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Dressed: The History of Fashion
Sonia Delaunay: The Art of Everything, part I, an interview with Waleria Dorogova (Dressed Classic)
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- [00:01]
April Callahan
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- [01:37]
Cassidy Zachary
enjoy one of our favorite episodes from the Dressed archive of over 500 plus shows.
- [01:42]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Dress the History of Fashion is a production of dress media. With over 8 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common. Every day we all get dressed.
- [01:57]
Cassidy Zachary
Welcome to Dressed the History of Fashion, a podcast that explores the who, what, when?
- [02:01]
Host 2 (likely Cassidy or April)
Of why we wear.
- [02:02]
Cassidy Zachary
We are fashion historians and your hosts,
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Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Cassidy Zachary and April Callahan. Dress listeners, many of you might know by now that prior to becoming a fashion historian, I actually studied art history. And I was an art gallerist for many years. Almost a decade. And this is one of the reasons why I cannot be more excited to bring you this week's two episodes. And that is because this week get to shine a light on the work of the incredible and unstoppable Sonia Delaunay, who casts, I know is one of your favorite artists as well.
- [02:39]
Host 2 (likely Cassidy or April)
Oh absolutely.
- [02:40]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Yeah.
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Host 2 (likely Cassidy or April)
We so excited.
- [02:42]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
We've basically been waiting years to bring you this episode and one of the reasons why we waited for a little bit was I knew that today's guest and her co curator were doing trailblazing new work on Sonja's fashion and textile designs.
- [02:58]
Host 2 (likely Cassidy or April)
Yes, and Sonja is perhaps best known in the art world today as a painter. And she was the co founder of the Orphism, or simultaneous art movement with her husband Robert. And Orphism is really known for its abstract and vibrant use of bold color combinations and geometric shapes. And over her prolific career, which spanned more than 60 years, Sonja brought her unique aesthetic to furniture, interiors, clothing, accessories, and even a couple of cars. Yes, that's right, cars. And a miniature car is actually included in the current exhibition, Sonia Delaunay Living Art, which is currently on view through July 7, 2024 at the Bard Graduate center in New York City.
- [03:42]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
And if there's any way that you can make this exhibition in the next few months and you're super into art, I promise you that you're not going to be disappointed. It is actually one of the most beautiful and important art shows I feel like I've seen in the last several years. Maybe the last one that in my feelings at least rivaled this was the Hilda Off Klint exhibition that was at the Guggenheim.
- [04:05]
Host 2 (likely Cassidy or April)
Oh wow.
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Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
A few years ago. And that really took the art world by storm.
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Host 2 (likely Cassidy or April)
So that exhibition was amazing.
- [04:12]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Yeah, yeah. And just also seeing anything at the Guggenheim is so cool when you get a spiral your way up or down. But I just want to say that this show is very important in understanding the true breadth of of Sonia Dolaunay's work and for our purposes, actually her fashion and textile design.
- [04:31]
Host 2 (likely Cassidy or April)
And we are delighted that one of the exhibition's co curators, Valeria Dorogova, joins us this week to tell us about the groundbreaking research that went into this show. Many of the objects included are being exhibited for the first time in the US And Valeria and her fellow curator, Laura Michaelis, who is the research curator at Bard Graduate center, spent several years bringing this exhibition to life. Laura, unfortunately is not able to join us today, but a warm thanks to her for all of the care that went into this show. And also a very warm welcome to Valeria who joins us now.
- [05:06]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Valeria, a very warm welcome to dressed.
- [05:09]
Valeria Dorogova
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
- [05:11]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Yeah, thank you for being here. I am delighted to finally get to be able to cover the work of the amazing Sonia Dolaunay. We have had an episode on her on our to do list, our future to do list for at least five years now. And then When I learned a couple years ago that you and Laura were working on her and there was going to be an exhibition, I was like, ah, let's, let's, let's wait, let's wait until the exhibition. So we are here now, but before we get to Sonja, I'm hoping that you could introduce yourself to our audience and also tell us about how you first encountered Sonja's work and a little bit about the journey in producing this truly exceptional exhibition.
