Classics in Contemporary Culture

Dress Modern / Dress Ancient

Just noticed a few interesting pages at the Metropolitan Museum website on the phenomenon of modern fashion adapting styles of dress from Ancient Greece:

• Classicism in Modern Dress
• Classical Art in Modern Dress
• The Chiton, Himation and Peplos in Modern Dress
• Contemporary Deconstructions of Ancient Dress

Fashionistae, take note!

Goddesses on the Red Carpet

A writer at the Colorado State Collegian thinks fashion this year  is tending toward the Greek goddess type (but watch out for those "high-wasted pencil skirts" [sic]):

It's often said that much of our style comes from The Golden Globes and The Academy Awards. If this is any prediction for 2005, we're likely to see tons of cocktail dresses and eveningwear in shades of mocha and silver. The goddess look was also very in this year, and actresses such as Uma Thurman and Emmy Rosum donned very loose, flowing, Athena-like attire at this year's gala.

Here's Emmy Rossum; I can't find one of Uma on a quick look through the Golden Globe website...maybe she's sporting the aegis.  [UPDATE:  Thanks to DM of RogueClassicism, here's Uma; and, for good measure, here's Athena...You be the judge...]

Goddesses in the News...

First, there's an underwater humanoid robot named Artemis, put together by Texas' Mainland Robotics Team...

Then, Jo Hilton, owner of Wig Wham, is up for a Hera Award (the Everywoman categories [UK] also include Artemis, Demeter, and Athena Awards)...

And...sequins are in! As Marylou Luther (Cleveland Plain Dealer) describes the trend:

They're already sending off sparks in Roland Nivelais' new collection. The French-born New York designer has celebrated these glittering spangles (in his native France, they're called paillettes) in the truly breathtaking design illustrated here. Each sequin is hand-embroidered in overlapping rows that ombre from black to pink to give the effect of fish scales.

To complete the mermaid effect, Nivelais creates a skirt of vertical ruffles made of hand-painted, satin-faced organza. Think goddess Aphrodite stepping out of the ocean on the island of Cypress, and you have some idea of this goddess gown.

Er...Cyprus...

[In other editing news (uh-oh, catty comment coming up!), Marvin Olasky refers to a "Milton of Croton" in a piece on the Olympics...Milton, thou shouldst have been living at that hour! For Milo(n), see this or any number of reference works...]

My Kingdom for the Instructions to the Wooden Horse!

Robert McNeil (The Scotsman) goes crazy with the new Troy movie:

Indeed, the flatpack beastie almost cost the Greeks the war, after a suggestion by Achilles that it would be better to affix dowel A to bracket C, by-passing the screwing of slat C to ear D altogether.

When Agamemnon said that was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard, particularly as it could lead to shelf E coming away from hoof F and possibly even foreleg G, Achilles said, "Well, do it yourself, Aggie, if you’re so clever", and went off to sulk in his tent. Ulysses was asked to lend a hand but, after looking at the photocopied sheet of instructions, declared it was all Greek to him.

Matters worsened when Agamemnon deciphered the dreaded words, "not provided". They’d brought 80,000 spears, 120,000 swords, and 100,000 daggers. But no-one had thought to bring an Allen key.

...and then he makes wacky comments about ancient Greek names...and beard-styles...

Armani Marches on Rome

A retrospective exhibit of Giorgio Armani's fashion has its next stop in Rome:

For the first time, the city is opening one of its ancient venues, the recently restored Baths of Diocletian, to a fashion exhibit. The show is the Armani Retrospective collection, which leads the viewer through rooms with marble columns and remnants of pagan temples on a path of discovery of Armani style.

After quoting the designer's close friend Robert Wilson to the effect that "Avant-garde is often about discovering the past," it's back to Giorgio for a preview (and promise?):

The silver-haired, blue-eyed Armani -- who turns 70 in July -- took reporters on a preview tour of the exhibit Wednesday and hinted that the beauties of ancient Rome could provide inspiration for a future collection.

Grecian Gowns

That ol' Grecian formula is still a winner, says an article on hot styles for wedding attire this Spring...No word on whether the chiton is the new tux, however.

Fashionable Ancients

The recent fashion offerings of Dior especially featured ancient Egypt (my license to post on this is the Cleopatra reference). This article (Financial Times) reports on the show:

[T]he first dress...a floor-length gold sheath with beaded neckpiece and voluminous sleeves that looked like so many helium-filled balloons, was a sarcophagus come to life.

...(Dior has held back-to-back client appointments since the show; people, albeit a very privileged few, are buying these clothes.)

...The Dior show - evening gown after gown on a theme of the ancients, as if Cleopatra had come to life and ingested an entire volume of costume history - earned designer John Galliano the second standing ovation of his career at the house. The creativity was electric; the presentation, visually indulgent - from the frothy Sun skirt, made up of blocks of coloured chiffon graduating from orange to gold, to the models literally trembling under the sheer weight of it all as they paused to arch themselves backwards like cats at strategic points on the catwalk.

You can find pictures at the Telegraph's account, which also notes the presence of Christina Aguilera, who was "sporting black, fringed Cleopatra-style hair and sphinx-like eye make-up."