High Style - Full Documentary Part 1 of 4

[Music] [Music] [Music] the exhibition is titled high style @c Bloomingdale and the orator and it will celebrate the auto couture the the highest level of custom-made clothing in the world all of these pieces for the auto couture came from Paris where they were custom made specifically for mrs. Alfred Bloomingdale we rendered spur Singh amongst the couture pieces some very high-end American ready-to-wear designers as well these were the American couture these are people that dressed at the and made garments at a very high level but both couture itself we want to explain what what is dressing in the Couture I had no idea that I was collecting anything that was so important I never thought it would be important but my husband had suggested this he said look you have all these beautiful clothes that you bought in Paris and nobody seems to understand couture and I think you should give your things to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising so indeed I did she had been giving pieces to the collection over a 30-year time period and it was this latest donation from 2006 that that gave me the idea to host an exhibition talking about the Horta couture explaining what it is to our students and researchers and using mrs. Bloomingdale as a case study because it's very unusual that a woman from Los Angeles would have such a very large collection of couture clothing that she wore over a 35 year time period the way the couture has changed and that it's really now driven for media versus for individual client wearing it's a different world now and the the people who had lived in this world it was an it was an everyday aspect of their life that is fading away and the are many of them are no longer with us so to be able to talk one-on-one with somebody is is fantastic and historically speaking very very important [Music] my earliest remembrance of my grandmother's fashion sense was when I was in second grade and she came I think the only time ever to what we had was Grandparents Day at school and I suddenly I remember a moment where I suddenly looked around and realized that my grandmother did not look like the other grandmother's at all and I was so proud you know of the way she looked at her style and you could tell that she was really set apart and I think it's great to hear the stories from her about the dresses and what they mean and where she wore them right it's wonderful yeah we can go see them everything we haven't seen some of them and so to go see them and be able to have her be celebrated and remembered you know and part through these dresses is so exciting I mean and as much as we'd love to have some of them where I mean where am I gonna put those the way we dress today is really quite different from the time that we had all the Couture things you know and if you were interested in clothes or interested in the world of fashion to have this wonderful school in Los Angeles I thought was terrific to see in the Couture which you don't see anymore the way everything is hand done and that's why it got to be so expensive because the beaters don't really beat anymore and the ladies don't do all the sewing they have the machines now so it's a different world the couture and I feel very lucky that I even knew any part of it when I was born in the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles and in those days no one ever seemed to be born in Los Angeles they all migrated here but my father was a doctor and he was offered a job teaching at USC and so he was delighted to leave Boston and come out to the lovely country and warm weather and I've lived here all of my life my mother always said that whenever they entertain I always wanted to pass around the appetizers so I could put on my party dress and be a help I was an only child and so they were quite devoted to the only child and she got her way in a way so I love doing that I love getting dressed up and so I think it's always been something for me from the time I was a baby [Music] I went to Bennett School which doesn't exist anymore and I went there for I think it was two years and after that I got married they married in 1946 she and Alfred Bloomingdale and started family they ended up with three children two sons and a daughter and mrs. Bloomingdale was involved in many charities and events and various projects but it wasn't until the early 1960s before she actually started wearing patrol clothing she Nets panier I loved the name she was the direct Treece of Bal man and she met my husband and she said your wife must be dressed by Batman you can't have her just wearing it she has to have beautiful clothes in Paris and so on and so forth and I picked out of one or two dresses and I loved them and so from then on I was interested in Paris couture it was really in 1962 that her life in the Couture solidified because Alfred Bloomingdale was a visionary businessman and was one of the principle founders of the Diners Club credit card which was the first independent credit card in the world credit was never ever heard of really in Europe and my husband he had a difficult time but the man called Jacques Barret who was the head of Dior at the time and he understood credit and he realized what my husband was doing so my husband said you buy your clothes at your and that's how I really started in the couture [Music] Christian Dior looks today on the Avenue Montaigne exactly as it looked when I started there which was some years ago but the interior is completely different and the way the whole way everything was done was so different in those days we would had a lot of fun with friends we had lunch and then we go to the couture shows at 3 o'clock did you go have you seen bound man have you been - just Chanel and this and that the other thing with all girls were talking and it was a whole different era I would go whenever my husband at business then I had friends from New York who went all the time and it used to be fun now maybe it's fun again I don't know cuz I haven't done that for I think about ten years when you would go into the enters you were seated later on your name maybe have been on the chair as they got bigger but when they were first in the house of Christian Dior on Avenue Montaigne you sat at a little chair they were children so there was no particular might be background music and there would be somebody saying it was number so-and-so and number such-and-such and you wrote it down it was very quiet very low-key but this was the sort of old-fashioned way because the vonda's that you were assigned to in the early days and when you sat at the at the house itself on the little chairs she would come up afterwards and say what can I show you would you like to try something oh I can't I have to go or whatever it is if you didn't like it and if you did you would say well could I see number football whatever it was I can remember into your very carefully they had a hallway with three compartments of a curtain that pulled across and some of the rooms would be taken but you would be trying something on and he would see something going past and you were they could I try that one you know and Mark Bowen was the designer at the time everything that he did was so for me for me it was it fit beautifully it was pretty young Jamie book will be cut off a collection pass a sickly on racism is Aditya sorry I be on Jeopardy me or sanitation accessibility we see intruder but politics security deposit casa don't cut discretionary he shall memory survey telepresence arrest Cisco he gave a a presentable who Felicio cleared a pala curvature the volga Second Circuit literally sedation to general Khalifa main party as a very sedate concerted educated process is the position the tip you can set we just resort to work with mark was really very special he was a wonderful man and was very fond of him but the same thing at Siobhan she but much smaller you bear would come in and say who did this I think that's very good or you need it longer or you need it shorter well he was just a very special man and as components apopka personality yeah sure a compliment a preserve is a con say es una foto se como se va a loss of a memorable one watt as residential become may help arte from the Lima Korolev of Abia scented arrangement satisfaction of Omaha native of Sumatra a vehicle a cooler a caliper Kasabian me me velocity say TV delay in Pravda Nietzsche it could be with multiple paper madam Romanian citizenship deviancy of SQL epochs a little song

Channel: ASU FIDM Museum

Views: 132,839

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Id: FH8hAG0XJn0

Length: 12min 6sec (726 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 25 2020