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Clueless, Mode Fantasy, and Ambitious Plaid

By Kate Carey, Caput of Education & Curator, Way Nirvana: Rails to Everyday

1 year agone, my colleague and co-conspirator Jackie Edwards—currently in the Ph.D. Program in Art History, The Graduate Center, City University of New York—and I met with Brian Silva, McNay Graphic Designer. Our mission: brainstorm ideas for a totally nineties exhibition logo for Fashion Nirvana: Rail to Everyday . Channeling Cher Horowitz's bright yellow plaid accommodate from the film Clueless (1995) was at the top of my 1990s mood board, and I even requested to see a version incorporating her grapheme's aggressive yellow plaid ensemble.

Brian ultimately steered us in a much more than elegant and optically pleasing direction with a gradient blueprint that formed our exhibition colour palette. The hues from the logo design informed decisions about wall colour, pedestals, extended labels, and department texts. (Come across exhibition video hither and curator mood board here.) That said, I idea the timing of the 25^thursday-anniversary of Clueless might be a chance to pay homage to Cher, Dionne, and coordinating plaid ensembles.

Recognizing how high school students communicate identity via fashion selections, writer and director Amy Heckerling scripted confident smart heroines who dress accordingly. In visiting Los Angeles loftier schools in the nineties, Heckerling and costume designer Mona May observed the liberal application of grunge—baggy pants, oversize shirts, lots of plaid, and very trivial femininity. Applying a lens of privilege and fantasy (including a computer program for coordinating ensembles), Heckerling and May created an aesthetic and so specific to the film—over the knee socks, mini-skirts, hats of all sizes, Mary-Jane shoes—that fans continue to imitate the iconic designs. Actress and singer Willow Smith, for case, channels her inner Cher, even though the pic came out five years before she was born.

Mona May describes how luxury brand Dolce & Gabbana created Cher'southward yellow suit, and she made Dionne's blackness and white version. She also reasoned that Cher and Dionne would have the resources to visit Europe and import luxury brands. Designer Karl Lagerfeld, who causeless leadership at Chanel in 1983, paid tribute to the couture house'south signature hallmarks similar bouclé tweed, a knotted plaid. In 1994, he updated the classic look with brightly colored plaid, faux fur, extra high hemlines, big hats, and Mary-Jane heels. Sound familiar? Although the motion picture's relatively modest upkeep would non allow for Chanel toll tags, May likely drew inspiration from this drove that premiered before the motion picture came out.

In i of the more than quote-able lines from the moving picture, Cher challenges a thief at gunpoint refusing to lay on the ground because her dress was made by Alaïa, 'a totally important designer.' Tunisian designer Azzedine Alaïa originally studied sculpture and pioneered a body-witting silhouette that historic an hour-drinking glass shape. Supermodel Naomi Campbell said, "No other dress can brand a woman look and experience equally good as an Alaïa considering information technology cinches a woman'due south trunk perfectly." Find a powerfully cinched silhouette on view in Fashion Nirvana: Rails to Everyday in a black and white plaid motorcycle jacket and dress. Alaïa lifted the checked pattern from Tati, a disbelieve Paris department store with checkered branding.

My father, a government minister who rereads Jane Austen novels regularly, took me to see Clueless when it came out in 1995. He voiced disapproval of some casual marijuana use, but we both liked the story back then. In high school, I was enchanted by the California fantasy and appreciated the contemporary update of Jane Austen'due south Emma. Looking dorsum now, I'm much more enlightened of the essential office fashion played in the film and the fashion in which Amy Heckerling and Mona May communicated complicated teen identity through layered, oft aspirational appearance.

Karl Lagerfeld, German language, 1933-2019 CHANEL French, founded 1910. Suit, 1994. Bouclé tweed Courtesy of MOSS Designer Consignment. (To a higher place)

Azzedine Alaïa, Tunisian, 1935-2017, Motorcycle jacket and dress, 1991. Denim, nylon blend Courtesy of Alex Gehring and Michelle Washington.

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