joseph scissorhands: Simplicities: Musée Mode & Dentelle, Bruxelles

“For me, restrictions are not always negative. Restrictions can push creativity. I like restrictions.” - Dries Van Noten.

Brussel's Fashion and Lace museum was one venue I was determined to visit. I wanted to catch their Simplicities exhibition, documenting a period of social change and liberation of the female body from restrictive corsetry from the age of Enlightenment up to the present day. It also examines womenswear's adoption of masculine stylings from elements of menswear. I also wanted to see their holdings of the famous exquisitely crafted Belgian lace. The museum occupies a very slender building a short distance from the Grand Place. The curators have made the very most of the limited space afforded with a dynamic display and some superb examples of historic and contemporary fashion by iconic names in the industry such as Dries van Noten, Issey Miyake, and Ann Demeulemeester. This Simplicities exhibition consists of six thematic chapters that reflect the different ways in which simplicity was expressed in mostly female clothing as a mirror of cultural and social change. Contrasting pieces from different periods are brought together to highlight the continuities, comebacks, and similarities of fashion aesthetics across the centuries. At the end of the 18th century Enlightenment thinking and a concern with medicine and hygiene led to profound changes in outward appearance in Western fashion. This ‘return to nature’ meant a rejection of artifice, new cuts of clothing, breathable fabrics and an aesthetic vocabulary inspired by Antiquity. This fashion ideal came to reflect a new lifestyle that blended comfort, liberation of the body, and closeness to nature. The first section deals with the liberation of the female body from dress constraints where a radically simple gown known as a Chemise à la Reine from the 1780s is displayed in a dialogue with a design by Martin Margiela from more than two centuries later. Having freed the body from the restraints of the corset, the next chapter examines the enduring influence of deceptively simple neo-classical styles as exemplified in the Empire line dress. There are both rare and beautiful examples on display by the likes of Mariano Fortuny, Madeleine Vionnet, Madame Grès, and Issey Miyake, among others who have adapted the classical ideals of the Empire to reflect their own particular aesthetic. The next chapter looks at how Nature is reflected in fashion design as surface textile design or the cut of a garment to reflect the natural landscape, florals or cultivated gardens. Examples from the 18th century are presented alongside contemporary nature-inspired pieces by Dries van Noten and Jacquemus. Menswear is catered to in Simplicities with a look at the embodiment in forms designed for practicality, mobility, and everyday wear. So masculine silhouettes, tailcoats, frock coats, and English-style dresses found their way into wardrobes. The practicality of these garments preceded and would eventually become what is known as sportswear. The next chapter looks more fully at this adaptation of menswear and its influence on women's tailoring. Tailored suits reveal how borrowing from menswear became a tool for emancipation. Later, it became a vital element and necessity in work-related aspirations, as women worked the land and in factories during the world wars before it culminated in the power dressing of the 1980s and 1990s with very narrow waists and broad shoulders filled out with exaggerated shoulder pads. The exhibition’s final chapter offers an interpretation of the 1990s as a moment when the simplicity aesthetic was expressed through minimalist fashion designs. There were fantastic and rare examples of historic and contemporary fashion set over three floors which punched way above their weight for such a small museum. Fashion given the once over, it was time to see the examples of Belgian lace held in compact space back on the ground floor. Belgian lace represented the height of European luxury for four centuries. It was a textile so precious that aristocrats paid more for it by weight than gold. The courts of Spain, France, England, and the Habsburg Empire could not get enough of it, as it became a symbols of wealth, power, and exquisite taste. Lace was produced almost exclusively by women in damp cellars straining their eyes by candlelight for wages that barely sustained them. The region had a long, sophisticated history in textiles, the infrastructure of yarn merchants, skilled weavers. and established trade networks was already in place. The art of lace-making developed simultaneously in two regions in the early 16th century, The Low Countries (broadly what is now Belgium and the Netherlands), and northern Italy, particularly Venice and Milan. Charles V decreed that the craft should be taught in schools and convents across the Belgian provinces and this quickly evolved into something more commercially significant. Girls were trained in Lace schools from as young as five or six in the painstaking skills that the finest work demanded and the industry flourished. Two cities defined the art form with Brussels and Bruges emerging as the capitals of European lace-making by the 16th century. Each developed a distinctive style that represented different aspect of luxury. The finest flax from specific parts of Flanders created thread of extraordinary fineness, strength, and smoothness. This was done through the laborious process of retting (soaking the flax stalks to loosen the fibres), beating, combing, and spinning, the best Flemish linen thread was so fine that it was virtually invisible to the naked eye. Brussels lace, known as point de Bruxelles, was the more aristocratic. Worked in needle lace (using a single needle and thread rather than bobbins), it was celebrated for its extraordinary delicacy and its intricate floral patterns. It often featured a distinctive raised effect that gave the design an almost three-dimensional quality. A single square inch could take a skilled lacemaker weeks to complete. The section devoted to lace in the museum housed some amazing examples demonstrating lace's historic and modern applications in collars, cuffs bonnets and bunny ears. I marvelled at the intricacies involved with so many bobbins used in the most complex patterns and how many hours were put into the creation of these designs. In this space do open and pull out the draws which contain some of the most sumptuous lacework examples. The Fashion and Lace museum deserves a much bigger premises to properly showcase their marvellous holdings in fashion design and Belgian lace.

“Enjoy your life, fashion is not that important.” - Dries Van Noten.