Krefeld Exhibition

Friedrich Deneken, the former curator of the Arts and Crafts Museum in Hamburg, prepared an exhibition that would take place in his museum in Krefeld and would show textiles and clothes in order to generate spirit in the textile industry on the city, which would show the new direction of design, educate the community and elevate the understanding of aesthetics. For this, he appealed to well-known artist-designers of the avant-garde and asked for a series of new designs to be exhibited. He included Henry van de Velde in the exhibition, writing to him –

“to make – to begin with at your own expense – and send me a few sample designs for printed silk, for woven (upholstery) fabric, and for ladies’ clothes and possibly for velvet (furniture covers). I would like then take the utmost trouble to introduce them and make a breach in the inertia of the local silk production. In this way I would satisfy myself and, I hope, would serve your own interests.”52

Van de Velde accepted the proposal – on a letter written by Maria, who would usually realise these tasks – and in the following years, a series of van de Velde’s designs were produced in Krefeld. Unfortunately, when the designed samples were exhibited, the manufacturers showed little interest as, according to Deneken, they already were making money “from inartistic, bad designs coming from France”.53

Nevertheless, Deneken did not stop pursuing his ideals and wanting to carry the reform of crafts industries beyond textiles in Krefeld; he prepared a second exhibition focused on Women’s Fashion and its relevance with Krefeld’s textile industry.54 Deneken had visited Bloemenwerf a few years earlier and had been pleased on how much attention had been put into Maria’s dress and how it was in harmony with the design of the house. Thus, he contacted the newly funded Société Van de Velde and asked for dress designs in the Reform manner to be exhibited in the upcoming exhibition. 55

The Krefeld Exhibition opened in 1900 under the title Special Exhibition of Modern Ladies Clothes from Artist’s Designs. There were a significant number of designs in the exhibition, including six original designs of Van de Velde, who had seen the exhibition as an opportunity to present his and Maria’s efforts internationally, promoting not only the dress reform but the arts and crafts ideals they believed in. 56

52 Hollis, 91.

53 Hollis, 91.

54 Hollis, 93.

55 Hollis, 93.

56 Hollis, 93.

Maria created an illustrated record of the event in Krefeld, published in France in 1900 and in Germany two years later (fig.10). She wrote an introduction for the record in which she pointed out her biggest concerns on female clothing and the fashion world, starting by remarking how unacceptable it was that at a time that a general reform in the applied arts and design was happening, the attention was only drawn to female costumes after the Krefeld exhibition. This record contributed significantly to the Dress reform, comparable to Anna Muthesius publication, which greatly influenced the field.57 The creation of this record and the commentary she makes on it show how Maria herself was concerned with the Dress Reform and the future of fashion, which probably was why she encouraged her husband to take part in the movement.

The record contained around thirty illustrated dresses that artists designed for specific women, who also collaborated in the making and were consulted during the design process.58 The artist and the dressmakers had to work together in creating the garments. This process showed multiple difficulties, such as the restricted choice of materials and the high cost of lace. Maria also mentions the opposition of the dressmakers’ assistants showed to the artists’ ideas.59

Furthermore, Maria denounces the fashion world because of its business view, designing clothes with a focus on money and publicity rather than on beauty. She condemns the Parisian couturiers that create new trends every season that would be imposed in society, not caring for the morality inherent in beauty and without considering the art behind the designs. She claims that society had lost all individual personality; it just followed fashion no matter how trivial or terrible it was, and therefore they had lost the ability to think for themselves.60 However, although Maria, as well as Henry van de Velde, defended these ideas, they did not execute them, and he designed dresses that were indeed fashionable at the time. For example, in the Krefeld exhibition, he displayed his design for a Dress for the street (fig.11) has a wasp waist, one of the elements the reform aimed to eliminate.

Nevertheless, in the tea gowns he designed, he applied this concept of eliminating the tight-laced effectively, creating straight-cut dresses that flow over the hips without restricting the movement. Given the recommendations on his lectures about what to wear on different occasions, this can be interpreted as the way van de Velde had to adapt to the fashion world for women not to be ridiculed. In the album she made, Maria commented on how it was to wear a dress not accepted by the fashion world -

“The woman who dared to dress following her own taste and her individual personality, striving to create a work of beauty, is exposed to mocking laughter and would not go untroubled in the street.

And it is unfortunately to be feared that the envy and misunderstanding of philistine judges of beauty will gain the upper hand if other weighty reasons for the attempt at artistic reform of dress were not beyond dispute.” 61

Therefore, it is possible that van de Velde designed his dresses following the recommendations he gave on the lectures on fashion. The dresses that were made to be worn inside the house were adapted to the Dress Reform and expressed, in this case, Maria’s personality; but the dresses designed for the street were in accordance with the fashion world’s ideals to create a uniformity, although with slight difference such as eliminating the superficial ornamentation that was not needed.

Furthermore, Henry van de Velde argued that in terms of treating textiles and suing the garment, the artist’s intervention was temporal as women possessed enough imagination to continue on their own. Nonetheless, referring to ornament – an artistic activity – he argued that women would always need the assistance of artists as not all women had good taste and were able to create appropriate ornaments. Therefore, he concludes that women will only be able to free themselves of fashion’s tyranny with the artist’s (male) help.62 Considering the Dress Reform origins, which were related to the protests for female suffrage, and it had a deep connection with feminism, his argument of women needing a male figure, the artist, to overcome the tyranny of fashion, demonstrates how his real preoccupation was not the Dress Reform but his idea of the reform of the applied arts, the involvement with the movement being for convenience and because of the influence of Maria.

Other artists also displayed their designs in the exhibition, such as Alfred Mohrbutter. The dresses of the latter were criticised because they resembled the dresses realised by the fashion industry and because of the outrageous lines that adorned them.63 However, the designs were not that far from van de Velde’s; they followed simple shapes and were decorated with subtle swirls. More importantly, they were designed according to van de Velde’s principles on ornament – “decoration should be to emphasise the way in which the dress is made, at the same time to allow room for expression of intrinsic organic life in abstract motifs”64 – which is visible in Mohbutter’s design as the swirl emphasises the fall of the skirt.

The rejection towards other artists’ designs came from the closeness of the dresses style with the characteristics of Art Nouveau. Nonetheless, the dresses that van de Velde had designed for the exhibition were very similar in style and form to the ones he created for Bloemenwerf. Therefore, although he rejected the ornament and style of the Art Nouveau at the time, refusing profoundly to be associated with the style and speaking against it, the designs of his dresses still resembled the Art Nouveau.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Henry van de Velde’s ideas on architecture differ from practice in both his architectural and fashion works. As well, although he was associated with the Dress Reform movement, his concern with the principles it defended is questionable as he makes different arguments that do not coincide with the values of the reform, suggesting that his involvement with fashion is most likely due to Maria’s influence and his interest in reforming all the applied arts.