- [05:51]
Valeria Dorogova
Thank you so much. Yes. So I am an art and fashion historian. I'm typically based in Europe, but I work internationally and I have been a guest curator about graduate center for this project specifically. And I curated the exhibition together with Laura McCrulis, who is research curator at BGC and who has brought me on for this project about three years ago. But my work on Sonia began a bit earlier, in the summer of 2020. And then I was hired by a German museum, Kuntmuden Kreifeld, as a curatorial fellow to work specifically on a corpus of textile design drawings by Sonja that they had just acquired for their collection. And I had specialized in fashion and textiles before. But for example, my dissertation was on the Parisian fashion houseart, which, if you know it, it's a very different cup of tea from Sonia Delaunay. And it doesn't have much to do with modern art and abstraction. But my entry point to Sonia were definitely the textiles and the relationship they had with the rest of her work, and not only painting, but in particular the interior design work. So in 2020, I began studying her very intently because I hadn't worked on her before. And as soon as I was able to travel, because that was still Covid, I, I went to Paris and encountered the extremely overwhelming Delaunay archives. That was. It was great fun, but it was truly overwhelming. But what I realized was that whereas before I thought, oh, surely we know all there is to know about an artist of this magnitude, but then I was extremely surprised to find that that was not at all the case. So I realized that there are ways to explore her from a new angle. And I was trying to find those new perspectives. And at the time when I had just developed my exhibition concept for Kreifeld, I heard that BGC was planning to organ in Sonia Delaunay exhibition as well. And this is how Laura and I met for the first time in 2021. And I think that because Laura and I, because neither of us as scholars come from the field of modern art, we both had a fresh look on Sonia and we simply were able to ask ourselves different questions because we tried to go with our interest and see, you know, what, what resonated with us and found that so many aspects of her work had never been seriously discussed, such as, for example, her tapestries or stained glass, windows, mosaics, furniture, and so much more. And we knew from the beginning that we wanted to make an exhibition and also make a catalog that are different from what had been done before and that we wanted to tell stories that were different from those that we already knew about Sonia Delaunay. So for a couple of years we devoted all our energy to research. And in this regard, Sonia Delaunay is such a special case, because I mentioned the archives and she's somebody who left behind an extraordinary amount of not only artworks, but also this seemingly endless archive of manuscripts and journals and photographs. And the vast majority of this has not been published and hasn't been much of it hasn't been seriously considered before. And these things, they're mostly divided between the Bibliotheque Kandinsky at Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Bibliothque Nationale de France, where her journals are located. And that is just the most magnificent treasure trove of information that covers the period between 33 and 69. I mean, her journals. And it's completely impossible to go through all of this, but we made an effort to uncover as much as we could in the time that we had. And our catalog is the first scholarly publication that is based on extensive work with those journals and a huge part of her correspondence with collaborators.
- [10:24]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Yeah, and the catalog is jaw droppingly beautiful as well, I might add. So we are definitely going to talk about it more at the end of the show and let listeners know where they can get their hands on their own coffee. But you know, I would argue that your guys fresh perspective on her work is what makes this show incredibly unique. There have been many, many, many exhibitions on Delaunay's work over the last century. But what is the thesis or the premise of your exhibition?
