In Through the Looking-Glass Lewis Carroll draws on the imagery of chess taking Alice on a journey in a countryside laid in squares, where she meets, among the other characters, a fast moving Red Queen, an absent-minded White Queen, and a clumsy White Knight.
At the very end of the story, thanks to the chess rule of Promotion, Alice the pawn turns into a queen, the most powerful and agile chess piece since it can move in any direction. The queen is currently the protagonist of an interesting exhibition at the World Chess Hall of Fame in St. Louis, Missouri.
“A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes, Fashion and Chess”, analyses the figure of the queen in the chess game through nine different sections that hint at the maximum number of queens a player can have on a chessboard and that are inspired by Carl Jung's archetypes, each of them referred to a different historical queen - The Sage (Christina of Sweden), Mother Figure (Queen Victoria), Enchantress (Marie Antoinette), Magician (Elizabeth I), Explorer (Isabella I of Castille), Ruler (Catherine II of Russia), Heroine (Wilhelmina of The Netherlands), Mother Earth (Maria Theresa of Austria), and Thespian (Lovisa Ulrika, Queen of Sweden).
In the exhibition the story of the archetypes and their powers is told through fashion, film and artworks, while the event catalogue adds another layer to the exploration of curators Sofia Hedman and Serge Martynov.
The book features indeed intriguing notes, essays and interviews that combine philosophy and fashion theory, pondering on the figure of the queen throughout history, in the game of chess and in fashion.
The volume opens with a series of different features, one of them written by chess champion Jennifer Shahade, plus dialogues between exhibition designer Judith Clark and curator Hedman and Andrea Kollnitz and Marco Pecorari.
The conversations analyse the main themes of the exhibition, shed light upon some of the curatorial choices and reflect the rhythm of the chess game.
A powerful figure in history, the queen is an unpredictable piece in the game of chess, and fashion is a terribly unpredictable industry, yet it's also the one and only force that allows us to take different roles in our lives, and therefore to radically transform ourselves.
Leaving behind more graphic and conventional checkered styles, the curators opted to include in the exhibition garments and accessories by over thirty established and young designers.
In the exhibition "The Sage Queen" section only features garments from selected fashion collections, while all the other themes and archetypes are explored through artworks, objects, garments, accessories and symbols that emphasise the queen's presence.
Alexander McQueen is widely mentioned in more than one chapter: one fashion critic remembers in an interview his "It's Only a Game" collection (S/S 2005), but the exhibition and the book feature plenty of his pieces from collections such as "In Memory of Elisabeth Howe, Salem 1692" (A/W 2007), "La Dame Bleu" (S/S 2008), "The Girl Who Lived in a Tree" (A/W 2008), "Plato's Atlantis" S/S 2010 and "Heaven and Hell", (A/W 2010), a collection characterised by art prints, some of them borrowed from grisailles.
Yet the queen changes as quickly as fashion tastes and styles: she is fast, imposing, direct, unpredictable, liberated and constantly redefining the rules in the patriarchal system. These themes are tackled via designs by Gianfranco Ferré, Jean Paul Gaultier, Maison Martin Margiela, Hussein Chalayan, Viktor & Rolf, Iris Van Herpen and Sandra Backlund.
Quirky pieces by young designers and labels such as Minju Kim, Serena Gili, Hideki Seo, Bea Szenfeld, Josefin Arnell, Writtenafterwards, Anrealage, Koji Arai and Rejina Pyo among the others, tackle the more experimental and performative aspects of chess and fashion.
Accessories such as Shaun Leane and Daphne Guinness' bespoke diamond glove, Iris Schieferstein's snake glasses, Charlie Le Mindu's headdresses, Octavia Xiaozi Yang's necklace, Maiko Takeda's "Cinematography" pieces and Jordan Askill's designs, verge between the beautiful and the disturbing.
This 360° look at a queen's style and role is completed by Surrealist pieces by groundbreaking artists like Orlando Campbell and Karolina Kling, that at times borrow from Ruben Toledo's iconic drawings of winged eyes, calling to mind also the bizarre amalgamations of body parts in Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel's magnificent nightmares.
Some sections of the book and of the exhibition seem to combine together fragmentary evidence and information, but this collage-like style is actually a reference to and a metaphor for a chess player's mind.
As a whole the catalogue is a wonderful summary of this event for all those of us who know they will miss it, but it's also a must-have (or a perfect Christmas present) for all those pawns waiting to become queens.
A Queen Within - Adorned Archetypes, Fashion & Chess is at The World Chess Hall of Fame, St Louis, Missouri, until 18th April 2014.
Image credits for this post
1. Catalogue cover.
2. A Queen Within, Viktor and Rolf, Courtesy Museum Boijman van Beuningen, Thespian Queen, Photo Sarah Carmody.
3. A Queen Within, Writtenafterwards, Josefin Arnell, Magician Queen, Photo Sarah Carmody.
4. A Queen Within, Iris Van Herpen, Serena Gili, Maison Martin Margiela, Alexander McQueen (Courtesy of Private Collection), Jean Paul Gaultier, Mother Figure Queen, Photo Sarah Carmody.
5. A Queen Within, Charlie Le Mindu, Maiko Takeda, Shaun Leane and Daphne Guinness, Maiko Takeda, Iris Schieferstein and Alexander McQueen, Photo Sarah Carmody.
6. A Queen Within, Shaun Leane and Daphne Guinness, Mother Figure Queen, Photo Sarah Carmody.
7. A Queen Within, Maiko Takeda, Mother Figure Queen, Photo Sarah Carmody.
8. A Queen Within, Minju Kim, Hideki Seo, Gianfranco Ferré, Mother Figure Queen, Photo Sarah Carmody.
9. A Queen Within, Alexander McQueen by Anne Deniau.
10. A Queen Within, Jordan Askill, Bea Szenfeld, Hussein Chalayan, Commissioned Head Dresses Charlie Le Mindu, Enchantress Queen, Photo Sarah Carmody.
11. A Queen Within, Hussein Chalayan, courtesy of Swarovski Enchantress Queen, Photo Sarah Carmody.
12. A Queen Within, Bea Szenfeld, Hideki Seo, Hideko Seo, Explorer Queen.
13. A Queen Within, Koji Arai, Maison Martin Margiela, Charlie Le Mindu, Alexander McQueen, Commissioned head dress Charlie Le Mindu, Mother Earth Queen, Photo Sarah Carmody.
14. A Queen Within, Maison Martin Margiela, Henrik Vibskov, Mother Earth Queen, Photo Serge Martynov.
15. A Queen Within, Maison Martin Margiela, Rejina Pyo, Keta Gutmane, Commissioned Head Dresses Charlie Le Mindu, Mother Earth Queen, Photo Sarah Carmody.
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