One of the most interesting aspects about the Métissages is that each juxtaposition reminds and follows a very peculiar path, starting from different investigations on adornment and identity , testifying the recurring of forms and their collisions.
The métissage I want you to “read” hereby has its origin in the Elizabethan era: in this collection from Alexander McQueen designed by Sarah Burton, a “contemporary” girdle is embroidered and studded with pearls, recalling the splendour of Elizabethan portraits, enriched by a delicate lace ruffle, enhancing that typical Tudor crossed and studded pattern which flourished during the reing of Astrea, the Virgin Queen.
The same studded intersection is the main ornamental motif of Raïssa Bump’s brooch, in which all the renaissance elements are concentrated in little small Tudor world: and the shape itself of the brooch, according to me, reminds to those velvety gowns, richly emboidered with pearls (cherished jewels for Queen Elizabeth, loved for their lunar light as they symbolized purity), both an armour and a medium of seduction, representing, a that time, the social status and the identity of the wearer and, nowadays, created for a new contemporary Astrea.
Alexander McQueen catwalk on Vogue Paris
Alexander McQueen Collection catwalk on Vogue.com by MARK HOLGATE
For Queen Elizabeth Tudor as Astrea see: Frances A. Yates, Astraea. The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century, Routlege and Kegan Paul, London, 1975 (tr. it. Frances A. yates, Astrea. L’idea di Impero nel Cinquecento, Einaudi, Torino 1978).
a presto,
Nichka
♥
The Morning Bark 