- [10:53]
Valeria Dorogova
So I would say that there's really two facets to this. The core idea for the exhibition concept stems from the mission of Bard Graduate center, which is an institution that is dedicated to the study of the decorative arts and material culture. So this is precisely how we chose to approach Sonja, who was of course an exceptional painter, but also a designer, a really universal designer, creator of objects, a maker, and somebody who did never distinguish between mediums and means of artistic production. So we really wanted to show the full range of what she had accomplished as a creator in many disciplines, and also how all these works are connected with other. Each each other. We also really wanted to explore her skills as an artisan and show how all these things were made, how the textiles were printed, for example, and what skills she personally had. So we didn't just want to present her as a designer, but also as an artisan who was deeply involved in every step of, of the production of these things, from the first sketch to the art direction of the fashion photographs that were taken off the finished garments and everything in between. And the other thing was we made the deliberate choice not to approach this as a retrospective or even something that is a strictly chronologically structured display. And the thinking behind this was, as you say, there have been so many exhibitions between 1958, when she had a first major retrospective in Bielefeld in Germany, and 2022, when she had the last one in the Louisiana Museum in Denmark. There have been plenty of exhibitions. The best known certainly was the 2014 one at Musee d' ar Moderne in Paris, which traveled to tate Modern in 2015, which is where I saw it. And these are all shows that operate with a very different base than the BGC Gallery, which is located in a historic townhouse in, on the Upper west side. And we understood, of course, that we are not able to show monumental canvases from the 1937 Exposition or full size sports car. So we try to think of the gallery space as a house for living, used to be a residential home when it was built in the early 20th century. And the rooms, they have this intimacy and they have this great atmosphere. So what we decided was that we want the exhibition to feel like you have just stepped into the living universe of Sonja and the space where she lived, where she worked, her atelier, her shop windows, and something that's very close to her own idea of living with art and very personal, because essentially what she created was not just objects, but it was an entire lifestyle for, for modern living. And rather than just going decade by decade, we broke up this chronology to show that this work is not really structured in periods or in stages, but it's really an organic, organic entity where everything relates to each other aesthetically and conceptually, regardless of the time. And you see this really best when you bring the object close together in an intimate space like these galleries. And then we thought of a theme for each of the seven bases or galleries in the building. The exhibition begins with a space that is dedicated to self promotion and how she fashioned her image as being A human living part of her artistic world, which is a theme that is something of a red thread through the entire show. And then it continues with three galleries dedicated to areas of artistic production that she's probably best known for. For example, simultaneous as an art practice, and then her famous fashion and textiles and the marketing of thereof, and also stage and performance design and her relationship with written word and the moving body. And then we have three galleries that explore chapters that are not as well known as what I mentioned before. For example, her work as an interior designer. And even somebody who seriously thought about improving life by means of creating spaces for living, which is a bit of a rationalist idea of the. Of the 1930s that she picked up passionately. And then also her life during the Second World War, which has not been properly explored before. And lastly, her post war and late career work and the efforts she showed to build her own legacy. And the exhibition title, Living Art goes actually back to Sonia herself, who said that creating art for her is not working, it's just living life. And on one of the walls in the exhibition we reproduced one of her quotes that she frequently repeated. I have lived my art and I have changed everything around me. And that was something that we took very seriously and carried through the exhibition.
- [16:32]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Yeah, and it's such a wonderful exhibition. It feels very immersive. It's almost like you walk into Delaunay land and it's fabulous.
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Valeria Dorogova
Lasagna verse.
- [16:42]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Lasagna verse. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Same idea. We should probably begin now that we've learned an overview of, like her, her work, her working oeuvre. We should probably begin with learning about Sonja's background and her path to actually becoming part of the Parisian artistic avant garde. What can you tell us about her kind of formative years?
- [17:02]
Valeria Dorogova
So when she lived in St. Petersburg, she was raised in circles of what in. In Russian you call the. The intelligence, the sort of cultured and. And well educated society. For example, one of her close friends was the scholar Alexander Smirnoff, and with him she was able to, for example, visit the World of Art offices. World of Art was the society and magazine that had been established by Serge Diaghilev around 1900. These are this. These are the circles that she moved in. And she was able to travel a lot to Europe and was a highly intelligent young woman. There are a couple of journals from her, from her early years when, when before she came to Paris that are very indicative of, you know, how well educated she was. And at a young age she. She spoke German, Russian, obviously, but also French and English. And when she was very young, she developed a profound interest in art and had the opportunity in 1904 to go and study at an academy in Germany, because she had relatives who lived in Karlsruhe, in the region of Baden, where she took courses at the Manerenschule, which is a private academy for women, at a time when certainly not all art academies in Europe even admitted women. And she stayed there for two years and then moved to Paris in 1906 to continue her studies at the Academie de la Palette. So she had a comprehensive academic education in drawing, painting and etching. Some of this very, very early work between 1904 and 1906 is beautiful, but it's very conventional. It's quite typical academic student work, because she had not yet found herself as an artist at this young age before she had spent a couple of years in Paris and experienced the. The energy that Paris had to offer.
