The painting is part of a current exhibit “Girl with a Pearl Earring: Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis,” which features paintings from the golden age of Dutch influence in art and culture. The highlight of the exhibition for me included a pair of wedding portraits featuring the most exquisitely represented 17th century fashion. The jacquard fabrics, especially caught my eye, as the fabric style is very relevant to current fashion.

This painting, by Pieter Jacobsz Codde (Dutch, 1599-1678), has a similar style and shows an example of jacquard fabric with a similar floral pattern. The manner of juxtaposing extreme detail with impressionist-like strokes is really effective at portraying texture. In person, that is. Also of note in this period of fashion are the gigantic lace collars, which, though terribly impractical, were worn as status symbols.

From her clothes it is clear that this woman (above) is a woman of considerable status. She is well-to-do and fashionable: her dress is richly ornamented, around her neck is a Millstone ruffs. The millstone ruff is a round collar made of pleated white linen. It was fashionable in Holland from the late 16th century to about 1625. They began small, but became increasing broad until finally resembling millstones. Manufacturing such large ruffs was a complicated and time-consuming task for the specialists who made them – mostly Flemish or Dutch women. A ruff like this required a great deal of material, sometimes as much as 15 meters. Usually cambric was used, a fine linen often decorated with bobbin lace. After washing and starching, it was gathered or pleated and set on a collar and then ironed into circular shapes with ‘pipe’ irons. These costly collars or ruffs were worn by the well-to-do, both men and women.

Source

Not long after my visit to the de Young, I walked past this floral jacquard jacket in the window of a Zara store in the Financial District of San Francisco. Not long ago fabric like this was considered best left to grandma’s curtains. Now, however, jacquard, brocade, and damask fabric is common to trendy, contemporary fashion.

In a world that online sample sales are becoming more common and more trashy, Gilt Groupe stands out as one of the best. The members-only shopping site originally offered mostly women’s fashion, but now has dedicated sites for mens fashion, lower-priced brands, and travel packages. Now Gilt has something for art lovers, with a series of exclusive prints by painter Katherine Bernhardt.

Kate Moss. Gisele Bündchen. Agyness Deyn. Katherine Bernhardt has painted them all, transforming magazine images into stunning whirlwinds of eyes, lips, legs and color. Gilt has partnered with art consultancy Art & Advisory to create two exclusive, limited-edition screen prints by the Pop Expressionist. The first, Mangocita, features an intense Penelope Cruz as pictured in her Mango clothing ad. The second, La Parisienne, is an image of Moss inspired by her campaign for Yves St. Laurent’s Parisienne perfume. Printed on archival cotton paper, the signed and numbered works are each capped at an edition of 100.

‘Metallic Star’, 2006. Saatchi Gallery, London

Lizard Woman, 2006. Saatchi Gallery, London.

Bernhardt’s art resonates with me in it’s fixation on the subject of fashion, yet it’s recognition of these subjects as grotesque. The women in her paintings are alternately sad and monstrous, all the while carrying the haughty attitude of the modern model. Click here for an invitation to the sale.

photo credits: saatchi-gallery.co.uk