The Freedom That Went Uncredited
In July, during Fendi's haute couture show in Rome, designer Maria Grazia Chiuri presented a striped black and white chiffon caftan, inspired by the dresses of Emilie Flöge, an Austrian artist painted by Klimt, and the geometries of the Vienna Secession. The look represented the freedom of the body from suffocating corsets.
The article reflects that this bodily liberation and independence from corsets are traditionally credited to great Parisian designers, such as Paul Poiret and Coco Chanel, while little is said about the great creators from Vienna, who decided on their own how they wanted to inhabit their own bodies.
On display at the Jewish Museum in New York until November 15, the exhibition "Modernity and Opulence: The Women of the Wiener Werkstätte" features more than 200 objects from the women of the artistic collective Workshops of Vienna, founded in 1903.
While Bauhaus courted the machine, the Wiener Werkstätte championed other values, celebrating the opulence and creative autonomy of the women who were part of the movement.
