Designer's 'American Explorer' collection embraces weather at New York fashion week with hiking boots and fur-lined coats
Tommy Hilfiger brings a sunny note to New York fashion week, even when he covers his catwalk in fake snow. Positivity is what this brand does. So while fashion week lamented the snowfall, Hilfiger embraced it, turning the Park Avenue Armoury into an Alpine party scene, with cuckoo clock-shaped ski lodges.
Entitled American Explorer, this collection was a good-natured mash-up of cold-weather style references from Seattle to Switzerland. Consider the Tommy Hilfiger version of a winter skirt suit, as modelled by Jourdan Dunn (left): a mini version of the Dirndl skirt in parka-olive velvet, with a Rocky Mountains-esque sleeveless puffa in matching velvet, worn with a denim shirt, a knitted bobble hat, and fur-lined clogs.
This winter's must-haves were smartly updated: wedge hiking boots with sheepskin lining providing a neat midwinter twist on the wedge hi-tops which have become an urban uniform all over the world; chunky sheepskin-lined jackets were offered as enticements for those ready to move on from the fur-lined parka.
A more cerebral note was struck at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When the Costume Institute reopens in May – under the new name of the Anna Wintour Costume Centre in honour of the Vogue editor's 16 years as cheerleader-in-chief – it will host a retrospective of Charles James, a London-born, American-based 20th-century couturier hailed as a genius in his lifetime but who has all but disappeared from fashion history books.
Harold Koda, curator, defended the decision to honour the man: "What I've noticed about shows that get a response from the public is that they are about fashion as a dream. We've done shows that are close to people's real lives – we did one about sportswear – and they are not the ones which capture the public imagination. What people want is the poetry and romance of a truly fabulous dress."
The gowns on display will provide that in spades. Christian Dior credited James with inspiring his "New Look"; Cristobal Balenciaga said James was "the world's best couturier". Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli both commissioned and wore Charles James dresses. These days, they are best known through their appearance in the society photographs of Cecil Beaton, a great friend of the designer.
The veteran New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham described him as "the Einstein of fashion". James was a pioneer of the internal engineering of clothes. He was the first to figure out how a grand gown could be self-supporting from the torso, and therefore strapless. Initially trained as a milliner, he used mathematical and architectural methods and calculations to create dresses which sculpted the body beneath into newly elegant proportions, while allowing the wearer to move comfortably. His 'Clover Leaf' ballgown featured concealed inverted pleats which caused the skirt to aspirate on the dancefloor, lifting from the ground like an ice skater's dress – despite weighing in at over 10lbs. (To conquer one of the perennial problems of eveningwear, he even invented a waistline which was engineered to be narrow for cocktail hour, but allow for expansion after dinner.)
The curators hope to introduce James as a compelling character to fashion history. Included will be the gown for Mrs William Randolph Hearst. to wear to President Eisenhower's inauguration in 1953. In a turn of events typical of James, a perfectionist with scant regard for deadlines, the dress was not ready in time. (Mrs Hearst did, however, debut it at the coronation of Elizabeth II a few months later.) "James did not care about his clients, or his partners, or even his family, really," said Koda. "He was dedicated completely to the pursuit of his creative expression. He was a true artist."
To attract a younger audience to a show which, Koda concedes, "your average Williamsburg hipster might not immediately be interested in", the museum will borrow ideas from scientific exhibitions to expose the inner workings and hidden engineering of James' dresses. They will also draw out what James himself called "the procreative function" of his dresses, highlighting what Koda calls the "labial folds" and other subliminal signals of the gowns.
Celebrating a designer whose world never went beyond a small circle of wealthy women is likely to stoke claims of elitism; a sensitive issue for fashion in New York, with the industry mourning the departure of Mayor Bloomberg and unsure of the more egalitarian Bill de Blasio – elected to City Hall on a more egalitarian ticket.For their part, James and his clients were not overly concerned by egalitarianism. Mrs Hearst once said approvingly of her Clover Leaf dress that when she wore it, no one else in the room existed.