From UCI, the Getty & LACMA
The fascination with how fine we all look all the time -- uh, huh, we are good looking, aren't we -- can so dominate life in Southern California that it might seem like gilding the lily to devote any more attention to fashion, its appointments and details. Fugghedaboutit. This is, after all, Hollywood, where, as the folks in Irvine note in a new exhibit, style and dress rule. It's amply illustrated with costumes from the drama department collections (such as a lavishly ruffled gown worn by Joan Crawford in the 1932 fashion-shaping film 'Letty Lynton) as well as books, magazines, photos, videos, posters and other materials that show how Hollywood from the 1930s foward became nothing less than a giant cultural force. The show in the school 's Langson Library launches tonight and runs until April 2011. And for those who wish to grasp better how details like drapery can make and break not only the wearer but, indeed, a sweeping artistic scene, well the terrific blog from the folks at the monument up on that Westside hill offer a diverting post. Fashion and the fashionable of Europe, of course, are just part of what's on display in what the cognoscenti are calling a fabulous new art space in Mid-City; might be a good reason to go and catch up on the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Pavilion.
In Irvine, fall exhibit focuses on film, fashion
An artistic explanation of why drapery matters
Catch up on new art space, details of hundreds of years of European finery