- [19:15]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Yeah, well, I mean, in Paris she falls in pretty quickly into the art scene sometime around 1906, 1907. So what was going on in Paris at that time in terms of art movements and who are some of the big players?
- [19:31]
Valeria Dorogova
So Paris in 1907 was, I think, an incredible place to be for a young artist because absolutely everything in. In the artistic scene was happening there. And Sonia was suddenly exposed to Phobia's painting and extremely influenced by the work of artists like Matisse, for example, whom she admired throughout her entire life. She also was the great admirer of earlier generations French artists, especially the Post Impressionists. And she would later say that Gauguin, for example, was a very important influence on her as Wurst van Gogh. And at this time, around 1907, she paints almost exclusively portraits. And this is also the time when she gets to exhibit her work for the first time in Paris. She has her first solo exhibition in 1908 at the gallery of Wilhelm Odle, who was a German art dealer, who incidentally also became her first husband in the same year in 1908, in a marriage of convenience that allowed her to remain in Paris, which she rather preferred over going back to Saint Petersburg and bourgeois society. Paris was much more exciting. And in this period, she painted some of her most, most incredible works. For example, Philhemene, or the New Jean and the very famous series of Finnish girls. And what is so extraordinary in these portraits is that they show how color became her primary medium of expression.
- [21:15]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Yeah, I mean, when you.
- [21:16]
Valeria Dorogova
When you.
- [21:17]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
I think anyone who is even remotely familiar with Sonja's work, that's the first thing that comes to mind is color, color, color. And of course, all of those artists that you just mentioned that she so admired, like Matisse and Van Gogh. And who was the other one that you mentioned as well?
- [21:33]
Valeria Dorogova
Gauguin.
- [21:34]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Gauguin. They're playing with these, you know, concepts of color as well. So what was her relationship with color? And I'm. I'm hoping maybe that you could also touch on some of the synergies between her work and the work of her second husband, Robert Delaunay.
- [21:51]
Valeria Dorogova
Yes, color is definitely the most meaningful constant in her work. And you're absolutely right. It's what we first think about when we hear Sonia Delaunay. And color is something that leads her to understand very early on that it's not line that gibbs depth and movement to what she paints, but that it is pure color that modulates everything. And even later on, towards the end of her life, when she gives interviews, she's being asked about this, and she says color is everything, and that. That tells you all you need to know. But it's. It's very important to mention Robert Delaunay, because obviously, when they meet and then they get married in 1910, the perception of color as this guiding element in painting is something that they share importantly. And a little bit later, around 1912, they both began studying the work of Michel Jeanne Chevrolet, who was a chemist, and in particular, his love simultaneous color contrasts of 1839. Chevreux was the director of the dye works at the Gobelin, where tapestries were woven. And so he. He wrote this monumental work which we also have in the exhibition, where he describes where how colors, when you place them next to each other set, are set in movement optically, and that this can be applied to the making of object, for example, tapestries or clothing or anything at all. And many painters at the time, they work with this text like they work with all kinds of color theory. But Sonia and Robert go truly a step further, and they take this word simultaneous, which means just simultaneous. But they create some sort of artistic brand that they really become known for because they want to distinguish themselves among the vast number of artists at the time who exhibit and who promote their work. Their work was then, and continued to be throughout Robert Delaunay's lifetime, extremely synergetic. They both, around the same time, turned to abstraction. In 1912, Robert in his painting and Sonia in painting, but also in creating objects. For example, customized book bindings for her private library, onto which she applies abstract collages. And these are the very first abstract collages that have ever been created. But they also both paint abstract motifs that center around showing solar and electric lights as it. As it breaks apart in prisms. And it's Guillaume Polinar who recognizes that both Delaunay have a very specific talent to create a rhythm in their paintings that's almost musical.
- [25:04]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Oh, I was exactly gonna say that. I'm so glad you said you brought up music.
