Attached Link: http://start.earthlink.net/newsarticle?cat=3&aid=Celebrity1200304270140

From the entertainment section. This isn't OT! The good people who make clothing and props for our Poser People might want to keep an eye on this trend. I expect an exhibit catalog and perhaps related paraphernalia in the Met's Christmas catalog. Some classically-inspired pieces will be wonderful. ************************ Goddess Worship April 27, 2003 04:36 AM EDT Touted as "the hottest ticket in town" (albeit a $3,500 ticket), tomorrow night's Costume Institute gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art - hosted by Nicole Kidman, Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent designer Tom Ford, and Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour - is guaranteed to be the biggest event of the week. This year's exhibit, "Goddess: The Classical Mode," is the mastermind of Costume Institute curator Harold Koda, who chose more than 130 dresses - worn by clotheshorses from Jacqueline Kennedy to Kylie Minogue - for inclusion. The exhibit is open to the public from May 1-Aug. 3. The display is broken down into sections, from older designs by Madame Gres and Fortuny to modern-day masterpieces by Versace and Yves Saint Laurent. The link: All of these gowns were inspired by the Greek and Roman times, and mythical goddesses like Aphrodite, Venus and Isis. "[The show] is a transformation of classical styles of dress," Koda says. "It's clothing that precipitates a desire and a fantasy - and that's what seems to be happening in fashion today." For example, the Valentino sea-green dress that Jacqueline Kennedy wore in 1967 to Cambodia - which is part of the exhibit - was updated by the designer; his modernized version was made for Jennifer Lopez, who wore it to this year's Oscars. "Jackie O wore it to Cambodia, and it evoked the styling of the Buddhist monks," Koda says. "But Valentino just intended for it to be a toga." Nicole Kidman's asymmetrical gold John Galliano sheath, which she wore to the Academy Awards in 2000, is one of the ultimate goddess gowns, according to Koda. "It's taken from [the style of dressing in] Europe between the wars in 1930s," says Koda. "[The designer] Madeleine Vionnet used to apply fabric on the body at an angle, so the natural elasticity of the fabric would really stretch. It shrinks up under your bust, and it conforms to your body." But as things do these days, everything comes back to J.Lo. The dove-gray Chanel couture gown that the Bronx bombshell wore to the Oscars in 2001 "really sums it up," says Koda. "It's classical in the sense of what the Greeks did. They did draping, harnessing, girdling - all of which made their dresses." Also: Taking a note from P.Diddy, who, at 1999's Costume Institute Gala, had socialites like Carolina Herrera waving their arms in the air and dancing to "Every Breath You Take," hip-hop diva Ashanti will belt out a few of her top R&B hits after dinner. Tickets to Ashanti's performance - which cost $250 - are on sale in the Metropolitan Museum's Great Hall. For information, call (212) 570-3948.

Woohoo, certainly sounds interesting. I for one agree I would like to see some of these designs replicated for our poser people.

I like what SergeMarck did with the empire fashions (which harken back to these classical gowns), but that is only 1 or 2 dresses. The Victorians also had their "take" on classical fashion (I enjoy the Alma-Tedema and Waterhouse style of imagery). Our more modern versions can be as graceful if the basic notions of drapery are adhered to. Most of the modelers here are pretty darned good at the cinching and clinging bit, but making cloth look like it is falling on the bias is more difficult. Carolly

Yes I must admit I have a habit of mixing and matching the tops and bottoms of Serges dresses to get more variety. His meshes are a joy to work with. It's such a shame he seems to have abandoned the historical fashion nowadays.

I still like the dresses Mrs. (Leave It To Beaver) Cleaver used to wear - must be Boomer nostalgia.

