Join fashion curator Michelle Finamore for a glimpse of some of the rare surviving objects from the advent of cinema. Her exhibition Goddesses in the Machine: Fashion in American Silent Film features two of Hillwood’s treasures – a dazzling blue dress by Madame Frances, a talented and entrepreneurial fashion designer who was in active player in New York’s film world in the 1910s and 1920s, as well as tiered, custom-made day dress designed by Lucile.
When films were silent, fashion spoke volumes. The Bard Graduate Center Gallery’s Goddesses in the Machine exhibition reveals the untold story of costume and style in early Hollywood, from actors wearing their own clothes to the birth of the movie costume designer. The first major exhibition to explore fashion in American silent film, Goddesses in the Machine illuminates the way silent films transformed fashion from personal expression into powerful storytelling, creating the blueprint for modern movie glamour.
Speaker and author Michelle Finamore will sign copies of Goddesses in the Machine: Fashion in American Silent Film after the lecture.