Geoffrey Beene

March 26 - April 2, 1998

[Art Reviews]

The art of couture

RISD showcases the best of Beene

by Bill Rodriguez
GEOFFREY BEENE. At the RISD Museum through April 19.
Can couture be art? Geoffrey Beene, the exhibition at the RISDMuseum, makes that question sound academic and quibbling.Here's evidence that Beene has raised fashion design above matters of trends and style, has kept coming back to fundamental esthetic concerns. The RISD exhibit is as much about artistry and the creative imagination as about apparel.
The show was assembled by Pamela Parmal, associate curator of costumes and textiles at the Museum. Drawing from Beene's own archives, she has brought together 35 garments, on mannequins, that span the past three decades. Appropriate at an art school that was formed to serve the textile industry a century ago, Parmal made instructive selections. The show focuses on key concerns and techniques of the highly influential American master of both the esthetics of couture and the craft of dressmaking.
Materials and workmanship reveal Beene's concerns. The monochromatic palette on display here is comprised mostly of silks and knit jerseys, fabrics that flow and drape and caress the body. There's a lot for the eye to appreciate among the many seminal designs on display. Equally enjoyably, we end up understanding more clearly how Beene goes about winning us over, how he succeeds in creating beauty.
Four groupings of garments demonstrate Been's most prominent interests. "Body Parts" shows his most immediate way of directing our attention. In one ensemble, a black bolero covers a gay burgundy sequin bodice, but it does so as an undulating curtain rather than a stiff jacket. More brazenly celebratory is an evening dress with a large triangular cutout, covered with black gauze, above the navel. An emphasis is obtained in a dress that reveals a bare back in a window-like circle, with a boatneck collar above it rather than complete exposure from waist to neck. The motif is complemented by two more gauzy cutouts swooping from shoulders to elbows at the backs of the arms. The most casually sensuous dress here is of light brown jersey that clings to the mannequin like a bathing suit but extends ankle-length. In fact, from neck to groin it is the shape of a bathing suit. What makes the effect regal, besides the Grecian cincture at the waist, is a sunburst pattern of tucks that fan forth briefly from the curve that dips from the hips.
Of course, the body is celebrated in most of Geoffrey Beene's designs. Perhaps the most dramatic example of his career is on display here, in the most fascinating section, "The Curved Seam." A description of the 1991 silver lame mini-dress makes it seem vulgar, like something the pre-maternal Madonna might wear: A hand-wide swath of sheer netting runs up the right leg, curving into the scoop back. That graceful swooping line, as well as the unabashed appreciation of the body, rescue this design from any voyeuristic whisper.
This dress typifies both a design esthetic of Beene's and a delightful solution to a technical problem. The problem is that of darts and side seams interrupting and spoiling the flow of material. His solution here and elsewhere was to have a seam wrap around, sweeping in a curve that complements those of the female body. Beene accomplishes this entertainingly in a jumpsuit whose zipper runs from the back of the left shoulder, across and down to behind the right ankle. Perhaps the most integrated example of this technique with its function is in a 1990 evening dress. It looks like a wrap-around from its right side -- strips of quilted silver lame curve in parallel under the arm and again across the hip, swooping behind and down to the front hem. The latter graceful seam serves both to provide a graceful, eye-guiding line in its own right and also to form-fit the dress to the body.
The other two sections of the exhibition, "Molding and Shaping" and "Back to Front," are hardly dryly technical offerings. They contain such beautiful garments as his angel wing coat, with its Art Deco-like sweep of quilted lines flowing down the back in golden satin. One evening dress is shaped entirely by pleats that cascade down the back like long tresses. Accompanying every section is informative text by curator Parmal, who is even more helpful in the show's magnificent catalog, designed by Malcolm Grear.
Geoffrey Beene the exhibition displays so well what Geoffrey Beene the designer has been attempting for so long. The sculptural contours of the female body have always been a marvelous subject for artists.