PATTERN LANGUAGE
A wall text at the Met’s Charles James exhibit, Beyond Fashion, uses the word “Jamesian” to describe his work. It startled me because the word typically refers to author Henry James, whose legendary, novella-long sentences are crafted with an arch, meticulous prose, in which each comma, clause and conjunction inflects meaning importantly. But even when taking this literary meaning, “Jamesian" rings true. In another wall text, just a few feet away, Charles James makes the connection himself: "Cut in dressmaking is like grammar in language. A good design should be like a well-made sentence, and it should only express one idea." This formal clarity – where each small element of a design contributes essentially to its overall effect – is true of his garments.
There is no fat, no unnecessary seam or line, in any of the clothes on display. They have no obvious embellishments or extravagances: no visible fasteners, no floral patterns, no checks or stripes. And only one piece here (a ballgown) uses embroidery. Instead, the garments really on piecing – on the placement of seams – for effect. This, and this alone, gives the garments structure and character. If tailoring is a language, then James is working with a distilled vocabulary. In any one of his ball gowns the placement of a shoulder seam, the slope of a lower bodice, the curve of a princess seam, are subtly and powerfully expressive.
The awesome clarity in the tailoring – its language-like order – is clearest in those garments that are asymmetrical. Most of James’ ballgowns are rigidly symmetrical, following the line of the human body. But some of his day dresses have symmetrical skirts and asymmetrical bodices, as if they’ve been twisted at the waist. Their tops, like a sari or shawl, are made with a stretch of fabric that’s been thrown over the shoulder and pinned down on the other side. In relation to their severe silhouettes, these measured, cautious asymmetries are disruptive. They give a special life to these garments, acknowledging the character – a streak of eccentricity, a disruptive inner force – of the designer, and also the woman who might wear them. Here a hem that dips lower on one side, a collar that stands in front of the other, or a lapel cut wider than its partner, becomes high drama. Now that’s Jamesian.
Image from Beyond Fashion courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum.