. Voluminous dresses with names referencing the perfection of nature, the ‘Tree,’ ‘Clover Leaf,’ ‘Swan’ and ‘Butterfly’ were all examples of James’ tireless tinkering with sartorial ideas and executions.

During his lifetime the Anglo-American designer was well aware of the lasting significance of his work for legacy and teaching purposes, and as early as the 1940s encouraged some of his most loyal patrons to donate their Charles James garments to the Brooklyn Museum. It is with this collection of nearly 200 garments and 600 related materials, the bulk of which was transferred to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in 2009, along with an additional donation of items in 2013, that this unprecedented collection of one designer’s works is the subject of Charles James: Beyond Fashion. Co-curated by Harold Koda and Jan Glier Reeder, the exhibition is presented in three galleries: the new Anna Wintour Costume Center, Carl and Iris Barrel Apfel Gallery and special exhibition galleries on the museum's first floor.

First Floor Special Exhibition Gallery, "Charles James: Beyond Fashion," Image Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Past the white walls of the entrance, an expanse of black. Low, dark ceilings peppered with spotlights and floor to ceiling mirrored walls encase the main gallery full of fifteen candy colored ballgowns, some of James’ most well known and masterfully engineered works in silk faille, satin, velvet, cotton, wool and tulle. Included are works influenced by 19th century silhouettes, erotically infused pieces, demure experimentations in dressmaking, as well as an example dating from his early career in Europe. Dramatically illuminated and spread throughout the space on low, round pedestals, they give the viewer an intimate look at every dress in three dimensions. The nature of this display inherently encourages analysis, and as one circles a gown to examine folds, seams and shapes from front to back, robotic arms with light projectors do the same, directing the viewers eye to areas on the garment where separate projection screens further analyze and explain the construction of each dress layer by layer, unraveling skirts and deconstructing bodices into abstract shapes to show Charles James’ genius approach to cut and form. This novel display and teaching tool by exhibition designers Diller Scofidio + Renfro, an interdisciplinary architecture and design firm, is consistent throughout the exhibition.

Projection screens with rolling content designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) 

It’s impossible not to gaze into the looking glasses installed on either side of the main gallery and not see one’s reflection alongside an infinity landscape of Charles James dresses. There are dresses, dresses and more dresses but also one continuous line of quotes from the designer etched pale white into the glass and hovering in the darkness. Upon first glance into the mirrors the viewer sees James’ philosophies literally embedded into the clothes. ‘Brancusi has his medium; Picasso, Faulkner, Shostakovich, theirs,’ one quote says, ‘Mine happens to be cloth.’ James’ words are given importance and used as a design element throughout the exhibition, strewn across the designers’ sartorial gifts like ribbon, tying the show together in a lovely package. 

Charles James: Beyond Fashion contains too many gifts to name, but one of special note is the artist’s famous Clover Leaf dress, two examples of which occupy centralized positions in the main gallery. A one of a kind version of the design in pink silk faille, copper shantung and black silk lace was designed for Josephine Abercrombie, the only daughter of a Texas millionaire, while its black and white iteration was created for Mrs. William Randolph Hearst Jr. to wear to Eisenhower’s inaugural ball in 1953. That same year the dress also saw the coronation of Elizabeth II in London. Weighing in at ten pounds, but supposedly comfortably balanced on the hips when worn, the gown is breathtaking in its sculptural beauty.

“Clover Leaf” Evening Dress, 1953, White silk satin, white silk faille, black silk-rayon velvet

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Elizabeth Fairall, 1953

Though the glamorous formal gowns he created for the stylish elite are his most well known works, James’ signature lines and architectural forms are certainly evident in his daywear. Startlingly modern in his exploration of spirals and wraps, an early design from 1932 for the contemporary urban woman, the ‘Taxi Dress’ in a ribbed black wool knit was intended for the wearer to easily slip on and off while en route in a cab. In addition, his carefully considered touch in green-gray silk satin brought to life the ingenious ‘Figure-Eight Dinner Dress,’ (1939), with two sides of fabric attached to a waist piece spiraling around each leg. A swath of delicately draped evening and cocktail dresses from the 30s and 40s and folded suits and coats from the same period evoke both western and eastern artistic themes, classical sculpture and Japanese origami. An array of coats and dinner suits showing James’ virtuosity with form and cut were also on display.

"Anatomical Cut" Suits, Anna Wintour Costume Center, Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery. 

The suit in Green wool twill was donated by Lee Krasner Pollock in 1975.

After Charles James’ many plans and notes for his own autobiography went unpublished after his death in 1978, the designer has finally gotten his due, not only with the exhibition Charles James: Beyond Fashion, but with a book of the same name out this year by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and published by Yale University Press. In its prologue, penned by America’s sole couturier Ralph Rucci, Rucci puts into words the enchanting physicality that I first felt when viewing James’ work for the first time. Describing an ‘extraordinary realm […] where vision and proportion take precedence over artifice and trend,’ perhaps the magic in his works is that they look like clothes, but aren’t merely. They are as Rucci puts it, ‘three-dimensional sculptures that come alive once on a woman’s body, because James was ever mindful of the woman wearing the shape.’ And so it is that the woman once wearing the shape decades ago and gasping for air to fit into a Charles James’ dress was sharing a similar reaction to the lucky viewers of this exhibition, where every fold, curve, drape, reflection of light and recesses of shadow on his pieces incites gasps for breath.

Charles James Ball Gowns, 1948. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by Cecil Beaton

Beaton / Vogue / Condé Nast Archive. Copyright © Condé Nast 

Possibly more than any designer exhibition the Met has shown, the Charles James retrospective displays the garments as art; works just as sculptural, architectural, carefully considered and meticulously crafted as the Greek and Roman marbles in the nearby galleries. Add to that its innovative and didactic approach to display, which stands as a compelling example of fashion exhibitions in the 21st century. With its accompanying social media, lectures, workshops, tours and the amount of visual/audio resources and study material online, the perfecting designer himself would be quite impressed with the curators attention to the maintenance of his legacy. As he himself said, ‘Forget all you know & learn something every day.’ #CharlesJames