- [25:09]
Valeria Dorogova
Yes, that's something that Sonja always said that she's searching for in her paintings is the rhythm that she finds in poetry and in music. And it's Apollinar who names this specific way of painting Orphism. So they are representatives of Orphism, but they also have sort of their own art movement with simultaneous.
- [25:32]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Yeah, yeah.
- [25:33]
Valeria Dorogova
And later in life, if we speak about the synergies between the two of them as. As life partners, but also as creators that work very closely together, it's quite touching how many traces of Sonia's work one finds in Robert Delaunay's painting. And she also includes his paintings and the interiors she designs. And they truly sought the world of each other and inspired each other tremendously.
- [26:03]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Well, it's like the synergy in their art, and also it overflowed into their life and then back into the art, so it makes perfect sense. And speaking of family from an art historical perspective, it's been widely acknowledged that the birth of her son in 1911 might have set her career trajectory off on a new path with an object that she made. So how. So what did she create for infant son? And where did that sort of lead her artistically?
- [26:33]
Valeria Dorogova
So, yes, her only child, her son, Charles Delaunay, was born in 1911. And for his little crib, Vanya stitched a patchwork blanket. And this is something that she later wrote was inspired by the traditions of Russian peasants that she saw when she was younger. She basically selected remnants of colorful fabrics in different shades of red and green and purple, blue and so forth, and cut them to small geometric shapes before she arranged them pretty much like an abstract painting. And even though this was an object of daily use for her baby, she realized that this was truly also her first abstract work of art. And as such, she even had it framed later on and gave it to the Musee Nationale d' ARM in 1964. And this was a very bold statement, I would say, to say that this object, made for a small child, is a key work in the history of modern art and pictorial abstraction and belongs to a major state collection of fine art. Unfortunately, this is not in the exhibition because it has been on display recently and is a very fragile piece that is composed of textile. It just wasn't there to travel. But it's certainly something that we would have loved to show. But what we do show is the legendary simultaneous dress that's Sonja made herself in 1913. It's in the United States for the first time, and it's the first thing that you encounter when you visit the exhibition and you walk into the first gallery and you asked about how the Crypt cover led to new artistic pathways. And this is the object that comes to my mind immediately, firstly, because it is made in a very similar technique of colorful bits of fabric that are stitched together by hand, and because also it combines the chromatic and formal perception of a painter with a garment that was worn by Sonja to make a statement. And this dress is so important because it is the ultimate symbol of the idea to merge art and life.
- [28:52]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Yeah, yeah.
- [28:52]
Host 2 (likely Cassidy or April)
Well.
- [28:53]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
And one of the things that I've always thought was so fascinating about the Paris art world at this time, and you've kind of alluded to this already, is how there really was this dissolution of any sort of hierarchy in terms of artistic mediums. We have classically trained painters, sometimes also moonlighting as fashion illustrators. We have sculptors, you know, who are working as scene and set designers in the theater. And Sonja was especially adept at moving between mediums. So can you tell us about the various genres that she was exploring during the 19 teens?
- [29:31]
Valeria Dorogova
So, yes, these early objects that we spoke about, the grip cover and the book bindings and the simultaneous dress, they're really just a few of an incredible variety of mediums and objects that she worked with, especially in 1913, which is this key year for her in her development as a more universal artist. So she painted, of course, and she painted one of her most famous canvases, the Valbulier, which engages with this idea of color and the human body and movement. But she also creates her first multiple, the avant garde book, La Prose du Trophirian, in collaboration with the poet Bless Sandval. And this is something that is called a book. I always find that is a little bit strange, because it is not a book. It is a long sheet of paper folded like an accordion. But it was advertised by the two of them as the first simultaneous book. And when the distribution of the Prose du Trancy Berian was really active, the war, the First World War, broke out in Europe, and Sonia and Rubert were in Spain at the time, and they decided not to return to France and lived in various places on the Iberian Peninsula during the war, and Sonia was extremely inspired by the way that the colors appeared to her in the warm light. And she painted a lot, especially market scenes in Portugal. But she also created art objects and sold them, for example painted ceramics, embroidered textiles, and in 1918 she established her first fashion and interior decorating enterprise in Madrid, which was called Casa Sonia and was very popular with the Spanish aristocracy. So you see that in this decade she explores as much as she can and also begins working commercially with with the objects that she creates
- [31:40]
Cassidy Zachary
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Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
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- [34:08]
Valeria Dorogova
What do I do? My refund though.
