Displaying items by tag: clothes

Everything but the kitchen sink would be one way to describe the staggering array of possessions owned by Lauren Bacall that go under the hammer in New York next week.

From fine art to kitchenware, from avant garde to the kitsch: hundreds of items collected and loved by the Hollywood siren go on sale Tuesday and Wednesday at Bonhams auction house.

The collection is nothing if not eclectic. It includes jewelry and clothes, Aboriginal and African art, English and French furniture and items bought in antique shops around the world.

Part of Alexander McQueen’s genius and enduring influence on fashion was his constant pushing of boundaries, both through construction of clothes, and the usage of unconventional materials in making them. His fascination with birds, which began in his boyhood, extended into his professional oeuvre, manifested in ethereal and fantastical couture collections that subverted ideas of weight, structure, and conventional beauty. Yet his mastery at tailoring was equally evident in even the most unadorned of garments, with jackets cut severely to emphasize various parts of the body, and extremely low-cut trousers aptly named “bumsters.”

Digging up forgotten treasure in grandma's dusty attic sounds like a tale too good to be true.

But for some, that dream has become a reality. The popular PBS television series "Antiques Roadshow" has earned some local antique owners a small fortune. From art to toys to clothes, people bring in all sorts of goodies to be professionally appraised by experts. Most leave in disappointment, but a lucky bunch have walked away with more than expected.

While Frida Kahlo is known for her bright and highly personal self-portraits, her role as a style icon is not to be dismissed. Most women of the 1930s embraced form-fitting dresses, coiffed hairdos, and dainty, pencil-thin eyebrows. Kahlo preferred to make appearances wearing ribbons, full skirts, bold jewelry, loose peasant blouses with vivid embroidery, and her signature untamed eyebrows.

A full collection from Kahlo’s wardrobe will go on display at the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City beginning November 22nd. Sponsored by Vogue Mexico, Appearance Can Be Deceiving: The Dresses of Frida Kahlo will include jewelry, shoes, and clothes that had been locked away in the artist’s armoires for almost 50 years.

Smelling of cigarette smoke and perfume and stained from painting, Kahlo’s clothing served as an armor of sorts. Kahlo’s life was rife with pain, both emotional and physical. Polio left one of her legs thinner and weaker than the other, a bus accident maimed her when she was only 18, she suffered multiple miscarriages, and endured a tumultuous marriage with the Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera. Kahlo coped with all of these experiences in her painting as well as through her dress. Her long, full skirts covered her debilitated leg and her loose blouses covered the rigid corsets she wore for back pain.

When Kahlo died in 1954, Rivera ordered that her clothes be locked up for 15 years. After his death three years later, art collector Dolores Olmedo became the manager of his and Kahlo’s houses and refuses to allow access to Kahlo’s letters, clothes, jewelry, and photographs. They were not unlocked until Olmedo’s death in 2004.

Highlights from Appearances Can Be Deceiving include the white corset Kahlo wore in the self-portrait The Broken Column and an earring that was a gift from Pablo Picasso and was featured in a self-portrait from the 1940s. The mate has not been found. A Tehuana dress, named after Indian women of that region, was Kahlo’s signature piece of clothing. Worn with large gold earrings and flowers braided into her hair, the dress is featured in many self-portraits.