Pleated

     I've been looking at Delphine Desveaux' mostly pictorial Fortuny to learn a bit about the creator of the fabulous Delphos dress. Spanish by birth but a Venetian by residence and inclination, he was one of those multi-talented people with an encyclopedic mind from which he drew inspiration from many sources for his work as an artist, set designer, photographer and furniture designer, only turning to couture at the age of forty.



    He invented and patented the silk-dyeing and pleating processes he used - "The pleating of the material was achieved by a process of evaporation: the wet and folded silk was laid on heated porcelain tubes, permanently fixing such tight pleats...so that the dresses looked carved, or pressed. The effect was that they elongated the women who wore them, just like Murano craftsmen draw out their molten glass." His clothes were so distinctive that they appear often in novels, such as L.P. Hartley's Eustace and Hilda.

   There is a Fortuny Museum in Venice (though it appears to be closed for renovation at present) and you can find out more about Fortuny on this website  - go to Gallery, then Fashion to see the clothes. I'd like the dark blue Delphos; how about you?

 

Comments

[EACH LITTLE WORLD]

I can just picture myself in the dress on the book's cover — waiting for a glass of sherry while someone else cooks Thanksgiving dinner. If there was only one designer dress I could own, it would be a Fortuny Delphos. Thanks for this little morning spot of beauty.

[Peter the flautist]

Dark Puss is fairly taken with the Delphos, but it isn't really his current fashion interest although he appreciates the skill and beauty shown in the work of Fortuny. The work of Elsa Schiaparelli also appeals (in an historic sense) and features in "The Girls of Slender Means" where one of her gowns is stolen. I expect it turns up in some Mitford book too, but as I have not read any of their books for a very long time I cannot place the reference. Sadly there is a rather feeble genre of writing in which (apart from endless rather uninspired sex) the main literary trick is to name as many famous "designer" items as you can per page - ugh! I rather like the work of Vionnet, who has had a massive influence on fashion and on many modern designers, this is a nice example from the Met http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/20sil/ho_C.I.52.18.4.htm

[Curzon Tussaud]

In the mid-Seventies I worked in the Textile Dept at Christie's where, from time to time, we would have a Fortuny Delphos (or another style) sent for sale. At that time they commanded around £1,000, and many of them were bought by the beautiful collector Tina Chow. She once brought in an armful of "lesser' Fortunys for sale from which I bought a russet brown dress trimmed with Venetian glass beads. I kept it curled loosely in a small hatbox, and last Christmas I gave it to my daughter.
Should anyone want a 'modern' Fortuny-style dress, Google Charles and Patricia Lester.