#elizabethhawes

[professorpski]

Elizabeth Hawes: Along Her Own Lines Until March 26, 2023

This show at the FIT Museum in NYC only runs a month which hardly seems long enough in light of its subject.

Elizabeth Hawes (1903-1971) was both a designer, who made couture clothing and then tried to work for a ready-to-wear garment company, and a writer. She found she could not make money with custom-made clothing because her own perfectionism made it too costly, and that garment manufacturers expected a frenetic creativity that was impossible to achieve. She wrote best-selling books about the fashion industry and about garment design, and then began to advocate for the rights of workers and improvements in their conditions.

This show look at all these different aspects of her life and works, and shows some of the garments she designed like this purple wool coat from 1950 with a contrasting lining.

For more info plus images, go here: https://www.fitnyc.edu/museum/exhibitions/elizabeth-hawes/index.php

#fit #fashioninstituteoftechnology #elizabethhawes #20thcenturyfashion #costumehistoryexhibition #fashionhistoryexhibition #dresshistoryexhibition #dresshistory #fashionhistory #1950sfashions #vintagefashion #costumehistory #museumatfit

[historicalgarments1]

1937 silk and wool dress with cape by American designer, Elizabeth Hawes. "The dramatic ensemble, entitled "Alimony" and "Misadventure" is an example of Elizabeth Hawes' affinity for showcasing interesting and beautiful fabrics. The bias-cut of the skirt fabric is not only dramatic for its colorful display, but the fabric pattern is artfully matched down the center front creating a radiating rainbow that would certainly command attention when the wearer entered a room. The full, circular skirt is a hallmark of Hawes' construction and the use of non-traditional and eye-catching fabrics are as well. The cape is a somber cadet gray, which tones down the overall effect, yet the back is accented with a large tassel coordinating with the colors of the textile - an unexpected and well thought out design detail." Metropolitan Museum of Art accession number Number:2009.300.868a, b . . . . #historicalgarments #1930s #elizabethhawes #couture #1930sstyle #rainbowdress #vintagefashion #fashionhistory #truevintageootd #1930sfashion #1940s #textiles #costumedesign https://www.instagram.com/p/B0o9Hw4hcrE/?igshid=ak4b5mcuq8ui

#historicalgarments #1930s #elizabethhawes #couture #1930sstyle #rainbowdress #vintagefashion #fashionhistory #truevintageootd #1930sfashion #1940s #textiles #costumedesign

[gotrilke]

"It is also a lesson in biography, probably the first lesson, which teaches you that your subject is only one piece in the enormously intricate web of other people's lives, and that you, as the student and scribe, have predilections, arbitrary instincts, incindental encounters, and personal experiences that alternately cloud and clarify your perspective."

-- Elizabeth Hawes, Camus: A Romance (13)

#ElizabethHawes #Camus #biography

[professorpski]

Since I blogged the Museum at FIT exhibition on Elizabeth Hawes, the American designer and writer, I thought I would feature one of her suits from the late 1930s which is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While we tend to think evening gowns when we think of custom-made clothing, women wore suits during the day time and needed them more than evening wear.

This one has a crescent of little buttons around its rounded jacket front, a testimony to the enormous variety in shape of women’s suits before the 1960s when they became rather plain and stark. This rounded front, which would have been time-consuming to button up, also tells us that women expected to keep their jackets on when in public whether at office work, shopping in the city or traveling.

#elizabethhawes #fashionhistory #dresshistory #costumehistory #metropolitanmuseumofart #1930sfashions #vintagefashion #20thcenturyfashion #womenssuits #vintage

[gotrilke]

"The process by which writers become real men or women in a reader's mind is subconscious and stealthy until that moment when something suddenly registers with a warm, almost audible buzz."

-- Elizabeth Hawes, Camus: A Romance (8)

#ElizabethHawes #Camus #writers #authors #reading

[gotrilke]

"Facts, with their cool and incontestable authority, have a way of sabotaging understanding, clouding perspective, and shattering the intimacy one has enjoyed with a subject."

-- Elizabeth Hawes, Camus: A Romance (7)

#ElizabethHawes #Camus #Facts #literaryfigures