Carnival season culminates with "Mardi Gras" (Fat Tuesday - today). In a way Carnival is a great excuse for fashion since it offers the opportunity to get dressed in fancy costumes or wear just a mask (a Gucci one from its A/W 2019 collection, if you're an impenitent fashionista...).
While trends often dictate which are the most fashionable attires of the Carnival season (think about costumes inspired by a film, superhero, book character or even a politician...), there are costumes that never go out of fashion as they are linked with traditions.
The characters from the Commedia dell'Arte such as prankster servant Arlecchino (Harlequin), presumptuous Balanzone, clever servant Brighella, malicious Colombina (Columbine), greedy Venetian merchant Pantalone (Pantaloon), romantic Pedrolino (later known as Pierrot) and Neapolitan melancholic servant Pulcinella (Punch), never go out of fashion for example, and often even return on runways inspiring with their costumes fashion designers.
Yet is it possible to reinvent their well-defined costumes? After all for centuries Harlequin's has traditionally consisted of a jacket and trousers, made with irregularly-shaped coloured material. Some ideas may actually come from fashion and ballet. Around 10 years ago, Isabel & Ruben Toledo designed indeed costumes for the ballet "Commedia" by Christopher Wheeldon's company Morphoses.
Homaging the Ballets Russes, Wheeldon's "Commedia" was set to Stravinsky's "Pulcinella" suite (composed for Diaghilev's corps de ballet in 1920 and based on variations on Giovanni Pergolesi's compositions). The piece was inspired by members of a fictional Commedia dell'arte troupe, and it was a homage to this form of improvisational theatre. So just like the Commedia featured basic patterns and core tropes, the ballet was a compilation of variations and attempted to present a sort of syllabus of all allegro steps in the ballet lexicon.
Fashion-wise the costumes didn't look like the conventional Commedia dell'Arte ones: dancers wore white body suits with a few black rhombuses strategically placed around the torso, hips or knees, and rainbow-coloured blouses and capes in a fluid fabric or in tulle, at times matched with ruffled collars.
In a way it was as if Toledo had deconstructed Harlequin's costume, breaking it up in all its different elements - colours and geometrical shapes - to recombine it in a modern version. All the dancers came out wearing the full costumes at the beginning of the ballets, but they removed the colourful capes during the ballet to dance in their more functional bodysuits.
Too late to join the Carnival celebrations, but you like fashion and the Toledos' work? Well, you can still catch Ruben and Isabel Toledo's new works in "Labor of Love" (until 7th July 2019) at Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA).
The artist and fashion designer examined the DIA's collection and selected a series of pieces that then inspired new sculptures, paintings and drawings.
The exhibition consists in a juxtaposition of the artworks from the museum archive with the new designs and installations. Ballet lovers should rejoice as one of the installations in the musuem spaces is entitled "Synthetic Cloud" and features 11 pale blue tutus suspended from the ceiling. They are better admired if you lie down on the floor of the gallery where they are installed and look up: they will then appear to you like a fluffy cloud, revealing vividly coloured underskirts. Something for Mardi Gras, and beyond.
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