Attached Link: http://start.earthlink.net/newsarticle?cat=3&aid=D7QND8081_story

Another story on the exhibit. I just wish that they'd post pictures! **********************************8 New Exhibit Features 'Goddess' Gowns April 29, 2003 02:35 PM EDT NEW YORK - Is Jennifer Lopez the modern version of the Greek goddess? She sure looked the part at the 2001 Academy Awards when she wore that sheer, draped, one-shoulder Chanel gown. The memorable dress designed by Karl Lagerfeld is among the 120 outfits that trace the influence of Aphrodite, Hera and Athena on contemporary fashion at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute exhibit, "Goddess," which opens Thursday. Nicole Kidman loaned her 2000 Oscar gown, an asymmetrical dress in gold lame from Christian Dior Haute Couture. A tightly pleated, fuchsia silk chiffon gown from Yves Saint Laurent that Julianne Moore wore for a photo shoot also is displayed. In some ways, Hollywood stars keep classical dress visible, said curator Harold Koda, because they are the goddesses of the red carpet. But the gowns they often wear are far more body-conscious and fluid than true Greek goddess designs, he explained. "A classic Greek goddess dress might hide the body a little, and if you unstitched the dress and took out all the pins you'd have a rectangle of fabric," Koda said. Goddess gowns also are often depicted as one-shouldered, done in ancient times as a sign of the goddesses' mythic identity, which is why the Greeks are associated with asymmetrical necklines. Regular Greeks, though, didn't wear this style. There are three silhouettes upon which all ancient Greek clothes are based: the chiton, a chemiselike shift made from two rectangles of fabric either pinned or sewn together at the shoulders; the peplos, a single piece of cloth wrapped like a cylinder and cuffed along the top with two brooch pins that attach the front to the back - it sometimes features a "girdle," a fabric sash that pulls the fabric closer to the body; and the himation, the rectangular cloak that influenced the later Hellenic wrap dresses. Two-and-a-half millennia ago, the himation was a modest garment (although it was not unlike the more shapely Roman toga), but the basic shape can be seen in more provocative garments designed by Dolce & Gabbana, Versace and Ralph Lauren - all of whom are represented in "Goddess," which runs through Aug. 3. "Respectable Greek women would be more similar to the dress of Muslims today with most of their bodies covered up," Koda said. One of the primary reasons modest Greek gowns evolved into super-sexy dresses worthy of 21st-century screen sirens is the lack of any real prototypes, according to Koda. "There are no classical garments that have survived. It's not like in Egypt where you'd find a body still clothed," he said. Instead, Western fashion designers and dressmakers over the past 600 years have found themselves using ancient sculptures for Greek inspiration, not actual clothes. The sculptors tried to make their subjects a more perfect version of the real-life models. Taking liberty with the "clothes" was a way to show off the enhanced shapes, Koda explained. Artists also added drapery to the garments in an effort to make the subjects seem more animated. In later centuries, those sculptures inspired painters, who put that idealized vision of Greek goddesses on canvas. "All our ideas of classic dress is seen through art. The details like the tight pleats has to do with artistic representation from a statue. Classicism went from cloth to stone to painting to cloth," Koda said. Classicized looks re-emerged in the late 1700s with exaggerated versions of the ancient raised waistlines (empire waists). The styles, however, went into another period of hibernation while corsets were all the rage during the 19th century. In the 1930s, designers Madeline Vionnet and Madame Gres helped resurrect the goddess gowns, though they made them more formfitting by pulling the peplos' girdles in tighter and sometimes crisscrossing them at the bust instead of the waist. Over the past decade, there has been a renewed interest in classicism, though at first one might not recognize Tom Ford's 2002 YSL Rive Gauche brown silk chiffon dress as Greek inspired - it's deconstructed to the point of looking shredded. But this dress, which features strips of cloth of varying widths that are draped and twisted together, is at the heart of "Goddess," Koda said, and is pure classicism done in the most modern way. --- On the Net: Metropolitan Museum of Art: http://www.metmuseum.org

Attached Link: http://metmuseum.org/special/Goddess/goddess_splash.htm

There are a few pictures here.

Thankyou, some really inspiring pictures there