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Cabinet of Chic Curiosities
Category / Fashion for Dummies

Is this History’s Most Underrated Dress? 

A couturier-friend of mine once wryly remarked (as she meticulously contemplated the exact landing spot of another rose-gold sequin destined for the bust of a ballgown) that her life effectively was a fashionable road-map signposted by all the memorable gowns she’s made for brides, debutantes and society ladies over the decades. Similarly we fashionistas and…

She Dressed Kate Bush, Need We Say More?

There is a grande dame of Dutch fashion you’ve probably never heard of (if you live outside of The Netherlands). We hadn’t. But then when found a series of photos taken in the 1970s of legendary musician Kate Bush, dressed more exquisitely that we’d ever seen her. Who was she wearing and where can we…

Forget Louboutin, Step into the World of André Perugia, the True Icon behind Modern Shoe Design

You name an avant-garde brand of note – Saint Laurent, Rick Owens, Moschino, Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto, Jacquemus – and chances are they’ve been overtly influenced by a shoe designer extraordinaire, André Perugia. Cage heels, no heels, disappearing heels, under-slung heels, corkscrew heels, float-in-the-air heels, needle-thin fetish heels – you name it, if they’re…

An Off-the-Curriculum Introduction to BDSM & Fetish Art History

A little slap and tickle – kinky or otherwise – has been good medicine for us down the ages. Public consumption of the practice of BDSM (Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadochism and Masochism) really came into its own during a ‘golden age’ of fetish art in the mid 20th century. Fetish art has…

This Forgotten 1980s Style Movement Explains A Lot About Fashion Today

When we think of the fashion industry’s most influential movers & shakers and icon-makers of the last 50 years, familiar names like Anna Wintour, Karl Lagerfeld, Grace Coddington or Patricia Field (Sex & the City) come to mind. But there’s another name that got left down the back of fashion history’s sofa – Buffalo –…

In Japan, “Biker Chick” Fashion Breaks All the Rules

The many style subcultures of post-war and modern Japan are rooted in rejection; a succession of generations refusing to traditional parental values. Each one has formed its own unique uniform of rebellion, but some have taken it to further extremes than others, riding dangerously on the fringes of society… Anarchic, angry and restless, Japanese rebel…

Vogue’s Fabulous Five: The Golden Age of Illustration

When we think of Vogue we visualise a vibrant, striking, photographic image adorning the front cover of the seminal publication, but the first pictorial cover would not appear until 1932. Before the likes of Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon, Annie Lebovitz and Steven Meisel, it was the time of the illustrator. Early 20th century artists George…

Before Parisian Runways, Fashion Week was Born on the Side of the Racetrack

In the latter part of the 19th century and early 20th century, spectating at the races was a glamorous event beyond comparison. Paris’ Hippodrome de Longchamp racecourse was the place to see and be seen; it was a stage where the bold and the beautiful would strut their perfectly tailored, coiffed and manicured stuff for…

In 19th Century Paris, She Held a Permit to Wear Pants

A cigarette-smoking, pants-wearing, animal-dissecting painter, Rosa Bonheur spent her life doing exactly as she pleased. 2022 marks the bicentenary of the birth an artist who opened countless doors for female creatives, both in her home country of France and abroad. Born in 1822 in Bordeaux, Rosa Bonheur was the daughter of Sophie Marquis, a piano…
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