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Cassidy Zachary
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Valeria Dorogova
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- [34:53]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
I do want to ask more about this 1918 endeavor and and and more about her US production, but very quickly I want to turn back maybe a little bit and keep it in the teens because some of the most stunning objects in the exhibition also relate to Delaunay's work with the Ballets Russes. Could you tell us a little bit more about this and specifically about her and Robert's creations for the staging of Cleopatra?
- [35:20]
Valeria Dorogova
Yes, that was really a lovely commission. It was probably in the spring of 1918 that Sonia and Robert met Serge Diaghilev, or for Sonia, it was the second time that she met him because she had seen him in fact in 1904 in St. Petersburg. And Diaghilev at the time was in Madrid with the entire troupe of the Ballirous, but they had very few engagements. And then in the first half of 1918 he managed to sign contract with the London Coliseum. And for this London season he wanted to restage Cleopatra, which was something that was hugely successful before the war at the Royal Opera House. So in London, the audience was already familiar with this production. So Cleopatra was an extremely successful production that the ballets had staged since 1909 when they first premiered in Paris, and the set and costumes were famously designed by Bakst and they were illustrated everywhere, and so many people in the theater world were familiar with them. But in 1918, Diaghilev had developed a bit of a new taste for the avant garde because he had just very successfully staged Parade with Picasso. And so when he met Sonia and Robert, that was a very lucky coincidence for him because he had two artists that he was able to. To give this commission to, and Robert was to design the set and Sonia the costumes. But because there wasn't much time and not much money either, only the costumes of the two principal dancers were remade after Sonja's sketches. And what's quite funny is that they just continued to use the rest of the costumes that were made by Bach.
- [37:18]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
That had to be quite the interesting juxtaposition.
- [37:22]
Valeria Dorogova
Yes. Which you don't really. You don't notice at the first glance, because they both were inspired by ancient Egypt and was also theatrical.
- [37:31]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Yeah. And they both loved color, too. So, you know, that was on his own journey in with color as well.
- [37:39]
Valeria Dorogova
Yes, that's true. And Cleopatra is so interesting because it is often described as a ballet, when in fact it was a memo drama, meaning that there was actually no dancing, because Michel Vorkian choreographed it like, a little bit like a flat display display of movement in ancient Egyptian iconography. Like, you would find it on a sarcophagus or a mural, which means that the female lead role didn't have to dance. She only had to walk and move her arms in dramatic gestures. And she was carried onto the stage wrapped in scarves like a mummy. And these were not white bandages, but they were colorful scarves designed by Sonja. And then other dancers unwrapped her, and there she was in this simultaneous solo dress, this truly spectacular costume, which reminds us of the dress of ancient Egyptian nobility, because it has this very narrow skirt and it has this structured bodice, and she's wearing vulture crown and a wig of black braided wool. And the dress is like a simultaneous painting. It's very colorful. It has the typical Delaunay circles around the breasts, which always reminds me a little bit of a Gaultier cone bra for on the mission tour a la Egypt. Yes. And she also had a rainbow on. On her body. And in the same center of the rainbow, she had a mirror that reflected the stage lights and gave rays of light back to the audience. So this costume was not only interacting with light through beads and the pearls, which you would typically have in a stage costume, but it was a source of light itself. And this was Sonia's very first commission. For the stage. And it was so successful that she was asked the next year to remodel an entire theater, including the stage curtain and the costumes for the principal performer in Madrid.
- [39:44]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Yeah, well, and these commissions mean textiles, right? So just after and during World War I, as you've already mentioned, textiles really become a major focus of her work. So what can you tell us about her various enterprises in textile design? I'm also hoping that you might speak to her participation in the very famed Art deco exhibition of 1925.
