Fabric may be the stuff of fashion, but this basic rule for most people working in the industry, doesn't certainly apply to Isabelle de Borchgrave. The Belgian artist and superb artisan is indeed famous for her amazing replicas of historical costumes and couture designs made with paper.
Born in Belgium, Isabelle Jacobs (by marriage Countess de Borchgrave d'Altena) has a background in painting, and worked in advertising and interior and fashion design.
A visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in the mid-'90s changed the course of her life: inspired by Yves Saint Laurent from them on she focused on creating a personal history of fashion. After studying historical costumes, she started reproducing life-size dresses manipulating paper, often working in collaboration with leading costume historians and young fashion designers. All her creations start with sheets of paper one meter by one and a half that she folds, paints, ruffles and crumples with the help of her team, reproducing a wide range of designs.
Throughout the years she created Elizabethan gowns, ceremonial dresses inspired by the Medici costumes and striking replicas of gowns taken from Renaissance paintings (such as the one donned by Eleonora of Toledo, wife of Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo I de' Medici, in her portrait by Bronzino). She also came up with paper versions of Mariano Fortuny's (a constant inspiration for the Belgian artist) pleated dresses, and Ballets Russes costumes.
In 2004, de Borchgrave employed paper for a unique dress for Queen Fabiola of Belgium, which the queen wore to the wedding of Prince Felipe of Spain in Madrid.
The peculiar designs created by de Borchgrave were often displayed in exhibitions all over the world and the artist is going to be honoured at SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion and Film in Atlanta (1600 Peachtree St. scadfash.org) with an event opening today (through 12th January 2020).
"Fashioning Art from Paper" is a visual and tactile adventure through 500 years of fashion: de Borchgrave journey starts from the Renaissance, passes through Charles Frederick Worth, Paul Poiret and Lanvin, and explores Chanel and Dior's most iconic creations. Yet the most intriguing thing about this event is not the historical path de Borchgrave follows, but the techniques she uses to painstakingly recreate the effects of luxurious textiles.
This delicate material at times becomes in her hands firm and solid or assumes a light and translucent consistency. The artist manages to transform it into lace, decorates paper collars with tiny beads and pearls and recreates embroideries or brocaded textiles with trompe l'oeil effects (the amount of details in the costumes is absolutely astonishing). Her renderings of light and see-through fabrics is particularly mesmerising and reveals superb skills.
"Isabelle de Borchgrave: Fashioning Art from Paper" at SCAD FASH is a window opening onto a world of meticulously crafted delicate beauty, where history, fashion and paintings meet. Last but not least, the event represents also a challenge for fashion design students who, intrigued by de Borchgrave's use of paper, may decide to employ this humble and sustainable material in their most experimental creations or even in their graduate collections.
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