Fairy Tales
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Fashion By Madison Sloan
When it comes to the world of fashion, the term “Fairy Tale” is often associated with lavish and extravagant pieces. Couture, especially, has the ability to transform people into a world of magic and fantasy. Many people view fashion as a form of escapism. On the flip side, clothing has also influenced the fictional world. In fairy tales, clothing is used to symbolize wealth, status, and even vanity with certain characters. What’s better than telling a story through what you wear? Over the years, designers have incorporated aspects of stories, such as Alice and Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and Beauty and The Beast, within their pieces. These stories came to life in the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. In their “Fairy Tale Fashion” exhibit, fifteen stories were illustrated. Colleen Hill, the museum’s assistant curator at the time, utilized the museum’s costume collection and loans from various designers to represent famous motifs from various fables. “The way we put this together was really considering how, for example, many illustrators over time have taken these few key details from these classic written tales and then based their characters off of that,” said Hill in an article with Fashionista written by Chantal Fernandez. “I basically did that using fashion.” One fairy tale that was clearly represented in the exhibit was the story of Cinderella. On display was a shredded chiffon dress from Giorgio di Sant’Angelo’s 1973 collection, The Summer of Jane and Cinderella. This dress was used to symbolize the character before her regal transformation.
Photo: Gracie Gianoukos Models: Patricia Muniz, Eden Schlagenhauf, Henry Nicol
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