- [40:09]
Valeria Dorogova
Yes, that's completely true. So she has this constant of. Of working with textiles. And when they returned to Paris in 1921, she goes through an incredibly rich creative phase working with. With printed fabrics, but also unique artistic dresses that include data poetry that was embroidered onto them. And in 1923 she was participating in various charity events organized by the Union of Russian Artists. And she shows printed shawls with almost kinetic geometric pattern. And after this, a manufacturer from Lyon who makes fashion fabrics commissions her to create 50 print designs. And this is the beginning of her very successful career as a textile designer. And in 1925 she, she realizes that this is very serious business and registers a company called Sonia with the commercial court in Paris and begin selling patterns for printed fabrics to various mills and distributors in non exclusive arrangements. In the second half of the twenties, these fabrics were truly made internationally, which I find remarkable because you could, you could find nerds of companies who purchased the sketches in New York, in Lyon, in Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, Czechoslovakia, even and so forth. And all these fabrics, they were very on brand because they were marketed as Kissus Simultaneous. And she had the term Simultaneous registered as a trademark in France, in the US in our exhibition we wanted to show how inventive these textiles were. And we have this entire wall covered in the original simultane fabrics from the Musee des Tissues in Lyon, where she gifted them in the 60s and 70s. And you can see cottons and velvets and silks and some of them have a selvage that is printed with tissue. Sonia Delaunay Simultaneous and it looks like that is handwritten even though it's printed, which is something that, that's very charming about her textiles. They always have this degree of irregularity. So they look as are buying artistic fabrics by the famous Sonia Delaunay. And we're also showing some of the original wood blocks that were used to print them. And this was certainly not the most efficient method to use hand carved blocks. But it was really important to her because that was a way of preserving a traditional artisanal technique, which is something that Manya was very passionate about because she saw that in her time the manual crafts were slowly disappearing. So what also happens in 1925 in relation to her as a. As a textile designer and fashion designer is her participation at the Exposition des Articoratifies, which you mentioned, where she sets up the boutique simultaneous together with the couturier Jacques M. And the leather goods maker Girau Gilbert. And this was, this was great. It was built as a pop up store, to use, to use a modern term, on the Pont Alexandre de Trois. And you recently had an episode with Alexandre Sampson where he spoke about this very bridge in the context of the Galliano show for Margiela. And in 1925, this bridge was. That's hard to imagine, but they built a street of 40 temporary shops by the architect Gabriel Guevrekian on the bridge. So Sonia did not exhibit with the haute couture, but on this rue de boutique with other artisans of the luxury trade. And Jacques M. At the time, he was really famous as the maker of fur coats and these very elaborate coats of fur intarsia that Sonja designed in her typical ornaments. And part of the coats was embroidered in a technique that makes the textile look like a tapestry, but it's actually hand embroidery that covers the entire surface of a fabric. And she called this very cleverly le point du jour, the stitch of the moment. And that's something that she became very well known for. What was so clever about her efforts to, to come up with a marketing campaign for this exposition, which, you know, had visitors from all over the world, was that she engaged with different forms of, of creating images. And for example, she had one of her mannequins photographed in those coats on the premises of the exhibition with the famous stone trees by the Martel brothers. And she also had the car of a friend painted in one of her fabric patterns. And the mannequins were photographed with the car. And this, this picture circulated everywhere around the world. And she also produced a really beautiful portfolio of Pushra prints that show her best designs. 20 plates with her most beautiful creations. And she had so much press that year because she did all these things. She associated herself with a famous designer, she produced these iconic pictures and she offered a collectible luxury publication and of course had this very striking brand name, Simultaneous.
- [46:04]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Yeah, yeah, she was out there doing it and she was very, very good. And I have to say, sometimes, like, when people are, you know, out there kind of like doing this form of self promotion, it feels weird. But for her, it just seems like it was part of her artistic medium. Right. It didn't lose any street cred that she was really doing this.
- [46:27]
Valeria Dorogova
No. And she was, I would say, probably the. The only visual artist of her time who engaged so seriously and so cleverly in these aspects of. Of promoting and marketing and merchandising her work. Of course, she was also the only visual artist of her time who had a proper fashion house and who had a company like this.
