This is the first in what I hope will become a series of little essays (essayettes?) on the confluence of fashion and art history - two worlds I enjoy not just inhabiting, but cross pollinating when I can.
Some of you know that before I opened up a vintage clothing business, I was writing about, curating, cataloging, or researching (very old) art for a living. I miss it so am incorporating it back through the context of RareJule Vintage and it feels exciting!
At the Minneapolis Institute of Art In 2017, in front of Durer's Triumphal Arch of Maximilian the First (from 1515), and composed of 196 engraved panels,
My idea is not to be globalist or universalist, but quite the opposite. My choices for the artwork are idiosyncratic and chosen solely on the basis of me loving them and having something to say about them.
Let's dive in with a print from seventeenth century France!
The Funeral Procession of Fashion is a satirical etching from 1634, housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France and believed to have been done by a North European printmaker perhaps working in France. The anonymity of the artist is quite common for satirical prints of this era. Such works were often widely distributed as broadsides and pamphlets, and identifying the artist wasn't always a priority, or sometimes, anonymity was preferred to avoid potential repercussions for the social critique.
The etching depicts an (allegorical) funeral procession for "Fashion" ("Mode"), a theme that was popular in satirical prints of the time partly as a response to the sumptuary laws decreed by Louis XIII that attempted to bar "excessive luxury" in dress.
We see "Fashion" depicted as a corpse (center bottom), carried to her grave by a series of mourners and attendants. The ladies hold up various costume details and accessories on tall, thin poles: wigs, ribbons, hairdressings, a mask; items with which they have overindulged and all of which are now going down into the grave with the deceased form representing fashion. The combination of ceremonial music and theatrical mourning gestures amplifies the print's commentary on what the anonymous artist saw as the absurd gravity being given to restrictions on clothing and luxury goods.
These types of fashion restrictions go back to the sixteenth century but the printmaker here was likely reacting to the decree of November of 1633 when the monarchy issued an edict on the "Superfluity of Dress". It prohibited anyone but princes and the nobility from wearing gold embroidery or caps, shirts, collars, and cuffs embroidered with metallic threads or lace. It also severely restricted puffs, slashes, and bunches of ribbon - especially those imported from Italy or Spain.
Portrait of Marguerite de Lorraine, Madame, duchesse d'Orléans by Anthony Van Dyck, c. 1634. Private collection.
Note the then very fashionable "virago" sleeve - a mutton chop style that was gathered at the center by ribbon. The copious amounts of lace for the collar as well as the silver embroidery were also "technically" prohibited to anyone outside of noble rank, but the law was repeatedly flouted.
. The reasons for the sumptuary laws are interesting and varied, from maintaining social hierarchies to moral concerns, but a more practical reason was the need to stop a massive outflow of gold and silver from France, and protecting domestic industry, as the country's own exports were insufficient to balance the trade. Sound familiar?
But the desire for luxury goods proved stronger than legal prohibitions, and the laws often became more about reinforcing social hierarchies than actually improving trade balance. (Sumtuary Law in Ancien Regime France, 1229-1806)
Notice the group of men at the right, along the length of the print. They are the outraged artisans and merchants whose livelihood is now at risk - an unintended but very real consequence of the restrictions. The decline in demand for luxury goods led to unemployment among skilled workers who specialized in producing them.
And, of course, French fashion in the decades after 1633 became even more elaborate, not simpler. There was a renaissance of ostentatious dressing style in the whole of Europe including Britain, once the Sun King was crowned.
Our satirical print was likely inspired by actual funeral representations from the time like "The Funeral Procession of Count Ernst Casimir..." from 1633. Before the days of newspapers it was broadsides like this that captured and disseminated details of events such as this large public procession in honor of the Dutch aristocrat and military leader.
Housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this humongous print consists of twenty double-page plates and three double pages of letterpress text.
Here is one small detail from it: note the heavy woolen cloaks, the wide brimmed hats, and the elaborate ruff collars (very Dutch as the French by this time have discarded them).
And for $176 the book Undressing Rubens: Fashion and Painting in Seventeenth-century Antwerp should give incredible insight and visual splendour of how all this played out in the distinctively non-monarchical Republic where painters, scholars, merchants, and professionals played a much larger role in setting the cultural tone (I'm ordering it for my local library!)
For contrast, (and because I love it), let's wrap this up with what was the most acclaimed French work of art from around the same year as our little etching of the "death" of fashion, Nicolas Poussin 's Abduction of the Sabine Women, an oil on canvas.
It sets the foundational tone for France to dominate painting in the next two centuries, and meticulously tries to capture "historical" costume of ancient Rome thanks to Poussin's study of antiquities in Italy.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
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