SAGES STUDIOS IN FASHION DESIGN VISITING ARTIST LECTURE SERIES PRESENTS
SHANNON BELL PRICE
Shannon will present a lecture series on the following topics:
The Tigress: Amazonism and Animalism in Fashion
February 4, 2009, 4:15 p.m.
MacLean Center Ballroom, 112 South Michigan Avenue
Based on my 2004 book and exhibition, Wild: Fashion Untamed, this lecture explores the dichotomy between femininity and feminism in fashion through a historical look at the use of feline motifs and symbolism. Contemporary designers continue to employ the iconography of the cat to invest modern women with alluring and exotic attributes associated with the felinic essence. Special attention is paid to the spotted pelt of the leopard as it has a unique association with the mythological Amazon, the ultimate personification of the virago.
(Post)modern Primitive: Tattoos in Feminine Flesh and Fashion
February 27, 2009, 6:00p.m.
MacLean Center Ballroom, 112 South Michigan Avenue
On a woman's body any tattoo becomes the symbol of bodily excess.
When a woman's body is a sex object, a tattooed woman's body is a lascivious sex object; when a woman's body is nature; a tattooed woman's body is primitive; when a woman's body is spectacle, a tattooed woman's body is a show.
This paper is an exploration of the persistent situating of woman as primitive vis-a-vis the tattooed body and how this trope manifested itself in late twentieth-century fashion. By referencing nineteenth century debates about primitivism and decoration, I analyze the millennial "return to surface" and use of tattoo imagery as surface decoration for the skin as well as textile. Issues include modernism, ornament, and criminality; the fin-de-siecle construction of the primitive woman; a brief history of tattooing; and postmodern and architectural theory concerning the body and skin.
This lecture is in conjunction with a special Master of Design in Fashion, Body & Garment
Portfolio Day held Saturday, February 28, 2009. The lecture is open to those students who
are interested in applying to the Master of Design or Postbaccalaureate programs
in Fashion, Body & Garment. Please contact the admissions office for more information at admiss@saic.edu.
The Flayed Fashion of Alexander McQueen (1992-2007)
March 17, 2009, 4:45 p.m.
Sage Studios in Fashion Design, 33 South State Street
London fashion designer Alexander McQueen has been a maverick whose explorations of themes not often embraced by the fashion industry came to define the sublime and gothic glamour of his work during the 1990s. While McQueen was not alone in using the language of trauma, cruelty, death, and decay in his work, his was arguably the most consistently spectacular and conceptual. In this paper, I illustrate that it was through his layered references to the interior and exterior of the body that McQueen often chose to sartorially investigate the mind/body relationship with a philosophical similarity to early anatomists in their quest for scientific and spiritual knowledge.
About Shannon Bell Price
Shannon Bell Price has been Senior Research Associate at The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art since 2000 assisting Harold Koda, Curator in Charge, and Andrew Bolton, Curator, with biannual Special Exhibitions, publications, and acquisitions. Exhibitions have included: "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years-Selections from the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum" (2001); "Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed" (2002); "Goddess: The Classical Mode" (2003); "Wild: Fashion Untamed," which Price co-curated (2004); "Chanel" (2005); "Anglomania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion" (2006); "Poiret: King of Fashion" (2007); and "Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy (2008). Besides co-authoring Wild: Fashion Untamed, Price has contributed to the Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion (2004) and the Met's award winning Timeline of Art History. Price's areas of research interest include 20th Century avant-garde fashion and sub-cultural style, non-western costume as it relates to contemporary fashion practice, and postwar decorative arts and design history. Price has an undergraduate degree in Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley, a Master's degree in Visual Culture from New York University, and is currently pursuing a doctorate in Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture at The Bard Graduate Center in New York City.