- [46:53]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
Well, you know, all of this press, of course, America is going to come calling. I was really intrigued in reading the exhibition catalogs about Delaney's working relationship with the American fashion industry and the American textile trades. She was a very big deal in Paris, but she was a very big deal in New York as well. So what kind of projects and collaborations was she doing here in the US?
- [47:19]
Valeria Dorogova
So this is, I find, so curious because Sonia never visited the United States. She's never been to New York, but she was very well known then. And obviously not having been there doesn't mean that she wasn't represented in the fashion industry or in the world of art. And it was precisely the 1925 exhibition that gave her such exposure to American manufacturers. And she acquired lots of business partners in New York. For example, the silk firm Eagle, that was before actually working with Buxt on fashion fabrics. And they printed some of her fabric designs and distributed the textiles in the United States. But you could, you could really go to a department store on Fifth Avenue in the later 20s and buy simultaneous fabrics or Sonia Dolonay scarves in Manhattan from, I would say, probably 1925 until the early 1930s. And as everything in fashion this became less successful after the Wall street crash, which was something that. That affected her massively. And still she had really notable connections in the United States, but more in the world of painting and art. And one of her first major exhibitions was at the Roseweed Gallery in 1955.
- [48:50]
Host 2 (likely Cassidy or April)
Valeria, thank you so much for welcoming us into the Sonya Verse. As you have said, April, what a delight. And please, for any of our listeners who might not be familiar with Sonja's work, run, don't walk to our Instagram this week where we will post images from the exhibition. And you can find us, of course, at Dressed Underscore podcast, which we would
- [49:11]
Cassidy Zachary
also love if you messaged us there.
- [49:13]
Host 2 (likely Cassidy or April)
We always love hearing from you and you can always email us as well@hello,
- [49:17]
Host 1 (likely Cassidy or April)
dressedhistory.com yes, and I just want to say if you can, cannot make the exhibition and are still super intrigued by what we're talking about here today and you want to learn more. There is an amazing exhibition catalog for this show and I'm going to go on a limb here and say if you want to buy one art or fashion book this year, this might be contender for that. It's gorgeous, it's a massive book and I personally if I didn't already have it, I would buy it before it goes out of print. So very normally we would post a link to the exhibition catalog on our dress bookshelf but unfortunately the publisher of this catalog does not work with bookshop.org which is our host platform and we will post a link for you to purchase it directly from our graduate center if you would prefer to purchase it there versus a billionaire who we don't like to mention on this show. Really?
- [50:14]
Host 2 (likely Cassidy or April)
Well that does it for us today dress listeners.
- [50:16]
Cassidy Zachary
Valeria will be back later this week
- [50:18]
Host 2 (likely Cassidy or April)
to speak more on Sonya's fashion endeavors and a bit about her tapestry designs.
- [50:23]
Cassidy Zachary
In the meantime, may you consider how art potentially resides in your closet day or night.
- [50:29]
VRBO Care Representative
VRBO Care is here 247 to help make every part of your stay seamless. If anything comes up or you simply need a little guidance, support is ready whenever you reach out from the moment you book to the moment you head home. We're here to help things run smoothly because a great trip starts with the right support. And hey, a good playlist doesn't hurt either.
- [50:57]
Podcast Advertiser 1
Pam, are you here to game with me?
- [50:59]
Ryan (10 News podcast)
In a minute Ryan. But first it's time to share what's happening on the 10 News podcast.
- [51:04]
Podcast Advertiser 1
The 10 News is a kids news podcast for curious 8 to 12 year olds that even grown ups can learn from.
- [51:10]
Valeria Dorogova
What else is there to say?
- [51:11]
Ryan (10 News podcast)
That we cover everything from the Supreme Court in the war in Ukraine to Pokemon and Minecraft and we'll always tell you 10 things you need to know
- [51:21]
Valeria Dorogova
and we're available wherever you get your podcasts. Is it game time now, Pam?
- [51:25]
Ryan (10 News podcast)
It's game time, Ryan.
- [51:26]
Valeria Dorogova
Let's go.
- [51:27]
Cassidy Zachary
Next time you get dressed. The History of Fashion is a production of Dressed Media.